NFLX - Netflix, Inc.
| Previous close | 485.64 |
| Open | 485.64 |
| Bid | 477.11 x 800 |
| Ask | 477.75 x 1200 |
| Day's range | 475.54 - 492.28 |
| 52-week range | 252.28 - 492.28 |
| Volume | 6,296,584 |
| Avg. volume | 7,700,412 |
| Market cap | 209.738B |
| Beta (5Y monthly) | 0.96 |
| PE ratio (TTM) | 96.52 |
| EPS (TTM) | 4.94 |
| Earnings date | 16 Jul 2020 |
| Forward dividend & yield | N/A (N/A) |
| Ex-dividend date | N/A |
| 1y target est | 458.03 |
- Motley Fool
Netflix Earnings: Will Subscribers Soar Higher Again?
With the company's shares up about 50% this year, investors will be watching the streaming-TV company's earnings report closely.
- Zacks
Netflix (NFLX) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: What You Should Know
Netflix (NFLX) closed at $476.89 in the latest trading session, marking a -1.8% move from the prior day.
- Motley Fool
Why Genius Brands Stock Skyrocketed Today
Shares of the children's entertainment company rose in anticipation of a surprise announcement Monday.
- Zacks
Top Research Reports for Netflix, Exxon Mobil & Amgen
Top Research Reports for Netflix, Exxon Mobil & Amgen
- Motley Fool
3 Monster Stocks in the Making
Behind every monster stock is almost always a company driving tremendous change to an industry. Experienced investors can remember how Amazon transformed both retail -- and later -- the information technology industry. Buying Amazon or Netflix could still keep one rich.
- Zacks
Comcast (CMCSA) Peacock Adds Content From ViacomCBS Library
Comcast (CMCSA) owned NBCUniversal signs licensing deal with ViacomCBS to add select Paramount movies and Showtime content on Peacock streaming platform after its launch on Jul 15.
- Zacks
The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Amazon.com, Snap, Netflix, PayPal and Match Group
The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Amazon.com, Snap, Netflix, PayPal and Match Group
- Bloomberg
Overpaying for TV Again? Get Used to It.
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- If you’re considering making the switch from cable TV to streaming to save money, I have some bad news for you. YouTube TV, a streaming-video service owned by Google’s parent Alphabet Inc., just raised its monthly subscription fee from an already steep $50 to an even steeper $65. To put that into perspective, the $15 rate hike is more than the price of one whole month of Netflix. Tack on the cost of an internet connection, which is needed to stream, and YouTube TV starts to look like not much more than a glorified cable package. It’s emblematic of a broader industry conundrum: a need to raise prices that are already too high from a consumer’s standpoint, yet not high enough for streaming companies to have any hope of turning a profit. YouTube TV has been a favorite among cord-cutters, in part because it tends to have fewer annoying glitches and more content. But $65 may change even some of their minds, especially with the U.S. economy sputtering. The app is in a category known as skinny bundles, which offer a few dozen live channels over the internet (though they’ve gotten chubbier over time as media giants try to stuff in all the channels they can). There’s been a proliferation of services like it in recent years, and yet none has quite been able to replicate cable affordably with the customization that consumers want. They all lose money, according to analysts, YouTube TV included. Sony’s PlayStation Vue — which was also well-liked by those who used it — shut down earlier this year, saying that it was too expensive to compete given the cost of programming.Sony probably won’t be the last company to give up on the streaming wars. Quibi, the startup created by Hollywood veteran Jeffrey Katzenberg — he was the “K” in DreamWorks SKG (the “S” was Steven Spielberg) — looks to be hanging on by a thread. The 90-day free trials that Quibi offered at its launch begin to expire July 5. Will enough consumers be willing to pay $5 a month for its service? It’s not looking likely.Quibi’s $5 may sound cheap compared to YouTube TV’s $65, but you get what you pay for, and the wide range of prices in the streaming industry is indicative of that. For example, even though Disney+ contains high-quality content from its beloved “Star Wars” and Marvel franchises, the app doesn’t have much else, hence it charges just $7 a month. At $13, Netflix still probably offers the best bang for your buck. YouTube TV did say it’s “working to build new flexible models,” which could signal different tiers of pricing in the future. In a dream world, consumers could just choose from a-la-carte menus, but that’s not in the best interest of programmers and distributors. Both sides have turned to megamergers in the last few years — AT&T-Time Warner, Charter-Time Warner Cable, CBS-Viacom, etc. — to regain negotiating power over one another and to stand a chance of taking on tech giants such as Google. Programmers use their scale to force their entire network portfolios