With folks starting to lean-in to more about investing and how to pick stock, there is one level that I tell people to peep out for - “Consume What You Consume”. Meaning, look to the brands/companies that you either buy, love or use. Heck, peep to see what your timeline is talking about as well while you’re at it! On this edition of What Tha Finance, we are taking this logic into account when talking about a group of stocks that Cramer loves to talk about. More on that in a few seconds..

FAANG is a group of funds (stock) that are the Debo to the industry of Smokey like companies, snatching chains and bikes. Not Wu-Tang. Within each of their markets, they are respectfully rolling up on the other companies and snatching their change. Jim Cramer gave these set of companies the term FANG back in 2013 and it stuck like some good edge control. These companies are -- 

Then in 2017 Apple joined the crew and added another A to the code name in 2017. Now you see what I mean about reference to Consume What You Consume?! Ok, so boom - more than likely you or your people use at least one of these companies. Heck, I use all 5 interchangeably. At the beginning of the year they combined Market Capitalization* (Market Cap) for this crew was well over $4.1T (Trillion). Before Rona Mae Jenkins came in like a wrecking ball! 

Remember when we chatted about one of our favs S&P 500 over on ETFs? Well the FAANG crew makes up about 15% of that big fund. That’s another tip to pick up! Due to them having that much weight within the fund, if they collectively potentially down turn - it could rock the overall 500 (No, Sparta). An example of this? Back in November of 2018, they lost roughly a trillion dollars from their valuation (worth) due to the hiccup the markets experienced. 

Even with that happening, this group has done pretty damn well for themselves over the last 5 years or so.  Apple + Alphabet (Google) saw roughly 175% price increase. Go peep their prospectus! And if you have been watching my IG, you will know that I have been giving you the ‘ke-ke ‘on Amazon going over $3K per share (Yo, that’s almost 500%)! The others, Facebook + Netflix aren’t too shabby either. 

Before throwing some money at them, research before you reach for your wallet. Know if they fit your financial flow for now and later! That is the key with knowing that what you consume is a swipe or switch (no buy). 

To read the other editions under the WTF dictionary, click this link! What other terms do you want me to break down?! Let me know in the comments! 

*Market Capitalization is the total dollar value of all outstanding shares of a company. How much the shares add up to be!