[HN Gopher] The FAANG Market Is Fading
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       The FAANG Market Is Fading
        
       Author : woldemariam
       Score  : 82 points
       Date   : 2021-12-04 16:29 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.morningstar.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.morningstar.com)
        
       | Retric wrote:
       | "So, to create a more useful comparison point, we're excluding
       | those three years from our long-term average."
       | 
       | Sure, look at a few years while excluding ~1/4 of the data and I
       | am convinced your analysis is just great.
        
       | neilo40 wrote:
       | FAANG is dead. Long live MANAMA! (Microsoft, Apple, Netflix,
       | Alphabet, Meta, Amazon)
       | 
       | Silly, I know but I've always wondered why Microsoft was left out
       | of the original 5
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | it_does_follow wrote:
         | > wondered why Microsoft was left out of the original 5
         | 
         | Same reason Cornell is typically left out of conversations
         | about Ivy league schools.
         | 
         | It's just not that prestigious. Seeing MS on a resume is not as
         | impressive as the others, and that's also reflected pretty
         | clearly in the comp. It's not nearly as competitive to get a
         | job at MS. The stock performance over the past decade has been
         | pretty meh compared to the others.
        
           | bradleyjg wrote:
           | > The stock performance over the past decade has been pretty
           | meh compared to the others.
           | 
           | MSFT's ten year total return (1482%) is better than AAPL's
           | (1256%) or GOOG's (815%), but not as good as AMZN's (1629%)
           | or NFLX's (6250%). FB hadn't IPOed yet ten years ago.
           | 
           | This is per a site called finbox.
        
             | lotsofpulp wrote:
             | Per this website, AAPL has a 32.79% annualized return, and
             | MSFT has a 31.84% annualized return over the past 10 years,
             | dividends reinvested.
             | 
             | https://dqydj.com/stock-return-calculator/
        
               | bradleyjg wrote:
               | Thanks. Don't care enough to do a deep dive but it seems
               | like at least MSFT is in the pack.
        
           | eggy wrote:
           | How is Cornell Tech's campus doing at Roosevelt Island, NYC?
           | 
           | Microsoft has some really cool stuff going on aside from .NET
           | Core. Simon Peyton Jones has been there since the late 90s
           | working on Haskell. Some notable ones for me: F#, F*, Z3 (SMT
           | solver), C# and its ubiquity in products like Unity, WSL2, VS
           | Code, etc...
           | 
           | What's up with Hololens 2? Any uptake? I would like to make a
           | short video of the ultimate PC vs. Mac parody with two armies
           | facing each other with one wearing the stylish MR glasses
           | coming from Apple vs. the more typical-looking HMD Hololens
           | for nostalgia's sake.
           | 
           | I have been in computing for a long time, and all of my jobs
           | have been on PCs with Windows other than the weird Banyan
           | Vines, VMS, Irix, and QNX systems I have worked with over the
           | years. All my graphic artist friends had Apple products. I
           | have had one job where I used Quickbooks on an old Apple
           | Macintosh (1994), but not much else with it. I did put a
           | deposit on a NeXT machine, but that fell through!
           | 
           | I have had a computer since 1977, a Commodore PET 2001
           | followed by a Vic-20. A Toshiba dual-floppy laptop that
           | probably wouldn't fit under the seat in front in Economy
           | Class seating. My first Apple was a Power Macintosh in
           | 1995/96 (I think the 7200) on which I loaded Minix or some
           | Minix derivative at a later date, a pen-based NCR 3125.
           | Amazingly slim for the time, and I updated the drive in it a
           | year or two later. My first real micro-electronics project.
           | The Newton came out around the same time. The NCR 3125 was a
           | 386 running PenOS that I eventually put Windows with pen
           | support on. Various PCs I built (a RAID 0, Dual-Athlon
           | anyone?) in the early 2000s running Blender3D. I donated $50
           | to support Ton's efforts to take it open source back then.
           | And so on...Microsoft has always had the tech, but not the
           | marketing or style of Apple. I currently use a Windows 10
           | gaming laptop, an old Lenovo running Kali, a 2011 iMac (1TB
           | HD! 16 or 32 GB of RAM - I have to look). I just want tools I
           | can use. The only computer/OS I was evangelical about was mh
           | Amiga 1000 and 500!
        