onto streaming apps so that their less-popular ones don’t get left out.YouTube TV’s latest price increase comes on the heels of it adding eight of ViacomCBS Inc.’s top networks to its lineup, including BET, MTV and Nickelodeon, with six more niche ones on the way, including MTV Classic and TeenNick. To be fair, though, each of those is relatively inexpensive. What usually makes TV packages so costly is live sports — and that’s true even with most sports off the air this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN+ is reportedly raising its fee by $1, to $6 a month.If YouTube TV can get away with its new rate, then Netflix probably has room to raise its own price some. That prospect drove Netflix shares to a new all-time-high closing price of $485.64 on Wednesday, giving it a mind-boggling valuation of 42 times Ebitda. YouTube TV is the closest you’ll get to a traditional cable package, in that it has lots of live-TV channels, including sports, and common add-on options such as HBO and Showtime. But if you want streaming to look like cable, you’ve got to pay cable prices. Not even Google will eat those losses forever. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Tara Lachapelle is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering the business of entertainment and telecommunications, as well as broader deals. She previously wrote an M&A column for Bloomberg News.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Motley Fool
Got $2,000? Buy These 2 Best-in-Breed Stocks I'm Never Selling
Do you know what these companies have in common? Each is a market leader with a proven ability to adapt when necessary.
- Bloomberg
Netflix’s ‘Wasp Network’ Stings Miami’s Cuban Exiles
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- It’s been a long time since the Latin American Cold War. Maybe not long enough, judging by the fury over French director Olivier Assayas’s new film “Wasp Network,” inspired by the real story of a Cuban spy ring operating in the U.S. in the 1990s.Launched last month on Netflix, after the coronavirus forced the producers to cancel a movie theater debut, the feature film has reignited ideological passions across the Florida Straits. The vociferous right-wing Cuban diaspora in Miami has led a petition drive RemoveWaspNetwork (18,000 signatures as of July 2) for Netflix to take down the film. Many left-wing enthusiasts, by contrast, have lit up social media with their encomiums to revolution and anti-imperialism. “Seen. Heroes. Huge Film,” Spain’s Vice President Pablo Iglesias tweeted July 1.José Basulto, the exiled Cuban impresario who inspired one of the script’s homonymous central characters, said he’s weighing legal action for alleged calumnies. One of the original snitches, Juan Pablo Roque, who defected by swimming to Guantanamo Bay, called the story “shit”; the woman he betrothed, hoodwinked and abandoned in Miami wished the picture a “quiet death.” Not that the island regime’s boosters were overjoyed: It was hardly a “manifesto” for “the Cuban cause,” sniffed the official government mouthpiece, Granma.In fact, “Wasp Network” has something to displease just about everyone. In his meandering and often rococo rendering of the tale of the Cuban Five, the Castroite intelligence operatives who infiltrated Miami’s rabidly anti-communist Cuban exile community, Assayas (“Personal Shopper,” “Summer Hours”) strains not to take sides. Start with the opening story card, which reads like a disclaimer. “Cuba has lived under a Communist regime since 1959. It is subjected to a brutal embargo imposed by the United States. This has resulted in tremendous hardship for the population. Many Cubans fled an authoritarian state and settled in Miami where many militant groups fight to free Cuba.”Duplicitous gringo lawmen. Zombie communist apparatchiks. Right-wing zealots and criminals posing as Cuba libre humanitarians. Fidel Castro playing Fidel Castro. Pick your slimeball, this movie has them in all shades of tropical pastel.Assayas’s painstakingly ecumenical treatment of the messy historical context — a hex on all their ideological houses — is both the film’s charm and curse. Its talented cast includes some of the biggest names that appear on the Latin American screen: Penelope Cruz, Edgar Ramirez, Gael Garcia Bernal, Ana de Armas and Wagner Moura. Yet all this star power is dimmed by a tale riven into subplots and diversions — from rescuing boat people to running terrorist missions, Cuban double agents trying to game the FBI as it games them, Central American mercenaries fueled by drug money. It might have worked better broken up into a series. Jammed into 128 minutes, what could have been a taut political thriller turns into a piñata of Cold War cliches.For all its ambitious historicizing, this movie works best when it zooms in. While the plot hews to the fate of the spies, the compelling performances come from those they step on in the line of duty and glory. Indeed, the most grievous betrayals