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According to Goldman it's not the topline growth that is the most distinguishing aspect of the FAAMG business models, but the amount and share of operating cash flow they devote to driving growth. During 2020, the five FAAMG stocks, spent $128 billion in R&D and another $104 billion on capex, accounting for 22% of the S&P 500 total. FAAMG posted a growth investment ratio of 64% over the last three years vs. 11% for the typical stock. As Goldman puts it, "they are investing their way to superior growth."

For the past several years, the market for VR and AR has steadily increased, albeit not dramatically. Last year, SuperData Research estimated that combined consumer VR and AR revenues worldwide would grow from $6.2 billion in 2019 to $6.7 billion in 2020. However, the firm expects 2021 to be a turning point when growth in both XR technologies accelerates, propelling revenues to $11.3 billion by 2023.

Roku, the streaming-media hub recorded a first-quarter profit of $76.3 million, or 54 cents a share, compared with a loss of $54.6 million, or 45 cents a share, in the year-earlier period. Analysts were projecting a per-share loss of 13 cents. Roku’s player unit had 53.6 million active accounts at the end of the quarter. Those accounts streamed a total of 18.3 billion hours in the quarter, an increase of 49% over the previous year. Average revenue per user was $32.14, a 32% increase from last year.

Amazon Web Services Inc., which is widely considered the global cloud market leader, saw year-over-year revenue grow 32% to $13.50 billion in the first quarter, accelerating from 28% growth in the fourth quarter of 2020. AWS accounted for 12% of parent company Amazon Inc.'s $108.52 billion first-quarter revenue and nearly 47% of the company's overall operating income of $8.87 billion. AWS' closest competitor, Microsoft Corp.'s Azure cloud computing service, reported a 50% year-over-year increase in revenues in the March quarter. Microsoft's  intelligent cloud segment, which includes Azure as well as the company's server products, saw quarterly revenue grow 23% over the prior year to $15.12 billion, with server products and cloud services revenue up 26%.

Plunging U.S. real yields -- which strip out the effects of inflation -- failed to stem another 3% fall in Cathie Wood’s ARK Innovation exchange-traded fund (ARKK) Thursday, now in the midst of its worst stretch since 2018. Drops in the likes of Twilio Inc., Zoom Video Communications Inc. and Roku Inc. dragged down the ETF, even as the mega-cap Nasdaq 100 rallied for the first time this week.