Application Creation Index swoons, down 5.2% in March

[dturchin]

The Application Creation Index (ACI) swooned in March, dipping 5.2% to close at 96.42. Investors sold off cloud platform favorites like $NOW and $CRM to lock in gains from 2013 and reinvest profits in slow growth sectors like aerospace (+3.0%) and retail (+1.5%). During the same period the broader market indices were up slightly with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 both gaining nearly 1%.

What's required for cloud platform stocks to regain momentum? Based on continued growth in app dev-related job postings and traffic at leading developer communities like Stack Overflow and GitHub, the March decline will correct itself. We'll see more green when investors regain confidence in economic growth and the Fed's bond-buying plans solidify.

ACI aside, creators will benefit from announcements in March including Google drastically reducing the cost of its cloud infrastructure services and Cisco's billion dollar bet on cloud app dev. Additionally, Box CEO Aaron Levie dropped an L-bomb with the proclamation that cloud storage will soon be free. He did that amid a flurry of announcements at the company's first Levie comedy hour, er, Box platform developer day. I attended it along with 1,000 of my closest socially awkward friends and have since joined the Levie fan club. Google "Mikkel Svane" and "back hair" to see why.