are not to flag and country, but to home and family.When Olga Salanueva (played sublimely by Penelope Cruz) learns years later that her fugitive husband Rene Gonzalez (Edgar Ramirez) was not a “gusano” — a traitor — after all, but a patriot who abandoned her and their daughter in Cuba as part of a secret mission to infiltrate anti-Castro zealots in Miami, the wave of hurt, relief and outrage that hits her is almost excruciating to watch. And try not to wince as Ana Margarita (Ana de Armas) tumbles masterfully from blissful Miami bride to jilted dupe, discovering from a television newscast that her furtive defector husband Roque (Wagner Moura) has defected back to Havana, and that what he really misses about the U.S. is his Jeep Cherokee.It’s telling that the current fury over “Wasp Network” misses the larger tragedy it exposes. Six decades after the Cuban revolution, Latin America still seems hostage to its cant and stuck in a negative ideological feedback loop. Even as the region faces a deadly pandemic and economic collapse, partisan grievants in leadership positions remain stupidly polarized over yesterday’s conceits — right-wingers bashing communists without communism, or nostalgic leftists waxing over bygone companeros who captured rents and institutions in the name of revolution.“Latin American peoples are going to stand tall again,” Argentina’s President Alberto Fernandez commiserated last week in a video conference with former Brazilian president and Workers Party icon Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Both rued the fading Pink Tide of left-wing leaders and vowed a triumphant revanche. “We are going to rebuild the Patria Grande (the great fatherland), and we will recover that dignity that we had,” Fernandez said.The revolution, however, will not be Zoomed. “The Wasp Network” doesn’t settle any of the woolly Cold War scores it evokes. But when it chooses to focus on the victims of that conflict’s overheated slogans and tangled schemes, it produces what passes for a win in these conflicted times. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Mac Margolis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Latin and South America. He was a reporter for Newsweek and is the author of “The Last New World: The Conquest of the Amazon Frontier.”For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Motley Fool
Can DraftKings Be the Netflix of Online Betting?
When Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) first pivoted to streaming content from mailed DVDs, it was a relatively small company. It faced potential competition from major players like Disney (NYSE: DIS), Comcast, HBO (which was then owned by Time Warner, but is now owned by AT&T (NYSE: T)), and even Blockbuster. All of those companies could have squashed Netflix by competing with the current streaming leader's moves in 2007.
- Yahoo Finance
Stock market news live updates: Nasdaq sets record close as tech surge rings in Q3
Wall Street on Wednesday looked to extend a monster Q2 rally, and set the tone for a new month and quarter.
- Motley Fool
Amgen's Win, Netflix's Hire Send Nasdaq Higher
The first half of 2020 was turbulent, but it was generally good to the Nasdaq stock market, and that momentum continued on the first day of July. The Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX: ^IXIC) and the Nasdaq 100 climbed around 1%, outpacing much of the rest of the market. Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN) celebrated a valuable legal win, while Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) made a strategic hire and got praise from stock analysts.
- Yahoo Finance
If you don't get more stimulus checks this summer from Uncle Sam, here's how the stock market may react
Uncle Sam best come through with more stimulus checks, or else investors could be battered.
- Motley Fool
Why Netflix Shares Are Soaring Today
What happened Shares of Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) rose as much as 5.4% on Wednesday, setting new all-time highs in the process. The video-streaming veteran's stock price was boosted by bullish actions from two analyst firms.
- Motley Fool
Has Netflix Finally Switched Into a Higher Gear in This Major Market?
The streaming specialist is gaining traction in the price-sensitive Indian market, and it isn't done yet.
- Zacks
5 Stocks for Millennials to Watch in the New Normal
Millennials have helped in boosting the adoption and use of technology during the pandemic.
- Financial Times
Sony Pictures Television buys independent producer of ‘Sex Education’
The deal to acquire Eleven for an unspecified sum will add to Sony’s family of two dozen production companies worldwide, which includes Left Bank Pictures, the London-based group behind The Crown, another Netflix success. Founded in 2006 by Jamie Campbell and Joel Wilson, two documentary makers turned drama executives, Eleven shot to prominence after Sex Education was watched by more than 40m Netflix viewers in its first month.