             | fennecfoxen wrote:
             | > How is Cornell Tech's campus doing at Roosevelt Island,
             | NYC?
             | 
             | I dunno, but every time I head over to that end of the
             | island it seems pretty dead. There is the Graduate Hotel
             | with the swanky Panorama Room bar on top that's fun to
             | visit (watch seaplanes land every half hour some days), the
             | fancy cafe is open, there's nice open plazas between
             | buildings, it connects to the park overlooking the river
             | (and FDR memorial beyond) ... but it's all so empty. I
             | can't imagine it's operating at normal capacity.
             | 
             | North end is better anyway ;)
        
             | daxfohl wrote:
             | I think Microsoft and Amazon have the most interesting
             | products as far as dev tooling. Unless you're really into
             | ML I guess. Too bad they don't pay as well.
        
         | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
         | I call the big 4 antitrust cartel the FAAG (Facebook, Apple,
         | Amazon, Google) because I'm childish.
        
           | asiachick wrote:
           | They call it GAFA on Japanese news
           | 
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU6QVlPq4gA
        
           | serverholic wrote:
           | I've made a similar joke that the N in FAANG really holds the
           | whole thing together.
        
           | vore wrote:
           | Don't throw around slurs like that.
        
             | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
             | Don't tell me what to do. I try to assume good intentions.
             | The word you're referring to has multiple meanings.
        
               | vore wrote:
               | This is the least good intentioned response you could
               | have made.
        
         | detaro wrote:
         | Because FAANG was a stock market term for "hot tech stocks",
         | and Microsoft was old and not-hot at the time.
        
           | redisman wrote:
           | It also meant highest paying companies at one point in the
           | engineer market which is also why it got popular. MS isn't at
           | the top on that metric
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | swebs wrote:
             | Also MS has a reputation of being a horrible place to work
             | for:
             | 
             | https://blog.zorinaq.com/i-contribute-to-the-windows-
             | kernel-...
        
               | jstx1 wrote:
               | You can find these anecdotes for every one of these
               | companies. My perception is that Amazon has the worst
               | reputation but I haven't done any market research or
               | worked at any of them.
        
               | swebs wrote:
               | Yes, but bad in different ways. Amazon's reputation is
               | that they overwork you and people only stay until their
               | "golden handcuffs" vest. But their code quality and
               | tooling is seen as excellent.
        
         | dboreham wrote:
         | Jim Cramer invents these acronyms
        
         | afterburner wrote:
         | I like MANAMANA (doo doooo, doodoo doo!)
         | 
         | Microsoft, Apple, Netflix, Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, Nvidia,
         | Adobe
        
           | julienfr112 wrote:
           | Adobe ? Why not Borland ?
        
           | ksec wrote:
           | I don't know about Netflix, but I definitely agree Nvidia
           | should be in, coming at 800B market cap.
        
           | mixedCase wrote:
           | Nvidia isn't as software-focused as the others. Adobe is
           | popularly known to be a software shitshow internally, whether
           | that's true or not although by the stability and age of their
           | products I'm inclined to believe they are.
           | 
           | Maybe I'm misguided, but what I believe made FAANG a thing is
           | a strong software-focused culture that maintained a level of
           | quality and innovation that usually gets lost at that scale,
           | as was the case with Microsoft and things like IBM.
        
             | didibus wrote:
             | Adobe's stock did grow 200% during the Pandemic.
        
               | webwielder2 wrote:
               | Everyone's stock did that during the pandemic.
        
               | didibus wrote:
               | Any other relatively well established tech company that's
               | not in MANAMA ?
        
         | jakswa wrote:
         | I don't include microsoft so I can say they're "working for the
         | MAAAN."
        
         | BbzzbB wrote:
         | I similarly don't understand why Netflix is included. Well, I
         | do, but I don't understand why "we" didn't change Cramer's
         | acronym to FAAMG long ago, IMO Netflix does not belong with
         | these names neither in it's size, it's role in tech or it's
         | cash flow. Arguably Nvidia would be a more fitting N, but it's
         | cash flow is not in the same league either.
        
           | dasyatidprime wrote:
           | Thus 'GAFAM', though I've more commonly seen that one in the
           | francophone world.
        
             | BbzzbB wrote:
             | I'm from Quebec and GAFAM is the usual media term for the
             | big tech companies here. Amusing how the acronym got (IMO
             | appropriately) corrected in translation, tho I'm not sure
             | if it's just an artifact of it sounding cool (whereas GAFAN
             | would be read out "gafa")
        
           | it_does_follow wrote:
           | > to FAAMG long ago
           | 
           | Because Netflix pays Senior Engineers ~$500k/year in cash and
           | MS pays Principal Engineers $300k TC?
        
