FAANG Stocks In First-half: Last Year's Laggards Google, Facebook Come On Top As Apple, Amazon And Netflix Fall Off

The broader market witnessed some scare in the early part of the first half of 2021 but came back up strongly to stay close to record territory.

The volatility seen in the broader market was largely a function of the swings in technology stocks, especially the big ones.

Here's a look at how the high-profile tech stocks going by the moniker "FAANG" fared during the volatile period:

Broader Market's "Up-down-up" Move: The S&P 500, which is a considered a broader gauge of overall market performance, closed 2020 just shy of its all-high. Subsequently, the index experienced some volatility and was largely rangebound.

In late January, the market suffered a sell-off, which was blamed on the speculative behavior of retail investors.

Although the market bounced back up fairly soon, another sell-off, orchestrated by tech meltdown, ensued in early March.

After a broadly higher move until early May, the market retreated yet again but this time around the pullback was short-lived.

The resilient market shot back up and is hovering near record territory despite macroeconomic worries over rising inflation.

Apple In The Red: Apple Inc. AAPL, which is the most valued tech company, has had an unenterprising first half.

Despite reporting stellar first-quarter results, as the iPhone 12 momentum spilled over past the holiday quarter, the shares are still down for the year-to-period.

In comparison, Apple shares were solidly higher in the same period last year and ended 2020 as the top-performing FAANG stock.

Apple's best comes out in the second half, be it its products or financial performance.

Given that Apple is Apple, one cannot write it off yet. The likely launch of the next iteration of its iPhone in September could kickstart a rally in the second half.

Related Link: 3 Reasons Tech Stocks May Continue To Struggle

Netflix Puts Up a Flop Show: Streaming giant Netflix, Inc. NFLX is facing turbulence amid increasing competition, which has put pressure on its net subscriber addition.

Additionally, tougher comparisons versus the lock-down induced strength in 2020 is serving as a dampener.

The stock is still down for the year-to-date period vis-à-vis very strong performances for the first half of 2020 and the full year 2020.

With "Money Heist" and "The Witcher" — two of Netflix' most successful shows — likely to return in the second half, subscriber numbers should look up in the fourth quarter, according to KeyBanc analyst Justin Patterson.

Laggards Turn Leaders: Shares of Facebook, Inc. FB and Alphabet, Inc. GOOGL GOOG, both of which had a single-digit gain percentage in the first half of 2020, are the best performers of the year-to-date period in 2021.

Facebook has emerged stronger from the data scandal and the COVID-19 pandemic came at the right time, giving a lift to its user engagement.

Daily active users rose 11% year-over-year to 1.84 billion at the end of 2020 and the monthly active user count was at 2.80 billion, up 12%.

These increased further to 1.878 billion and 2.853 billion, respectively at the end of the first quarter of 2021.

Google is thus far the best performing FAANG stocks, thanks to solid support from rising ad revenues from its core search business and its YouTube video platform.

In addition to ad revenues, YouTube now collects subscription fees. The company also has a thriving cloud computing business.

The sum-of-parts contribution of each of Google's businesses has given an enviable valuation for shares.

Amazon Cools Off: Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN, which was the second-best performing FAANG in 2020, is barely in the green in the first half of 2021.

This is despite the online retail giant turning in a stellar performance in the first quarter. Amazon's core retail sales as well as its high-margin AWS cloud business and advertising all performed well in the quarter. On top of this, the company gave upbeat guidance for the second quarter.

The average analyst price target for Amazon is $4,238, suggesting roughly 24% upside from current levels. Amazon shares present a buying opportunity, barring any fundamental mishap, given its muted performance thus far this year.

Related Link: Wedbush Says Tech Sell-Off A Buying Opportunity, With Bullish Forecast For Apple, Microsoft

(Photo by Lemuel Butler on Unsplash)