- Financial Times
Homemade — a Netflix project featuring the world’s most inventive film-makers
The section of the movie industry tied up with ticket sales may exhale glumly at the latest project from Netflix. Homemade, overseen by director Pablo Larraín, is a potpourri of largely untitled short films from 18 contributors scattered across the globe, challenged to capture something of lockdown and the year of Covid. In Los Angeles, Kristen Stewart casts herself in an unnerving close-up of insomnia, precision acted.
- Motley Fool
3 Tech Stocks That Are Thriving Amid Coronavirus
Dominant category leaders, strong long-term prospects, and strength in the face of COVID. What more could you ask for?
- Bloomberg
Netflix to Shift $100 Million in Cash Into Black-Owned Banks
(Bloomberg) -- Netflix Inc. will shift as much as $100 million to lenders that serve the Black community, making it the largest company yet to pledge cash to historically underfunded financial institutions.The online TV giant will start by shifting $25 million into the Black Economic Development Initiative, a new fund that will invest in Black-owned financial institutions serving low-income communities, and $10 million to Hope Credit Union. Going forward, the company will steer 2% of its cash on hand, which currently amounts to about $5 billion, to financial organizations that directly support African-American communities.News of Netflix’s commitment sent shares of Black-owned banks soaring Tuesday. Carver Bancorp Inc. jumped as much as 173% in New York trading and Broadway Financial Corp. gained as much as 83%.Large U.S. companies have rushed to show support for African Americans following the death of George Floyd, one of several Black people killed by police in the past few months. Many businesses and rich individuals have pledged money to civil rights causes, including Netflix Chief Executive Officer Reed Hastings, who earmarked $120 million of his personal fortune to historically Black colleges and universities. But his company wanted to propose a solution that addresses more systemic causes of inequality.Hope Credit Union serves more than 1.5 million people in states including Alabama and Louisiana, but it doesn’t have enough money to fully support the financial needs in its communities, according to its CEO, Bill Bynum.“We are capital-starved, just like the people in the communities we serve,” Bynum said. “Having a global voice like Netflix say it’s important to invest in financial institutions like Hope is tremendously important, not just for the capital we will use to make mortgage loans and small business loans, but for what it says.”One EmployeeNetflix executive Aaron Mitchell came up with the idea of shifting money into Black-owned banks following an April dinner with leaders from different underrepresented groups. Netflix has been hosting these dinners since October in an effort to improve diversity at its highest levels and inform its top executives.Mitchell pitched the idea to Chief Financial Officer Spencer Neumann and began conducting research, reaching out to banks and reading “The Color of Money,” Mehrsa Baradaran’s book about the racial wealth gap. After Floyd’s death, he sent his proposal to Hastings, who expedited the project.“I have talked to a lot of companies, but this is the first company that’s actually done something about it,” Baradaran said.Netflix hopes the move will inspire other large U.S. companies to do the same, Neumann said. The streaming service has a small cash pile relative to Silicon Valley peers Apple Inc., Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc. If every company in the S&P 500 shifted just 1% of its cash to Black-owned financial institutions, it would translate into more than $20 billion, Netflix said.Netflix RecordNetflix has a lot of work to do on its own. The company has no Black executives among its eight top officers, and added its first Black board member in 2018. It ranked toward the bottom of the pack last year among Hollywood studios in terms of hiring women directors, according to the Directors’ Guild of America.But the guild ranked the company first in adding people of color, part of the progress it has made since hiring Verna Myers as its head of diversity and inclusion in 2018. She aided programs such as Strong Black Lead, which highlights projects with African Americans in lead roles. Black employees now make up 7% of Netflix’s overall employee base, up from 4% three years ago. The number of Black vice presidents has tripled to nine over the same span.“We have been on this journey now for at least the last three years,” Mitchell said. “We still have lots of work to do, but we are making meaningful progress.”(Updates with shares in third paragraph. A previous version of this story corrected a reference to the impetus of the Strong Black Lead program.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Zacks
Disney (DIS) to Launch Disney+ Hotstar Multiplex in India
Disney (DIS) owned Disney+ Hotstar streaming services are set to launch Disney+ Hotstar Multiplex on its platform showcasing big-ticket Bollywood movies deferred for release due to coronavirus.