             | gopher_space wrote:
             | I'd love to read an article from an ex-Netflix engineer
             | explaining why their service is such garbage. I want money,
             | but the reason I'd think about asking for that much is
             | because I'd need to interface with massive irritations.
        
               | CoastalCoder wrote:
               | Could you elaborate on what you mean by "such garbage"?
               | 
               | E.g., I stopped using Netflix for several reasons:
               | uninteresting content, obnoxious UI, and
               | unhelpful/implausible recommendations system.
               | 
               | But I was always very happy with the reliability and
               | performance of their streaming system.
        
               | ajkjk wrote:
               | It's not garbage? What are you talking about.
        
             | exdsq wrote:
             | What cheapskates Microsoft are!
        
             | finolex1 wrote:
             | The acronym has nothing to do with average developer
             | salaries, for there are lots of other contenders that pay
             | more.
        
               | anamexis wrote:
               | Developer salaries is the only context I've ever
               | understood it with.
        
               | clpm4j wrote:
               | Originally it was about the companies' high performing
               | stocks. The salaries are a downstream effect, and then it
               | just got adopted by the salary-optimizing crowd of
               | engineers and college students.
        
           | mgraczyk wrote:
           | My understanding is that this acronym is partially based on
           | the perceptions employees have about the compensation and
           | perks given out by big tech companies. Historically,
           | Microsoft didn't pay as well.
        
             | cactus2093 wrote:
             | Apple and Amazon generally haven't paid as high as FB,
             | Google, and Netflix in total comp either though. Of course
             | in hindsight the stock gains in the past 5 years if you
             | worked at either company have still made you
             | extraordinarily well paid, and same with Microsoft.
        
             | WalterBright wrote:
             | > Historically, Microsoft didn't pay as well.
             | 
             | Microsoft minted millionaires of its employees like
             | popcorn. In the 90s the newspaper estimated that 10,000
             | Microsoft millionaires lived in the area.
        
               | poulsbohemian wrote:
               | Tangential thought here: Today it's fashionable to say
               | that the reason for Seattle area housing costs is
               | "Amazon," so why wasn't it the same thing in the 90s with
               | Microsoft? My guess is that it's a difference of scale:
               | that back then there was still room to build on the
               | eastside, and now it's not just Microsoft yielding high
               | incomes and wealth, but also Amazon, Google, Facebook,
               | and others. Still, interesting to ponder the real role of
               | these companies in housing costs (since that's the knee-
               | jerk assumption)
        
               | taeric wrote:
               | My guess would be location. Amazon is one of the only
               | companies to locate in the city. Not near it, in it.
               | 
               | Such that the "campus" of other companies is a discrete
               | thing.
               | 
               | How this fits for housing is that many new hires to
               | Amazon don't have cars, and choose to live close to where
               | they don't need them. Not really an option for the campus
               | centric companies, where folks live further out and
               | commute.
        
               | WalterBright wrote:
               | Seattle commutes are pretty miserable. Always have been.
               | The problem is the metropolitan area rings a huge lake,
               | so a grid arrangement of roads is impossible.
               | 
               | The current problem is Sound Transit does not recognize
               | that the metropolitan area rings Lake Washington, and the
               | sensible thing is to build mass transit around that ring.
               | I don't think the ST people have ever looked at a map.
               | Even worse, the old rail corridors that ringed the lake
               | were deliberately destroyed.
        
               | taeric wrote:
               | I mean. You aren't wrong. But Atlanta commutes were
               | easily as bad back when I lived there.
        
               | WalterBright wrote:
               | Housing prices in the eastside were definitely blamed on
               | Microsoft.
               | 
               | Before Microsoft, for example, Kirkland was where you
               | bought a house if you didn't have much money. Microsoft
               | built their campus next door, and that was the end of
               | cheap Kirkland real estate.
               | 
               | Housing prices were closely related to commuting distance
               | from the campus.
        
             | daxfohl wrote:
             | Amazon isn't known for Silicon Valley comp levels either.
        
               | WalterBright wrote:
               | Washington Amazon employees don't have to pay the heavy
               | SV taxes, either.
               | 
               | At least until lately. Washington is working overtime to
               | raise taxes to California levels.
        
               | zuhayeer wrote:
               | They're catching up with their new pay bands, SDE II is
               | starting to get offers in 350k - 400k range. Can even go
               | higher by Q1 next year.
        
