Morgan Stanley Backs 3 FAANG Stocks For 2019

It's a bold call given the current market climate

Despite the huge declines in their share prices, many analysts have stuck behind FAANG stocks. Just this morning, Morgan Stanley named Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ:FB), Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), and Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) its top picks from the internet space for 2019. The brokerage firm suggested that digital advertising won't be negatively effected by a slowdown in the broader U.S. economy, saying specifically, "Despite macro clouds, we remain confident in strong U.S. ad outlook."

For FB stock in particular, MS lifted its price target to $175 from $170. The shares struggled yesterday amid yet another round of bad news, but are marginally higher today -- up 0.9% to trade at $134.51. Even with the small increase, the security is dangerously close to its 52-week low of $126.85 from Nov. 20.

AMZN is managing to trade higher so far today, last seen up 0.6% at $1,503.33. The $1,500 region has been a short-term technical floor for the stock since late October, helping the equity maintain a roughly 28% lead in 2018. Still, some options traders earlier this week were betting on major losses for the e-commerce concern.

GOOGL so far is up 0.3% to trade at $1,038.50, still holding near the bottom of the $1,000-$1,120 area that it's chopped inside since late October. This puts the search giant on pace to close 2018 just below breakeven, with the 200-day moving average putting a firm lid on a breakout attempt earlier this month.