Trustnet Magazine 64 July 2020 | Page 15

[ FAANGs ] “If you look at successful tech companies now, they build a waterfront, an ecosystem and a subscription-based model that keeps you as a customer” “Microsoft has done that in the commercial world. If you’re using Office 365, you probably want to use Dynamics and Teams, because they are all going to talk to each other on one platform. “This was 15 years ago. I’ll be honest, I was late to recognise it and I only bought Microsoft earlier this year, because I was coloured by that mediocrity and failed to recognise it got its act together.” Of course, Microsoft is not technically a FAANG, for no other reason than swapping the “N” for an “M” (it is worth more than six times as much as Netflix) would make this group sound a little toothless. This just goes to show that investors should focus less on arbitrary acronyms and more on individual companies, their fundamentals and whether they have some bite. SHARE PRICE OF MICROSOFT SINCE 2000 200 150 100 50 0 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 Source: Google Finance trustnet.com