               | User23 wrote:
               | Their "philosophy of total compensation" used to actually
               | penalize you for past RSU grants appreciating beyond
               | projection. Even with a strong review you'd hear things
               | like you can't get a salary bump, because you're already
               | over your target compensation. I wonder if that's still
               | the case.
        
               | CoastalCoder wrote:
               | Over time I've learned to tune out the reasons that
               | employers use to justify changes to total comp. I just
               | don't see why their reasoning would matter to me.
               | 
               | I find it more useful to make my own assessments about
               | what I could make elsewhere, and whether or not (all
               | things considered) I want to continue with my current
               | employer.
        
             | BbzzbB wrote:
             | I hear that thrown around, but while it may be accurate, it
             | sounds like retconning as Jim Cramer came up with the term,
             | and I can assure you Jim Cramer does not give a damn about
             | developer salaries. It was about fast growing tech stocks,
             | not software engineers.
             | 
             | Even that goofball is now calling for FAAMG[0] (well,
             | MAMAA) while (some) devs want to cling on to FAANG. Bit
             | funny how Facebook's name change was apparently the trigger
             | for him.
             | 
             | [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/29/cramer-new-acronym-to-
             | replac...
        
             | 13of40 wrote:
             | Up until the end of the 90s, Microsoft stock was booming
             | enough that it was reasonable for them to compensate
             | employees with less salary and more stock options. They
             | survived the .com crash, but the stock basically flatlined
             | for several years, making options not desirable as
             | compensation. At some point, I think in the mid to late
             | 2000s, they switched to higher salaries and actual stock
             | grants instead of options. So there were a few years where
             | it was paying less than other companies, but they corrected
             | for it.
        
             | bradleyjg wrote:
             | On the other hand Netflix always had a much smaller rate of
             | hiring than the others. If it was just about high pay
             | Renaissance Technologies could have been included. It is
             | best understood as high pay and large numbers of hires. In
             | that view Netflix looks like a mistaken inclusion.
        
               | random314 wrote:
               | Jim Cramer coined the term to identify hot stocks. The
               | term was coopted by big tech employees.
        
         | randomdata wrote:
         | _> MANAMA_
         | 
         | Doo doo do do do.
        
           | afterburner wrote:
           | Just add Nvidia, Adobe
        
           | coolspot wrote:
           | This one - https://youtu.be/44NQkFJaEuE
        
           | cromka wrote:
           | > Doo doo do do do.
           | 
           | MANAMA
        
         | pkdpic wrote:
         | Totally agree on the Microsoft point, although another poster
         | pointed out that from an investment perspective faang may have
         | referred to high roi companies so maybe microsoft was too well
         | established? Not my are of expertise.
         | 
         | In any case Im going to throw NAMMA out there too because I can
         | say it easier and it leaves room for infinite M companies :)
        
         | Cyph0n wrote:
         | Manama is the capital of Bahrain :)
         | 
         | I prefer MANAAM, which is derived from the word "sleep" in
         | Arabic.
        
         | robbedpeter wrote:
         | Microsoft, Apple, Netflix, Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, North
         | America:
         | 
         | https://youtu.be/8N_tupPBtWQ
        
         | theonemind wrote:
         | In the big picture, on a very long time horizon, they seemed on
         | a trajectory of irrelevance through the Ballmer era, up until
         | Satya became CEO. (That doesn't even necessarily preclude
         | record profits under Ballmer, but a hide-bound inability to
         | adapt to changing market fundamentals.)
         | 
         | PG tried calling it in 2007:
         | http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html
         | 
         | They really changed when Satya Nadella came in, however.
         | 
         | (Not to romanticize. Big tech has a smarmy evil these days.
         | Ballmer just wanted to sell Windows and Office like products to
         | big enterprises. It was less disturbing than donning their sith
         | robes and joining the rest of big tech in trying to posses our
         | incorporeal souls through massive amounts of data and
         | 'nudges'.)
        
           | nolok wrote:
           | Which is unfair and short sighted, given that Ballmer is the
           | guy who turned it from the windows shop to a company where
           | windows is just one of 3 growing massive sections (plus a few
           | smaller ones), with windows not even being the first one
           | anymore.
        
             | rootusrootus wrote:
             | IIRC, Ballmer actually started many of the things that we
             | saw happening early in Satya's tenure. So he deserves at
             | least some credit for seeing the writing on the wall and
             | trying to adapt to it. Perhaps he also figured that in
             | order for the transformation to really happen he had to not
             | be the one trying to lead it.
        