- TechCrunch
Original Content podcast: 'The Politician' returns for an entertaining but pointless Season 2
When "The Politician" debuted on Netflix last year, it divided the hosts of the Original Content podcast. To be clear, "The Politician" is still pretty entertaining, thanks to a consistent dedication to packing as many ridiculous plot twists as possible into any given episode. As teased at the end of season one, the show has jumped forward a few years from titular politician Payton Hobart's contentious election for student body president.
- Bloomberg
Apple’s App Store Rules Scrutinized in U.S. Antitrust Probe
(Bloomberg) -- About a year into a U.S. antitrust investigation of Apple Inc., Justice Department lawyers are scrutinizing rules that require many app makers to use the company’s payment system, according to people familiar with the matter.Government lawyers have met with developers as recently as last week and are asking questions about Apple’s rules that require apps to use its App Store payment system for subscriptions, said the people, who declined to be identified discussing a confidential matter. Apple pockets up to a 30% cut when apps use the payment technology.The Justice Department has been interviewing developers about Apple since mid-2019, the people said. The inquiry is continuing and no final decisions have been made about whether to bring a case.Most of the resources of the department’s antitrust division are focused on an investigation into Alphabet Inc.’s Google that involves the search giant’s power in the digital advertising market. That probe is at a more advanced stage and a case could be brought as soon as this summer, some of the people said. Still, the U.S. inquiry into Apple’s App Store policies was described as serious by a person familiar with the case.The scrutiny shows that investigations of the country’s biggest tech firms overseen by Attorney General William Barr continue to grow a year after they began. The Justice Department was set to meet Friday with state attorneys general about plans to sue Google for antitrust violations, according to one of the people.App Store ReviewIn the Apple inquiry, the government’s lawyers have also asked developers about the App Store review process, during which Apple evaluates and either approves or rejects an app based on a series of guidelines, the people said.Sometimes developers approached the Justice Department, while at times the government made the initial contact, the people said. At least one major developer has had meetings with the department over the past 10 months, with conversations becoming more frequent in recent weeks. In the latest meetings with at least one major developer, the number of department lawyers also has increased, one of the people said.In early conversations with the Justice Department, at least one developer was asked if Apple lowering its 30% cut would solve its concerns, but the person said the problem is less the commission and more that Apple doesn’t allow an alternate payment system.The Justice Department has met with both high-profile and small developers that sell apps. “We’ve spoken with the DOJ regarding Apple and the App Store twice,” said David Heinemeier Hansson, the founder of software company Basecamp, which created the Hey email app, in an interview. “We shared our experience, relayed the experience of others, and put them in contact with a developer who didn’t want to go public with their story. I’m really glad that the DOJ is looking into this, because we need both legislative action, but also enforcement.”The government is also asking questions about the Google Play app marketplace, two of the people said. It isn’t clear whether scrutiny of Google Play is part of the Justice Department’s ongoing antitrust investigation into Google or whether the questions are being used to inform the Apple inquiry.Representatives from Google and the Justice Department declined to comment. Apple has said 84% of apps are free and pay nothing to Apple, but declined further comment.Aspects of the department’s discussions with developers about Apple have been previously reported by Reuters, MLex, and Politico.Apple has come under increasing fire in recent weeks. Earlier this month, the European Union opened an antitrust investigation of the iPhone maker. Regulators there are particularly concerned about how the company forces many developers to use its App Store payment service for subscriptions.Last week, Microsoft Corp. President Brad Smith said it’s time for antitrust regulators in the U.S. and Europe to discuss tactics that app stores use to take advantage of those who want to distribute their software, in a reference to Apple.The next day, Representative David Cicilline, a Rhode Island Democrat who is leading a House investigation of Apple and other tech giants, said in an interview with Bloomberg TV that Apple’s 30% cut of sales is “highway robbery.”Apple and Google are the dominant providers of app stores, the vast digital bazaars showcasing millions of games, productivity tools and other software available for download onto mobile devices. Globally, the two generated more than $83 billion in mobile-app spending by consumers in 2019, according to Sensor Tower data.That power means most developers must work with Apple and Google if they want to reach billions of smartphone users as customers. The companies take as much as 30% of app sales, creating highly profitable businesses -- but also a rising chorus of critics who see an exploitative duopoly.Unlike Apple, Google’s Android phones allow users to access multiple app stores in addition to Google Play, which may