My favorite FAANG stock
Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google performed exceptionally well in 2023.
But how sustainable is their outperformance?
Let’s dive into these FAANG stocks today.
Facebook (Meta Platforms)
Everyone knows Facebook (Meta Platforms).
You probably use its products (Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp) daily.
You’re not the only one as Meta Platforms has 3.96 billion (!) monthly active users.
That’s more than 50% of the world’s population!
Here’s a onepager summarizing the essentials of Meta Platforms:
Amazon
The most famous follower of Compounding Quality on X (Twitter)? Jeff Bezos.
Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in 1994 as an online bookstore and the company has evolved into the largest e-commerce company in the world.
Today, Bezos still owns 12.3% of Amazon making him the third richest man in the world.
Apple
Have you ever seen the movie Forrest Gump?
At the end of the movie, Forrest Gump received a 3% stake in a ‘local fruit company’ called Apple.
Do you know how much this stake would be worth today?
The correct answer is more than $90 billion!
It’s a great example of letting your winners run.
Netflix
Do you know what Netflix and Amazon have in common?
They both started with a completely different business model than what they’re doing today.
Netflix was founded in 1997 and operated as a mail-order subscription DVD company.
Reed Hastings, one of the founders of Netflix, said that the idea to create Netflix was based on the fact that he got a $40 fine for renting the movie Apollo 13 and returning it six weeks late.
While Hastings was working out in the gym, this fine inspired him to build a service that allowed people to order a movie online and get it by mail.
Fast forward to today and Netflix is the world's leading entertainment service with over 247 million paid memberships in over 190 countries.
That’s amazing, isn’t it?
Google (Alphabet)
Do you know how Google was called in the early days?
The correct answer is BackRub.
Yes. The current name is way better. Don’t you think?
Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google, initially called the company BackRub because the company analyzed the web’s “back links” to understand how important a website was and how many other sites linked to the website.
It was actually a graduate student who suggested the name '“Google“. Before the name Google, Page suggested naming the company “Googol”. Googol is the digit 1 followed by 100 zeroes.
My favorite FAANG stock
All FAANG stocks have performed exceptionally well over the last few years.
But as you know, there is no FAANG stock within our Portfolio.
Why? Because I think there are more attractive opportunities in the market today.
But if I needed to pick one, which one would it be?