               | devoutsalsa wrote:
               | Ballmer also took charge right after the dotcom bust.
               | Even though the stock tanked from ludicrous highs,
               | revenue steadily grew under his tenure. I can't speak to
               | how company longevity performed under his reign.
        
               | WalterBright wrote:
               | I know Steve. He's been unfairly maligned for a long
               | time. The biography of him is pretty mean. I doubt the
               | author ever even met him.
        
               | [deleted]
        
           | ChuckNorris89 wrote:
           | _> Ballmer just wanted to sell Windows and Office like
           | products to big enterprises._
           | 
           | Yes, but actually, _NO_. I know it 's fashionable to bash
           | Ballmer for being the stereotypical image of the late '90's
           | corporate villain, pulled right out of Office Space[1], but
           | he was also the one who got the ball rolling on what we today
           | know as Azure and saved the Xbox division during the red ring
           | of death and other major issues that plagued the Xbox 360 and
           | cost Microsoft billions.
           | 
           | If he only cared about the enterprise stuff, he would have
           | sold the Xbox division or let it sink at the first sign of
           | losses, but instead he propped it up despite the massive
           | losses. IMHO, he should get some kudos for that as Xbox is
           | currently the only competitor to the Play Station (Nintendo
           | isn't since they do their own thing).
           | 
           |  _" I am trembling, sat in front of Steve (Ballmer), who I
           | love to death, but he can be an intimidating human being. And
           | Steve said, 'OK, talk me through this,'" Moore added. "I
           | said, 'If we don't do this, this brand is dead.'" If we
           | hadn't made that decision there and then, and instead tried
           | to fudge over this problem, then the Xbox brand and Xbox One
           | wouldn't exist today."_[2]
           | 
           | Ballmer also set the stage for Microsoft's entry into the
           | cloud space in the early days before it was even called
           | Azure, when he saw what AWS was doing.
           | 
           |  _" Steve Ballmer, the former CEO of Microsoft, initially
           | resisted the idea of embracing the software services paradigm
           | fearing that it would cannibalize Windows and Office business
           | which was contributing to 80% of the revenue. Eventually,
           | Ballmer was not only convinced but pushed Microsoft to become
           | a fully-fledged cloud company through "we're-all-in" war
           | cry."_[3]
           | 
           | Not saying you should like him or anything, but this guys
           | really deserves more credit that he gets for where Microsoft
           | is today (the good and the bad).
           | 
           | As a bonus, for added humor, here he is going crazy on stage
           | about _' DEVELOPERS'_, like a hamster on cocaine. [4].
           | 
           | [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0151804/
           | 
           | [2] https://www.vg247.com/rrod-xbox-360-ballmer-xbox-one
           | 
           | [3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/janakirammsv/2020/02/03/a-lo
           | ok-...
           | 
           | [4] https://youtu.be/I14b-C67EXY?t=12
        
             | michaelcampbell wrote:
             | > As a bonus, for added humor, here he is going crazy on
             | stage about 'DEVELOPERS',
             | 
             | I guess some people found it funny, but everyone I work
             | around as a software developer (not for native Windows/MS,
             | mind) all found it incredibly embarrassing.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | itronitron wrote:
           | >> trying to posses our incorporeal souls...
           | 
           | I think this is driven by an addiction of big tech to being
           | 'relevant' and engagement is the metric that gives them that
           | sweet hit of relevancy. Heaven forbid they just turn out a
           | useful product for a reasonable profit.
        
         | dhosek wrote:
         | MANAMA? do doo di do do
        
         | hinkley wrote:
         | The new challengers need to name themselves all D and O names.
         | 
         | Do doo do doo
        
       | ultrasounder wrote:
       | FAANGMULATAD-FacebookAppleAmazonNetflixGoogleMicrosoftUberLyftAir
       | BnBTwitterAlphabetDropbox Attribution- Blind
        
         | gibbonsrcool wrote:
         | Square Salesforce Shopify Stripe SpaceX Netflix Alphabet Apple
         | Amazon AirBnb Krispy-Kreme Equinix Zoom "SSSSSnaaaakez"
        
           | prog5 wrote:
           | dang why u gotta throw krispy kreme under the bus like that!
        
