Wall Street’s headline indices Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq-Composite posted monthly, quarterly and annual gains in the calendar year 2021, recording their biggest three-year advance since 1999. US stock indices gained up to 27 per cent in CY2021. Dow Jones Industrial Average soared 18.7 per cent, Nasdaq Composite surged 21.4 per cent while S&P 500 posted 27 per cent returns in the previous year on strong global growth. However, Wall Street investors saw the technology-heavy Nasdaq, Dow Jones, and S&P 500 indices tumbling so far this year. On a year-to-date basis, Nasdaq has tanked 4.07 per cent, Dow Jones down by 0.8 per cent, while S&P 500 declined 1.5 per cent, on the back of rising Omicron cases and amid anticipation that US Federal Reserve will begin its tightening policy with an interest rate hike as soon as March.
The biggest technology names Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google, and Microsoft, collectively called FAANGM stocks, have also plunged up to 10% so far since first trading day of January 2022 on concern over the global economic impact of new COVID variant Omicron and fear of hawkish tilt from US Fed. FAANGM stocks are the most dominant technology names listed on the tech-heavy Nasdaq index. Individually, all FAANGM stocks have underperformed India’s NSE Nifty 50. So far this year Nifty has gained 3.4 per cent, beating Nasdaq, Dow Jones, S&P 500 and FAANGM stocks.
FAANGM stocks returns in calendar year 2021
So far this year, Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook (Meta Platforms) has seen its share price fall 1.6 per cent to now trade at $333.26 apiece. Last year, the stock gained 23 per cent. Jeff Bezos’ Amazon has seen a fall of 3.05 per cent so far this year. The stocks ended at $3,304.14 in the last session. In 2021, Amazon share price gained just 2.4 per cent, underperforming Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Google and Microsoft. It even underperformed Nasdaq Composite index. The stock of Apple, the maker of iPhone, iPad, and MacBooks, has also declined so far this year, down 3.56 per cent. Apple stock rallied 34% in CY2021. On the other hand, Netflix was worst performer so far this year among FAANGM stocks. Netflix stock tumbled 10.07% so far in January 2022, wiping off nearly all the gains made in the year 2021.
Internet behemoth Google stock has also delivered negative returns so far this year, falling 2.5% on YTD basis. Google, trading under its parent Alphabet’s name, rallied 65 per cent last year. Lastly, among the FAANGM lot, Microsoft stock is down 5 per cent so far this year, following its peers. It had surged 51 per cent in the calendar year 2021.
It may be noted that the S&P 500 finished with a gain of 26.9% in 2021, or a total return of 28.7%, including dividends, which is nearly as much as the benchmark index gained in 2019, according to Associated Press.
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