If you’re new to investing, the best place to start isn’t a school textbook or a trading platform. The best way to start learning is to start reading. And Wall Street has no shortage of captivating stories. It is the stuff of legends. Learning to invest and manage your finances shouldn’t be boring, but a fascination and a passion, grounded with a lot of common sense.
Here's a listicle to ignite your curiosity for the naming fads and legends in the marketplace, charting the rise of stocks from obscure acronyms to the pantheon of investment lore.
Not all nicknames and acronyms last more than a few mentions. Some, however, take on a life of their own making its way into the lore of the public.
The 1920s was dubbed the “Roaring 20s” when America saw the birth of wall street and the exponential rise of the stock market. Some stocks of the time saw the same growth trajectory of the crypto of today, but it busted as dramatically as it boomed.
It all came crashing down in on Black Thursday in 1929. Some stalwarts survived the extinction event of the Great Depression and a few yet are still kicking ass today.
Some big names of the 1920s were:
During the 1960s and ‘70s, the Nifty Fifty streaked across the financial sky like a nova, embodying a "buy and hold" strategy. Stocks like IBM, Coca-Cola, and Walt Disney not only suggested longevity but a cultural permanence that's hard to miss even today. Despite the subsequent market downturn, these stocks have held their own, with many still influential and extremely valuable bullets in any investor's portfolio.
In parentheses next to each company name, we list the current known status of the company. the Fortune 500 ranking is based on 2023 data.
From the Nifty Fifty:
Fortune ranking is based on 2023 rankings release in 2024.
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are well known figures from the Christian Bible representing the oncoming end of the world. It’s not surprising that the fascination with the Four Horsemen have made them a naming favorite for the giants on Wall Street.
In the 1990s, the Four Horsemen referenced Microsoft, Intel, Cisco, and Dell.
There were variations on the name such as Four Horsemen of the Internet or Four Horsemen of the Nasdaq.
Of the four, Dell, Intel, and Cisco have fallen out of favor as the rise of Apple, software, and social media caused them to fade into the background. Microsoft has been the only one that has continued to re-invent itself and in many ways now have propelled itself beyond its original illustrious standing. With the focus back on hardware and semiconductors, Dell and Intel are seeing some early signals of resurgence, but not to its former dominance.
Since then there have been variations of re-launching a new set of Four Horsemen. The CNN had a survey that crowned the Final Four as Amazon, Google, Apple, and IBM. Jim Cranmer’s 2013 selection of the Four Horsemen of Big Tech has gone on to become one of the most popular names in the past decade, more commonly known as FANG.
Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google (now Alphabet) emerged in the 2010s to form the acronym "FANG," representing a new era of technology-driven disruptors. An updated second version, added Apple to the grouping and became with “FAANG” with the double A. This modern high-flying tech cohort captivated and directed the market, with each stock riding a wave of innovation and consumer demand.
The companies listed under FAANG decided to do some corporate re-structuring leading to Facebook to be rebranded as Meta and Google to Alphabet. Naturally, the original acronym was no longer relevant, giving rise to MAMAA and MANA MANA. If FAANG sounded impressive and intimidating, then their subsequent attempts of rebranding are just hilarious. With the MANA MANA acronym name dropped along (if not inspired by) with the 1977s Muppet song “Mah Na Mah Na”.
The cuter names have been a good laugh in an otherwise not very comedic industry. Alas, the finance buffs have bigger dreams of grandeur, and chosen a more apt name for their vision: The Magnificent Seven.
The rapid rise and fall of technology during and after the pandemic led to the end of an era. The release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT welcomed the dawn of a new era. With this new era, a new set of leaders have been crowned as the Magnificent 7.
The Magnificent 7 are:
Coined by Jim Cramer in early 2024, the Super Six is the Magnificent 7 minus Tesla. Since the fourth quarter, Tesla’s stock has been underperforming despite the rebound in the wider stock market driven by the AI craze and the technology sector. So far Tesla has been deemed as fallen out of favor.
Less well-known in the US, the Granolas are a set of European companies that are considered potentially competitive in growth against their more well-known counterparts across the Atlantic Ocean. Coined by Goldman Sachs in 2020, the Granolas consist of:
The Newborn Nine are a bit less known in mainstream media and much newer on the scene. It’s not yet known if this brand new nickname will stick, or whether the ETFs they mention will last. The name refers to the newly minted crypto ETFs that have been approved by the SEC and launched for trading in January 2024. Among them, iShare’s spot Bitcoin ETF has been driving the recent mania on crypto ETFs. The approval by the SEC of these ETFs from more mainstream reputable firms will likely create lasting impact on Wall Street and crypto.
The Newborn Nine are:
Live long enough and everyone you know will die. That’s not a cheery thought, but it’s an apt lesson, that translates well to the rise and fall of companies (and their shareholder value).
If we trace back to the original giants of their days, what we learned is that most of them will not last in their dominance. Sears, U.S. Steel, and RCA come to mind when we think of the fallen giants from this list. But the quiet heroes are also there like Coca-Cola, American Express, IBM, to name a few. Despite the downturns, they’ve demonstrated tremendous staying power. A weighted portfolio of the Nifty Fifty from the 1960s held until 2021 would have yielded similar double digit returns over that time period as the S&P 500. Even if certain companies go in and out of fads, their performance demonstrates the long-term value of well run companies. The performance shows the importance of 1) time in the market versus timing the market; and 2) the steadier returns from a batch of stocks instead of individual picks.
Nicknames and acronyms are fun, but they’re no investment strategy. For actual investing, normal folk (like us) should stick to the fundamentals and master the basics.
For now, we take away from this long running tradition of nicknames and acronyms that Wall Street loves their funny names. If some of these analysts need a second career during the next bear market, some should consider market branding as an option.
If you’ve made it this far, then congrats on earning this study break.
MANA MANA was name dropped along with the muppet song “Mah Na Mah Nah”:
FANG, FAANG, MAMAA, Magnificent 7 and Super Six from the past decade or so have all been heavily attributed to Jim Cramer for their popularization.
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References:
[2] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/roaring-20s-vs-now-ge-gm-coca-cola-us-steel-and-sears-135843168.html
[3] https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/teachers/lesson_plans/pdfs/unit9_4.pdf
[5]https://money.cnn.com/technology/storysupplement/four-horsemen-of-tech/#:~:text=More than a decade ago,are tech's new four horsemen%3F"
[6] https://www.fool.com/investing/2021/11/05/faang-is-dead-long-live-manamana/
[7] https://www.shiftalt.capital/post/what-s-in-a-name-is-faang-really-now-mamaa
[8] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/niftyfifty.asp
[10] https://cryptoslate.com/glossary/newborn-nine/
[11] https://fortune.com/europe/2024/03/03/europes-magnificent-7-granolas-goldman-sachs-economy/
[12] https://globalfinancialdata.com/rca-and-the-roaring-twenties
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