Will FANG Regain Its Bite?

As the S&P 500 index recovers from its early 2016 decline, market leadership is much different when the market last peaked in November. In November and December, leadership was limited to few high-flying extremely high priced. trading at outlandish multiples compared to normal market standards.That environment is best characterized by the FANG acronym (F-Facebook, A-Amazon, N-Netflix and G-Google). At the end of 2015, all of these issues were trading near all time highs and their combined closing price as December 31 was approximately $1650. Despite Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) went on to make new all time highs this month after Q4 beats, the combined prices of the index's is approximately $1450. On a relative basis the FANG index is still 12 percent off its year-end close. On the other hand, the S&P 500 index has trimmed its losses to approximately 5 percent.If if was not for Facebook, the FANG index may be a lot lower since it is the only of the four that is trading above its year-end close ($104.66 vs. $107.50). In these volatile markets, that slight gain can be erased in the blink of an eye.Now that the market leadership for 2016 has switched to the old guard, low-multiple high paying dividend stocks such as consumer staples and utilities, one has wonder whether or not FANG will ever regain it bite. Especially, in light of investors prior experiences of being crushed in the avalanche of high-multiple issues after they come tumbling down and attempt to recover.