help insulate the company from an antitrust enforcement action over its app store practices. Apple has said it doesn’t allow multiple stores for security reasons.At issue for some developers is the way Apple forces its users to pay for subscriptions and upgrades within the App Store payment network. Many apps aren’t allowed to handle purchases outside of the App Store, ensuring Apple gets its cut of 15% to 30%.Apple makes an exception for video, music, book reading and some other services to allow users to log in without buying a subscription in the app. However, as part of the rule, the services can’t advertise in the app that users can buy the subscription online.Netflix Inc., for example, tells users they can’t subscribe to the service inside the app, but doesn’t explicitly tell customers how to pay for a subscription online, thus avoiding violating Apple’s rules. “We know it’s a hassle,” the app says. Apple says developers can promote other pricing outside of the App Store, as long as they don’t discourage purchasing within the App Store.App Store SubscriptionsOther services choose to use Apple’s payment system because it’s simpler for customers. But that can make the product more expensive. For example, the Soundcloud Go+ streaming music service costs $9.99 through its website, but $12.99 when bought through Apple’s App Store.Apple’s growth is at stake. If apps could sell subscriptions outside the App Store, developers could stop using Apple’s payment system, causing the company to lose revenue. Fees from App Store transactions are estimated to be one of the largest contributors to Apple’s services revenue, a business the company is trying hard to expand.Other developers, including Spotify Technology SA and Rakuten Inc., a Japanese online retailer, have complained about the App Store for being both the store operator and a competitor. For instance, when it offered sign-up subscriptions on the iPhone, Spotify had to give Apple its 30% share. Spotify argued that Apple Music, its top rival, doesn’t owe anyone a 30% fee.Apple accuses Spotify of wanting “all the benefits of a free app without being free” and has accused Spotify of seeking to “keep all the benefits of the App Store ecosystem -- including the substantial revenue that they draw from the App Store’s customers -- without making any contributions to that marketplace.”In recent days, Apple has loosened up some of its restrictions, appeasing developers. The company opened up its HomePod speaker to third-party music services, such as Spotify, and will allow users to set third-party email and web browser apps as their defaults on the next version of iOS.Basecamp last week had an update to its Hey email app rejected for not using the required in-app-purchase-system for subscriptions, but Apple reversed course after the developer added a free option.The company also said it would stop rejecting bug-fixing updates that violate App Store review guidelines, allowing developers to remedy such issues in a future release. It will also, for the first time, let developers challenge specific review guidelines.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg
Fang Fortress Rattled as Facebook Takes Biggest Hit Since Crisis
(Bloomberg) -- At record highs on Tuesday, the popular group of megacap tech stocks known as the Fangs is ending the week with the worst plunge since the depths of the Covid crash.While intermittent stumbles have been a regular feature of the broad market during the recovery phase, ones involving its core constituency of the biggest online companies have been all but unheard of. The group’s automated, algorithmic, stay-at-home moat has insulated them from day-to-day ups and downs, making them a central holding of hedge funds and other institutions who have shied away from retail favorites in the airline and hospitality industries.Combined, Facebook, Amazon.com, Netflix and Alphabet alone make up more than a 10th of the S&P 500 and near a quarter of the Nasdaq 100. Add in Apple and Microsoft -- which are often grouped together to create the FANMAG stocks -- and their weightings increase to 22% and 48%, respectively.Led lower by Facebook after one of the world’s largest advertisers said it would cut ties with the social network, the amalgamation of internet stocks that has for three months been indestructible dropped more than 4% Friday, the group’s worst session since March 16.Facebook fell as much as 8.6%, the second-worst loss for any Fang stock since the coronavirus crisis sent stocks to the fastest bear market on record. Google parent Alphabet and Netflix each dropped more than 4.5%, Amazon slipped 2.1%.Earlier this week, all of these tech firms except for Alphabet had put their entire Covid blows behind them in the stock market. The same was true for the Nasdaq 100, up 17% in 2020 as of Tuesday.At the end of that day, Facebook’s 18% year-to-date advance had accounted for more than 10% of the S&P 500’s performance, with only Amazon, Microsoft and Apple more significant.Matt Maley, chief market strategist at Miller Tabak + Co., points out that Facebook’s plunge has brought its share price back below its trend line that dates back to the March 23 low. Much has been made of antitrust probes and other risks facing large-cap tech, but up until now, investors had been mostly unfazed.“When it looks like the political tide is turning against Facebook because companies are willing to no longer advertise, that’s a big step,” Maley said by phone. “People are thinking, ‘Oh, that might give politicians more confidence to put more pressure on Facebook.’”For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
