One of the year’s hottest trades in stocks just suffered a huge market-value loss, due to angst around earnings.

Led by an earnings-driven sell-off at Alphabet Inc., the so-called FAANG group of major technology and internet stocks lost more than US$100 billion in combined capitalization. The five stocks -- Facebook Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc., Netflix Inc. and Google’s parent company -- posted their second-biggest drop of the year by this measure, according to Bloomberg data.

The lion’s share came from Alphabet, which dropped 7.5 per cent after its revenue missed analyst forecasts. That decline represents US$69 billion erased from its market cap.

Much of the rest came from Apple, where a 1.9 per cent drop resulted in US$19 billion wiped out. The decline came ahead of Apple’s own results, due after the market close. When the FAANGs last saw US$100 billion erased from their valuations, it was after Apple cut its outlook in January, which wiped almost US$70 billion from the iPhone maker’s valuation.

Among the other names, Amazon fell 0.6 per cent, which cut about US$6 billion from its market cap, while Facebook’s 0.7 per cent decline resulted in US$4 billion in lost value. Netflix also ended the day lower, with almost US$600 million erased.

While the combined loss is dramatic, it is mostly a reflection of how big these names have become. The group never lost a combined US$100 billion in valuation before 2018. Even after the decline, Alphabet’s current valuation is about US$828 billion. Both Apple and Amazon have traded with valuations over US$1 trillion in the past year.

Investors have flocked to the group in recent years, betting their industry dominance will translate to some of the fastest rates of growth in the market. Apple shares have rallied 28 per cent this year while an index tracking the other four is up 32 per cent, both beating the the S&P 500.