With US investors focused on President Donald Trump’s trade dispute with China, CNBC says Jim Cramer believes there are four specific stocks that can withstand trade tensions – the Fang stocks (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google – now Alphabet). “In one of the great coincidences in stock market history, Fangs have got nothing in China,” Cramer said at the end of last week. “All four are accidentally anti-Chinese stocks, and that is perfect for this market,” the former hedge-fund manager adds.
Indeed, social-media giant Facebook and streaming service Netflix are both blocked in China; Amazon’s way is blocked by Alibaba, an e-commerce giant already established in the country; and Alphabet withdrew its business from China to protest against the government’s increased censorship. Yet that now looks like a smart move: “Alphabet’s lack of China exposure… makes it a better stock than if it had China as a major market,” notes Cramer. The stocks also benefit from being in secular growth markets – to an extent they are indifferent to the global growth cycle.
That said, Cramer also acknowledges on CNBC that the recent rally in large-cap tech stocks has been “breathtaking”, and that there appears to be “no particular reason” for it. So “it’s easy to see why these Fang stocks are reviled for being too high, too fast, too rich, too whatever. But that’s been the case ever since we coined the term five years ago. Who knows? Maybe it’ll be the same five years hence.”