Remember FANG stocks? Three members of this elite club may be flirting with breakouts before some big events.
Netflix (NFLX), Facebook (FB) and Amazon.com (AMZN) are less than 1 percent from their highs for the year. The trio has quietly outperformed the broader market in the last month as they approach the top of important trading ranges.
AMZN’s event is “Prime Day” next Monday and Tuesday, July 15 and 16. The invented holiday lures shoppers to a free month of the Prime service with an array of discounts and exclusive products. Last year, it generated record sales. This year, Prime Day will be 12 hours longer.
To top it off, quarterly results come the following week. (AMZN hasn’t officially provided the timing yet.)
Speaking of earnings, NFLX reports its numbers after the bell next Wednesday, July 17. The streaming-video giant led the selloff in growth stocks last year as subscriber gains slowed. It came roaring back in January on news about price increases but has been trapped in a channel ever since.
Meanwhile, investors have focused on the competitors like Walt Disney (DIS) and Roku (ROKU). Both of those rivals hit new all-time highs within the last month.
What’s FANG?
In case you don’t know the abbreviation, “FANG” stands for a group of the most prominent large technology stocks: FB, AMZN, NFLX and Alphabet (GOOGL). Sometimes it includes Apple (AAPL) and Nvidia (NVDA).
While FANG stocks led the market to new highs in 2018, none has managed to break out this year. But now that they’ve lagged for a while, will investors get interested again?
FB, the last name on today’s list, has a confirmed earnings date of July 24. Investors want to see the social-media giant finding new ways to monetize its huge user base. So far that’s entailed the rollout of Stories, along with greater use of Messenger and Instagram. The other big story is Project Libra, a cryptocurrency initiative with the potential to make FB a major player in electronic payments.
In conclusion, attention has recently focused on macro issues like the Federal Reserve and trade wars with China. But important events are approaching for some of the market’s biggest companies. That could draw interest back to the fundamentals in these key names.
