what are fang stocks 
in finance the acronym fang refers to the stocks of four prominent american technology companies meta meta formerly facebook amazon amzn netflix nflx and alphabet google goog fang stocks are famous for the impressive growth they have experienced with each member s stock price more than doubling at times since 2018 in 2017 the company apple aapl was also added by some analysts resulting in the new acronym faang apple s stock price increased more than 113 between august 2018 and august 2023 understanding fang stocksthe term fang stocks was initially coined by the street s bob lang and later popularized by jim cramer on his cnbc tv show mad money it is now widely used by market commentators and analysts the stocks referred to by the acronym are all well known and richly valued technology companies that trade on the nasdaq exchange a collection of approximately 5 000 american companies many other companies traded on the nasdaq exchange are also considered growth investments although very few have matched the impressive growth of the fang stocks despite their common reputation as successful growth companies the business models of the fang stocks are distinct facebook for example is the world s preeminent social networking platform with a monthly active user base of more than 3 88 billion people as of june 30 2023 meta can claim over 50 of the world s population as its customers to monetize this extraordinary user base facebook sells ads targeted based on users personal preferences and usage patterns amazon meanwhile is a leading business to consumer b2c e commerce platform that uses leading edge cloud computing and data analytics technologies to sell a retail catalog although amazon initially pioneered the sale of books online books now represent much less of its overall product catalog than when it started netflix is also known for its impressive customer growth an online entertainment streaming service specializing in movies and television shows the company s subscriber base has grown exponentially in recent years from 22 million in 2011 to more than 238 million in 2022 to compete with new entrants to the streaming market netflix has also begun aggressively producing exclusive content moving beyond its traditional role as a content aggregator to a major content producer in its own right alphabet has leveraged its core expertise as the world s foremost search engine developing a highly profitable online advertising business while driving user retention through popular web applications such as youtube google docs and google maps fang stock performancewith these impressive facts in mind it is no wonder investors have been enthusiastic about the fang stocks business prospects in recent years this enthusiasm has been supported by the companies financial performance which has caused substantial increases in their respective stock prices in the trailing twelve months ttm as of august 2023 for example meta has reported revenues of over 116 6 billion and a net income of more than 23 billion meanwhile amazon showed an astounding 544 billion in revenue but produced a net income of 2 7 billion over the past five years these two company s stock prices increased by roughly 62 3 and 41 3 respectively netflix and google have also shown strong ttm performance with netflix posting revenues of over 31 6 billion and a net income of 4 5 billion google generated 280 billion in revenues and nearly 60 billion in net income buoyed by these earnings netflix s stock rose by 26 8 in the past five years while google s rose by about 113 2 over the same timeframe 