FAANG

FAANG: Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google, a further extension of FANG (which originally did not include Apple), both an acronym and a buzzword, was coined  by Jim Cramer of CNBC's Mad Money,  describes the tech titans of our time.

• Facebook (FB), Amazon.com (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), Netflix (NFLX), and Alphabet, formerly Google (GOOGL).

Facebook and Google alone capture the lion's share of all global online advertising, including in the fast-growing mobile format, while Amazon dominates e-commerce and cloud services with its Amazon Web Services business.

And although Netflix is facing increasing competition from Hulu and fellow FAANG stocks — particularly Amazon and YouTube owner Google — its original programming and massive global expansion have cemented its leadership in the streaming industry.

Facebook sets speed record in reaching $1 trillion value

Facebook Inc. wasted no time in becoming the fifth U.S. company ever to surpass $1 trillion of market value. The social-media company reached the milestone Monday, just over nine years after going public, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Facebook broke a U.S. record set by Google’s owner, Alphabet Inc., which needed more than 15 years to reach the milestone. Those time periods compare with more than 22 years for Amazon.com Inc., 33 years for Microsoft Corp. and 37 years for Apple Inc., the first company to reach the trillion-dollar mark.

 

U.S. stocks' big five make their industries appear heavy

U.S. stock investors need to be mindful of a “heavy concentration” in industry groups encompassing the S&P 500 Index’s five most valuable companies, David Kastner, a strategist at Charles Schwab Corp., wrote Thursday in a blog post. Two of them, Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp., are part of the technology group. Google’s owner, Alphabet Inc., and Facebook Inc. are both in communications services. Amazon.com Inc. is a consumer-discretionary company. The sectors together exceeded 50% of the S&P 500’s weight from Aug. 18 through Thursday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. They were last above that threshold in 2000, when their total weight peaked at 54%.

FANMAG stocks beat total value of Canada, Europe indexes

Combine the FANG stocks with Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp., and the result is a market-value powerhouse from a global perspective. The combined value of the so-called FANMAGs reached $7 trillion for the first time Monday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. They exceeded the total value of shares in six developed-market stock indexes: Canada’s S&P/TSX Composite, France’s CAC 40, Germany’s DAX, Italy’s FTSE MIB, Spain’s IBEX 35 and the U.K.’s FTSE 100. The company-index comparison was made by the MacroMarketsDaily blog in a Twitter post two weeks ago.

FANGs, Apple, Microsoft are viewed as U.S. bubble blowers

Shares of the largest U.S. technology companies are in a bubble that’s on its way to bursting, according to Research Affiliates LLC. The firm cited the weight of the FANG stocks -- Facebook Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Netflix Inc. and Google’s owner, Alphabet Inc. -- along with Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. in the Russell 1000 index in a report last week. Surging market values lifted the so-called FANMAG stocks’ share of the index to 14.9% as of Friday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Their weight rose from 6.8% in 2012, when Facebook went public. Research Affiliates compiles indexes that don’t use market value.

U.S. IPOs outperform FAANG stocks this year

Newly public U.S. companies have supplanted the FANG stocks and their technology peers as market leaders this year, according to Chad Brand, founder and president of Peridot Capital Management LLC. Brand noted the shift toward initial public offerings in a post Friday on his blog, the Peridot Capitalist. The Renaissance IPO Index is headed for the biggest first-half gain in its decade-long history after climbing 39% through Wednesday. The NYSE FANG+ Index, consisting of 10 of the largest technology companies, only gained 14%.

Years of Nasdaq beating S&P 500 may be at an end

Nasdaq stocks are in danger of losing their long-held status as U.S. market leaders, according to Michael Shaoul, chief executive officer at Marketfield Asset Management LLC. He raised the possibility in a report Thursday that tracked the ratio between the Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 indexes. The ratio has fallen as much as 5 percent since July 25, when it peaked after rising 163 percent from a low in September 2002. Losses may mount, Shaoul wrote, because of concern about “future growth or profitability” for Apple Inc. and the four FANG stocks: Facebook Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Netflix Inc. and Alphabet Inc., Google’s owner.

FANG-related index seen as not-so-new new thing

Intercontinental Exchange Inc.’s new index that incorporates the FANG stocks looks all too familiar to Tom McClellan, editor of the McClellan Market Report, judging by a note on Friday. He compared the performance of the NYSE FANG+ Index, the basis for futures that started trading last week, and a ProShares exchange-traded fund,TQQQ, that aims for twice the daily performance of the Nasdaq-100 Index. “So congratulations ICE, you just invented a futures contract that replicates an already-existing leveraged ETF,” McClellan wrote.