FAANG Group Changes Name To MAANG As Facebook Inc's Name Changes

Facebook's renaming to Meta made the largest stock group in the US also change its name. (photo: facebook)

JAKARTA - Facebook's rebranding to Meta Platforms has launched a new name search for the FAANG group which also includes Apple, Amazon.com, Netflix, and Alphabet.

Facebook on Thursday, October 28 announced that it is now called Meta Platforms as a social media company shifting to building ambitious "metaverses," and shared virtual environments. The name change comes after a whistleblower report and criticism from lawmakers and regulators over its market power.

The most popular suggestion on Twitter for a tech heavyweight group is MAANG -- where FAANG's "F" is replaced with an "M". Some users have also rearranged the letters to MANGA, in reference to Japanese comic books.

Elite FAANG stocks have a combined market cap of around $7.416 trillion so far this year, up from around $5.8 trillion last year.

Some Twitter users have also proposed overhauling the group to add Microsoft Corp - which competes with Apple to become the most valuable US-listed company - as well as Tesla Inc, which joins an elite club that has trillions of dollars in stock market value, this week.

With the reshuffle, some users came up with MAMATA's proposal - which would drop Netflix, which has the smallest market cap of the group at $299 billion, and use "A" for Alphabet, whose search engine Google gave FAANG "G".

MAMATA - made up of Microsoft, Apple, Meta, Amazon, Tesla, and Alphabet - has a combined market capitalization of around US$10 trillion. They make up a quarter of the weight of the S&P 500, compared to the legacy FAANG group of nearly 20%.

"This handful of (FAANG) stocks have been in power for some time, and perhaps with the onset of the downturn, interest rates slowly rise and inflation... this technology's long-term asset may become less valuable," said Tom Hayes, managing member at Great Hill Capital at New York.

Meta Platform shares are up about 2% in early trading and will get a new ticker, MVRS, on December 1, to replace Facebook, which has the stock code FB.O.