       | mro_name wrote:
       | nice, that my lightning talk at 35c3 (2018) turned out so
       | effective:
       | https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-9566-lightning_talks_day_2#t=333...
        
       | DeathArrow wrote:
       | Time to short FAANG and TSLA. :)
        
       | cblconfederate wrote:
       | Maybe that s why Elon, Nadella, Bezos are selling lately
        
         | mattferderer wrote:
         | Might also have something to do with taxes.
         | 
         | Washington state is increasing capital gains tax next year. +7%
         | I believe.
         | 
         | Elon had options expiring soon & was forced to.
         | 
         | Might be other reasons but those should not be overlooked.
        
       | adventured wrote:
       | AAPL $2.65t, MSFT $2.47t, GOOGL $1.89t, AMZN $1.72t, TSLA $1t, FB
       | $853b, NVDA $764b
       | 
       | Right now that's reasonably big tech in terms of publicly traded
       | US tech companies. Everybody else is a long ways down.
       | 
       | So.
       | 
       | BRK $621b, JPM $476b, JNJ $419b, PG $362b, DIS $265b, KO $231b,
       | VZ $215b, MCD $186b, BA $116, CAT $107b, MMM $100b
       | 
       | All of those companies combined will fit inside Apple's valuation
       | at the rate things are going. And just about every old-line blue
       | chip with a consequential market cap is somewhere between
       | pathetically slow growth and stagnant. Meanwhile big tech is
       | still expanding. And you can replace any number of those
       | companies with others, whether HD, or AT&T (T) or WMT or LOW or
       | PEP or TGT, with much the same outcome.
       | 
       | This article is, you guessed it, laughably, embarrassingly,
       | false.
       | 
       | Big tech will keep getting bigger in relation to most of the
       | other quasi rotting blue chips.
       | 
       | There is nothing coming up that will prompt a massive expansion
       | of the old blue chips such that they're going to retake ground
       | against big tech (not unless one believes all of big tech will be
       | smashed to pieces by anti-trust - never gonna happen). The China
       | boom is largely over, which means these old blue chips can't look
       | forward to sucking off of that market any longer and there is no
       | next China (nothing remotely comparable to that extreme of a
       | boom). Are railroads and airlines going to start suddenly growing
       | at 50% per year? Of course not. Productivity is about to
       | skyrocket? Of course not. The US is going to suddenly take over
       | the world's steel production? GM and Ford are going to put all of
       | Germany and Japan's automakers out of business and every human on
       | the planet is going to buy an extra vehicle? For no apparent
       | reason companies like 3M are going to start growing rapidly?
       | Pepsi and Coke are going to sell 2x the sugar water in an era
       | that is turning against their core products (check out how
       | pathetic Coke's business has been over the last 5-10 years)? How
       | about big pharma, PFE's ass got saved by Covid, at least
       | temporarily, as the vaccine threw them a bone. McDonald's, after
       | so many years of stagnation (and given their saturation), is
       | suddenly going to become a nice place to eat and start selling 2x
       | the fries and burgers? Of course not. Americans are going to
       | start buying a lot more Kraft box pasta or Heinz ketchup or
       | Oreo's from Mondelez or soup from Campbell's? Of course not, it's
       | all slow growth garbage. Campbell's is on a rocket ship to
       | becoming a juggernaut $300 billion soup empire! Yeah, bullshit.
       | And so on it goes.
       | 
       | For most of these companies, if they're lucky, they'll have just
       | enough pricing power to keep up with dollar debasement and not
       | lose real ground over this decade. More likely some of these
       | garbage companies like MCD or KO will lose 1/4 or more of their
       | real business to USD erosion as their customers can't (and won't)
       | pay $5 for a 20oz soda or $6 for fries. These companies have
       | struggled for many years to gain ground in real-terms prior to
       | the recent wave of inflation, it's only going to get more
       | difficult for them (consumers will be trapped in hell between
       | higher prices and eroding real household purchasing power, and
       | that's all assuming household debt doesn't get more expensive
       | (it's historically cheap)).
       | 
       | If anything, the old blue chips will rot further and big tech
       | will gain even more ground, over the next 3-5 years. Even if this
       | market declines, relatively speaking big tech is still likely to
       | take ground over time against the rest of the market.
        
