POISED TO STRIKE AGAIN FANG IS BACK

3 of this fearsome foursome have already thrilled investors

Will FANG SAN FRANCIS CO strike again?

Facebook shares rose nearly 2% to $96.95 on Friday as investors anticipated the release of the giant social network’s secondquarter financial results later this week.

Driving that anticipation: FANG, the acronym coined years ago by CNBC Mad Money host Jim Cramer. It stands for Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google.

And as Cramer puts it: FANG is back. “We have loved FANG on Mad

Money, and we don’t think these Internet stars are done shining,” he said on his show Thursday.

This fearsome foursome has delivered some impressive returns for investors. Year-to-date, Facebook shares are up 24%, Google 19%, Amazon 71% and Netflix is up a whopping 124%.

Google, Amazon and Netflix have already reported secondquarter results that thrilled investors. So how will Facebook do on Wednesday?

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect Facebook to report an adjusted 47 cents a share, up 12% from the year-ago quarter. Revenue is expected to increase 36% to $3.98 billion. And, of the 50 analysts who cover Facebook, 17 rate the company a strong buy, with 28 rating it a buy.

Among the reasons why: Mobile advertising on the giant social network is surging, and analysts see great promise in the sale of video ads on Facebook as well as the growing popularity of its mobile apps Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram.

And analysts don’t seem worried that Facebook reported a rare revenue miss in the first quarter. “Our thesis is that while people are uniformly positive on the company and its prospects, we think even short term the company will do better than people realize,” SunTrust Robinson Humphrey analyst Robert Peck said in an interview.

When discussing first-quarter results, Facebook executives crowed that nearly three-quarters of its advertising revenue in the quarter came from ads on mobile devices.

As much as Cramer is enthused about the four tech stocks, he’s uneasy about what their outperformance says for the broader market. Stocks tracked by the S&P 500 fell about 2% last week and have been flat to negative for the year.

“FANG is not really a good sign because that’s not enough leadership,” he said in a tweet.

FANG, coined years ago by CNBC “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer, stands for Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google.