Despite its -25.7 per cent return, Facebook was named 2018’s most popular stock among leading fintech specialist, Saxobank’s, clients, trumping its FAANG stock peers.
It was traded more frequently than Amazon.com Inc, which returner 28.4 per cent, and Alibaba, which similarly had a disappointing year, returning -20.8 per cent.
Tesla was the fourth most traded stock, returning 6.9 per cent and Apple was the fifth despite also dropping to the negative with -6.79 per cent returns.
Head of equity strategy, Peter Garnry, said Facebook experienced a pretty scandalous year, and investors were becoming increasingly worried about future profit growth, which has led to its valuation declining.
Despite this, Garnry said Facebook would likely continue to be a closely watched stock as its one of the strongest consumer brands in modern time, but would also find itself in the crosshair of regulators and politicians.
Data from FE Analytics showed that a faithful Facebook stock holder is Magellan Global, which chairman and CIO, Hamish Douglass, said in 2018 that combined with Apple and Alphabet (Google), makes up around 17 per cent of the portfolio.
Douglass said those three stocks looked to be relatively well valued as opposed to Netflix and Google, which looked dramatically overvalued and, specifically Netflix, were losing cash.
“We are quite comfortable where we are in that sector, and the risks are somewhat different in that sector,” he said. “The regulatory risk particularly around Facebook and Alphabet or Google as its probably known.”
Currently, Magellan holds 6.03 per cent in Facebook, six per cent in Alphabet Inc and 5.83 per cent in Apple. It also holds 5.49 per cent in VISA Inc, 5.33 per cent in Starbucks and four per cent in Microsoft.
For the year to 30 November, the fund returned 10.17 per cent as compared to its benchmark, the MSCI World Index, which returned 4.67 per cent.
The chart below tracks the performance of the fund for the five years to 30 November 2018 as compared to its benchmark.
