Investors not owning the basket of stocks know as the FANGs (Facebook (O:FB), Amazon (O:AMZN), Netflix (O:NFLX) and Google (aka Alphabet) (O:GOOGL) likely trailed the return of the broader market in 2015. The average return of the FANGs in 2015 equalled 83%, versus the S&P 500 Index return of 1.4%.
With the emotional propensity for investors to buy what feels good, if they purchased the FANG basket of stocks near year-end, the return on these stocks has trailed the overall market return: -12.6% versus -6.4% for the S&P 500 Index since December 4, 2015.
The weakest link in this basket has been Netflix, which has declined 27.6% since the December peak of the FANG basket. The best performing FANG stock since the December top has been Facebook, returning 1.6% and outperforming the S&P 500 Index return of -6.9%. The S&P 500 Index has outperformed the other three FANGs - Google (aka Alphabet), Amazon and Netflix.
Disclosure: Long GOOGL and GOOG