What Are MAANG Stocks?

Anyone who has knowledge of what FAANG is about apparently has the knowledge of what MAANG entails as well. This is because MAANG is not a new stock nor a new development but a rebranded name for the FAANG stocks.

Just like FAANG that was coined from the first letters of five popular and highly traded tech companies in the stock market, MAANG is also coined from the same group of companies. The change in the first letter resulted from a change in the name of the company it represents. More details about this will be revealed to us as we dive further.

The reputable companies that form the acronym “FAANG” which was termed in 2017 include Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB), Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN), Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL), Netflix Inc (NASDAQ: NFLX), and Google LLC (NASDAQ: GOOGL).

A few years after the big tech company FAANG was formulated by the previously mentioned companies, Facebook was renamed to Meta Platforms following some regulatory pressures.

The change in the name of Facebook had a corresponding impact on the name of the highly traded tech company, FAANG. Since the “F” in the acronym represents Facebook, it had to change to “M” to represent Meta. Hence, FAANG was rebranded as MAANG.

From Facebook to Meta Platforms

As part of a major rebrand, Facebook has changed its name to Meta. The company claimed the new name would encapsulate the details of the brand ranging from what it does, as it extends its reach beyond social media into areas such as virtual reality (VR).

The newly affected change was declared as the parent company and not as an individual platform in the likes of WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook. The company’s decision to rebrand its name brought about a series of negative stories about Facebook traced to the documents leaked by an ex-employee of the company.

A renowned personality, Frances Haugen, accused the company of putting profits over its safety. In a bid to clear the air of all false accusations and opinions, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, unveiled that the new name aims at building a metaverse that describes an online world where people can game, work, and communicate in a virtual environment.

Mark Zuckerberg also noted that the new name Meta reflects that over time, users will have no need to use Facebook in order to use other services rendered by the company.

While wondering the inspiration behind the name, it was discovered that the name has been derived from the Greek word that means “beyond.”

The word “metaverse” may look like a version of virtual reality to an outsider, yet, some people are of the opinion that it could be the future of the internet.

People in a metaverse would have the opportunity to use a headset to enter a virtual world that would connect all sorts of digital environments rather than being on a computer.

There is a high hope that the virtual world could be used for practically anything ranging from work, play, and concerts, as far as socializing with friends and family.

Furthermore, the rebranded name aims at helping the company move forward on building the next digital frontier, proposed as the metaverse. The management of Facebook hopes it will help the company move beyond the level of criticism against its social networking platforms.

Under the Meta umbrella, Facebook is proposed to become a subsidiary alongside Instagram, WhatsApp, and other Facebook products while combining virtual and augmented reality technologies to create a new online world via the metaverse features.

The rebranded features that come with metaverse will see the company attaining its reconstructed mission of vastly increasing its functionalities and not just serving as a social media platform to connect people and enhance mutuality.

The company believes that a proper orientation on the metaverse might help Meta recapture younger consumers who from observations have left Facebook and are already showing signs of interest lost in Instagram.

After all regulatory scrutiny and pressures from public opinions, the company had successfully rebranded from Facebook to Meta Platforms in October 2021. The social media company decided to build the ambitious metaverse as a shared virtual environment. The team behind the platform believes the metaverse will be the successor to the mobile internet.

What Are MAANG Stocks?

As said earlier, the change in the name of Facebook resulted in a replacement in the acronym for the five biggest American tech companies.

With effect from Facebook’s rebrand, the full meaning of MAANG is Meta, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google.

The meta platform which was formerly known as Facebook is a popular social media platform that helps to connect and communicate with friends from any part of the world. By virtue of the rebranded features, the company had integrated the functionalities of metaverse into the system to launch its users into an extended virtual world.

Amazon.com is the next tech company listed with MAANG and it issues the most expensive stock amongst the companies. Predictions suggest that Amazon will take its place among Apple, Microsoft, and Google’s parent Alphabet, making it back into a trillion-dollar club.

Apple on the other hand is an American multinational technology company that specializes in electronics and gadgets. The company has gained high recognition among all companies of its kind. The company had its stock reach new all-time highs in 2020 as investors were gaining increasing interest in the stock following its amazing performance.

Netflix being the fourth listed company on MAANG is one of the highly reputable tech companies with its focus basically on TVs. Netflix, Inc. proves to be the most volatile stock among the MAANG companies considering the performance of its stock.

Google is the leading and most recognized search engine with massive users from all parts of the globe. Following its huge reputation in the tech space, the company had struck a benchmark $1 trillion market cap in 2020. Being the largest search engine in the world and deriving its revenue primarily from online advertising, Google also has a lot of additional services such as Google Cloud, Google Play, Google Shopping and makes a strong emphasis on technological development.

MAANG Stocks in 2021

The term was initially coined as FANG in 2013. After a few years, Apple joined the group of companies and it was changed to FAANG in 2017. Thus, the effect of Facebook’s rename has caused another change on the acronym which later became MAANG in 2021.

The stocks for all the large tech companies that make up MAANG trade on the Nasdaq exchange and are included in the S&P 500 and Fortune 500.

The index being a very large regional representation of the market, any fluctuations in the stock price of these businesses in MAANG can greatly influence the overall market. The MAANG stocks earned a combined market capitalization of about $7.416 trillion in 2021, up from about $5.8 trillion from the previous year, 2020.

MAMATA Stocks

The acronym MAMATA consists of Microsoft, Apple, Meta, Amazon, Tesla, and Alphabet. The term was introduced at the period of Facebook’s rebranding following several opinions to drop Netflix.

These companies had a combined market cap of about $10 trillion. They all make up a quarter of the S&P 500’s weight, compared with the record left by FAANG’s group which was nearly 20%.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that MAANG is heavily weighted considering the group of big and reputable firms it combines. This has so much impacted the stock market such that fluctuations in the price of these stocks would somehow reflect in the performance of the general stock market.

While comparing MAANG with FAANG, it can be deduced that there are not many distinctive features in both terms except for the change in the first letter of the acronyms which resulted from the change in the name of Facebook.