By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com – Technology shares were broadly higher in premarket trading Thursday, with the all FAANG stocks being up 1.5% to 2% each.
Futures of all the broader indices also pointed to a gap up at the opening as fears over higher inflation and long-term interest rates receded.
FAANG is the acronym for Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (the ‘G’ referring to Google, Alphabet’s core). These growth stocks usually move in tandem even though their businesses are disparate.
Growth stocks like the tech shares are back in favor with investors as liquidity gets sloshed around, inflation remains low and the upside in crude prices looks capped.
Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Alphabet were all up 1.5%-1.6% with Apple being the leader with gains of 1.8%. At one point, the stock was up 2.5% after closing nearly 1% lower Wednesday.
Apple on Thursday issued a statement saying it had started manufacturing the iPhone 12 in India, a move that will not only help its sales in one of the world's biggest potential markets, but also offer it an insurance policy against any fresh tension between the U.S. and China, where the iPhone is currently produced. While the company did not name its contractor in India, a Reuters report said it was Taiwan-based Foxconn.
Apple has bet big on India since 2017 when it began to assemble iPhones there with the help of Wistron, another Taiwanese supplier.
Foxconn, Wistron and Pegatron have together committed close to $900 million over 5 years to make iPhones in India, lured by the ‘Atmanirbhar’ (self-reliance) scheme of Narendra Modi government, which incentivizes local production.