         | FredPret wrote:
         | You make some good points.
         | 
         | However, note that there is a very long way to go for
         | traditional industries.
         | 
         | China is one big chunk of people, and they may be in for a
         | rough couple of decades with their recent return to hardcore
         | communism, but there is a lot of room to grow there still. And
         | there is India and all of Africa.
         | 
         | Untold numbers of people in the third world are rapidly
         | approaching middle-class status, buying fridges and cars and so
         | on.
         | 
         | This will have the concomitant effects on the rest of the
         | economic ecosystem, and tech will ultimately gain even more
         | from more rich consumers. But it's not game over for the big
         | old juggernauts.
        
           | adventured wrote:
           | If any of that were true, we'd have seen it in the old-line
           | industries sales growth during the last five years. That
           | hasn't been the case at all (and wasn't prior to Covid
           | either). Global growth is not going to accelerate in some
           | great way this decade, it's going to be mediocre as China
           | struggles mightily with growth and debt, among other serious
           | problems. Japan, Germany, Britain, France will all remain
           | stagnant (as they have for most of the past decade plus net).
           | Other Asia will produce growth, but there's no guarantee US
           | industrials will have great access to that growth; if those
           | countries (eg Vietnam, Indonesia, India, etc) are smart,
           | they'll pull a China and favor their own domestic context as
           | they grow (which India already does quite a bit of for its
           | part).
           | 
           | > Untold numbers of people in the third world are rapidly
           | approaching middle-class status, buying fridges and cars and
           | so on
           | 
           | Not made in America fridges or cars. Those fridges won't
           | likely be made by US companies in Asia, either. Not cars made
           | by GM or Ford (trucks actually, as they hardly make cars
           | these days). And those relatively poor global median
           | consumers can't afford Teslas (now or in 20 years). And those
           | emerging consumers aren't buying $45,000 US trucks either.
           | The best case scenario for old US industry is to tread water,
           | to not lose ground while sparring with China and all the
           | other emerging market companies.
           | 
           | Most of the major emerging markets are going to come up ready
           | to fight with their own champions, as China has (although not
           | as potently as they've done it). The US old-line companies
           | are at risk of getting their collective head punched in as a
           | lot of new companies come up out of emerging markets looking
           | to dethrone them. Mid-tier manufacturing will plausibly see a
           | huge threat from emerging market companies pushing up the
           | value chain, while high-tier manufacturing is absolutely
           | going to take a direct assault from China (Boeing, Deere,
           | autos, semiconductors, et al.).
           | 
           | As it pertains to the US, the only type of company I'd be
           | interested in being over the next decade, is a tech company
           | with (ideally) global use potential. Everything else is
           | largely going to suck big time, either due to pricing power
           | problems with USD erosion domestically (constant battle
           | there), or intense competition problems overseas (and or
           | market access problems in locations like China). An extra
           | aside: along with particularly not wanting to be Boeing this
           | decade, I wouldn't want to be Starbucks (just wait until you
           | see what China does to them).
        
             | b9a2cab5 wrote:
             | The most potent competitor to Starbucks (Luckin' Coffee)
             | took a huge hit due to accounting scandals just recently.
             | More generally Starbucks in China is considered a luxury
             | brand (not what it is in the US).
             | 
             | Anything manufacturing related I can see being shifted
             | overseas. US labor is too costly compared to international
             | labor. I think Deere and co already see the writing on the
             | wall and are moving to diversify with autonomous
             | capabilities. Software is not so easy to copy or we
             | would've seen an iOS clone out of China that actually works
             | as well as iOS.
        
         | lotsofpulp wrote:
         | > BRK $621b
         | 
         | BRK should not be included in these lists because it is just
         | double counting AAPL, BA, and a few other blue chip companies.
         | It is 40%+ AAPL.
         | 
         | https://hedgefollow.com/funds/Berkshire+Hathaway
         | 
         | I agree with your conclusions though.
        
           | pg314 wrote:
           | AAPL is 40%+ of BRK's _investment portfolio_. There is a
           | substantial number of wholly owned subsidiaries. AAPL
           | constitutes only about 25% of BRK 's market cap.
        
             | lotsofpulp wrote:
             | Ah, thanks for the correction.
        
         | seanmcdirmid wrote:
         | USD erosion and buying power erosion are two different things.
         | If salaries go up almost as much, they'll still be able to buy
         | the soda and fries. If not, McDs might even do better, because
         | no one will be able to afford $10 soda and $25 fries at a
         | better restaurant, and will settle for McDonald's instead.
        
