Big Tech Is Up? Depends If You Mean Netflix or Facebook
As a group, the technology giants are big outperformers, thanks largely to Amazon and Netflix. The devil is in the details.
Facebook’s WhatsApp messenger service is soaring, but that doesn’t do much for its bottom line.
Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
Too often, Big Tech is seen as a monolith. There’s the FANGs — the basket of beloved high-growth technology companies that includes Facebook Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Netflix Inc., Google-parent Alphabet Inc. and their ilk — and then there’s everyone else.
Looked at as a group, these companies do indeed seem to be in class by themselves. The NYSE FANG+ Index, which includes those four marquee names plus a handful of other widely followed tech disruptors — is handily outperforming the broader market this year, up 12% on average versus a double-digit drop for the S&P 500 and a 27% decline for the small company benchmark Russell 2000: