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Hi. I'm Rana Foroohar, associate editor and global business columnist for the Financial Times. One of the topics I've been covering most closely this year has been the fall of the Faangs - Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google. These companies led the markets over the last several years to record highs but, of course, in 2018 they also led the collapse of the markets.
And they've been quite volatile, so one question that investors are asking for 2019 is what will the Faangs do? What can we expect from their share prices? Well, I think the answer to that question will depend on two things. One, will tech companies be regulated? Companies like Google and Facebook and Amazon are under pressure for everything from monopoly power to privacy violations, data breaches and potential election manipulation. So if you start to see regulation from either Brussels or Washington that's going to potentially compress the business models of these companies and lead their stock prices to fall again.
I think that the other worry is the threat of a trade war between the US and China. Every time you see a new threat coming from the White House against China, you see the stocks reacting, tech stocks in particular, not just in the US, but also in China, because of worries that we may be headed towards a splinternet, in which China, the US, and Europe would have different approaches to regulation. Either trade wars or regulation could affect the valuations of the tech stocks, so watch this space.