           | gopher_space wrote:
           | In my city the locally owned burger places have been paying
           | decent salaries for decades and the people working there seem
           | to not hate the job. The prices are just about McDonalds
           | level and the quality is much better.
           | 
           | Prices are going up at places that see labor as part of their
           | Just In Time system, which turned out to be amazingly fragile
           | in a number of areas.
        
           | adventured wrote:
           | That never happens. You're talking about a fantasy scenario
           | that only exists in a formula on a piece of paper, not in
           | reality. Salaries will not step match USD erosion, incomes
           | will get mauled as they tend to historically when confronted
           | with inflation, and it'll cause increasing social chaos as
           | the real standard of living drops (out of desperation for
           | bargaining power, unions are likely to get more interest as a
           | consequence).
        
         | agumonkey wrote:
         | Numbers are one thing but it seems that these brands are
         | growing under now. It's not the original product/brand but
         | infrastructure, research, future unrelated projects.
        
       | sofard wrote:
       | I don't know if "% of total returns" is a fair metric. As a
       | percentage of market cap, they still dominate the S&P500. Not to
       | mention every asset manager has to own them otherwise they risk
       | looking stupid. They're today's bluechip, for better or for
       | worse.
        
       | chris_wot wrote:
       | It's a MAANG market now, I guess. Can't wait for it to be the
       | AANG market. Or perhaps the NAGA or NAAG market. Perhaps the GAAN
       | market might be inappropriate.
        
         | dryst wrote:
         | You seriously just going roll right past MANGA like that?
        
       | Incerto wrote:
       | Shouldn't we be calling it MANGA now?
        
         | red_trumpet wrote:
         | If you change Facebook to Meta, you also should change Google
         | to Alphabet, right?
        
           | endisneigh wrote:
           | Google did not change its name to Alphabet, nor has the
           | ticker changed. Don't know why people keep saying this.
        
             | nostrademons wrote:
             | Sort of. GOOG(L) the ticker now represents Alphabet - when
             | you buy GOOG, you are also getting shares of Waymo, Verily,
             | Calico, and the rest of the "Other Bets". In that sense,
             | Google did change its name to Alphabet. OTOH, Google as a
             | separate company still exists within the Alphabet umbrella,
             | and Google employees remain employees of Google (though
             | they get Alphabet stock compensation). Also Waymo employees
             | do _not_ get GOOG stock (they get Waymo stock, which is
             | currently privately held and majority-owned by Alphabet),
             | so there is a real distinction between them.
        
           | outsomnia wrote:
           | MAAAN...
        
       | jstx1 wrote:
       | Saying that they're fading because they grew more last year is
       | oversimplifiing things just to get a headline.
        
         | wepple wrote:
         | Exactly, it's an absurd headline. Their influence over growth
         | has gone back to more-or-less normal. This article says very
         | little of value.
        
       | ferdowsi wrote:
       | It's beyond time to retire the FAANG acronym. At one point it
       | signaled a group of companies that were dynamic players that were
       | (to various extents) disrupting the existing business landscape.
       | Now these companies are incumbent behemoths asking to be taken
       | down in the same manner.
        
         | ralusek wrote:
         | So long as the acronym has utility for identifying something in
         | a more concise way than the alternatives, people are probably
         | going to keep using it. Incumbent behemoths still need names.
        
         | thuccess129 wrote:
         | > It's beyond time to retire the FAANG acronym.
         | 
         | Antartica has a place called Wolfang. Lots of solar energy 24
         | hours for months half the year. Minus fifteen degrees
         | centigrade temperature for the data center stadiums. Near zero
         | cost real estate property prices. Uplink to satellite mega
         | constellations. Two thirds of humanity isn't served as
         | futuristically as Silicon Valley and they don't have a $50K
         | Boxable for their inside. WOLFANG global services oriented
         | market has yet to shine?
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | alexpetralia wrote:
         | Is that from where the acronym emerged? I thought it was really
         | an investing term, which described tech stocks with tremendous
         | returns. I did not think "dynamism" was part of it.
        
         | hammock wrote:
         | Remember when the BRICs were a trendy acronym? Obviously the
         | individual parts have some relevance but not sure if the BRIC
         | entity as a whole ever really meant as much as it was promised.
        
           | ghaff wrote:
           | BRIC was basically up and coming geos. (Obviously an
           | oversimplification.) China became something much different
           | (ADDED: and more complicated) from the other three. And the
           | other three arguably didn't grow as much in relative economic
           | importance as the acronym implied they would.
        
             | hammock wrote:
             | Exactly. Didn't turn out as promised.
        
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