The FAANG stocks - Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google - have been an unstoppable force over recent years but the signs are mounting that they are in for a rough ride.

As they report their latest results investors will be asking perhaps more than at any time in recent memory whether the time is right to sell and take some profits.

To a large degree, the reasons to be more bearish on their prospects actually stem from their huge success.

Google is increasingly attracting the ire of regulators and politicians on both sides of the Atlantic

It's now looking a lot like the tech giants have enjoyed such success that nearly everybody who would be a natural user of their service or products already is one, particularly in developed markets.

If user numbers have limited room to grow further then, where does the growth come from? Herein lies the crunch.

To keep the amount of money that rolls into the tech titans every day, week, month and year growing they are going to have dip further into the pockets of their existing customers.

This create the danger of running up against two major areas of pushback:  regulatory watchdogs around the world and their hundreds of millions of customers.

First, consumers. 

At this point are there many people in Netflix's core markets who are natural customers for it but don't already use it?

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Share Central to the appeal of the leading streaming service is its value for money proposition when compared to traditional satellite and cable TV providers. The volume of content versus the small price of around six dollars or pounds a month.

As it ratchets up its prices at what point does that key attraction become significantly eroded? In its recent set of number the signs were not good and investors reacted accordingly.

Google, which trades on the stock market under the Alphabet moniker, and Facebook face similar issues of market saturation but also a different, longer term threat.

There is a nascent move towards a decentralized internet, dubbed Web3. This heralds alternatives to the likes of Facebook and Youtube built on public blockchains such as Ethereum. They are effectively owned by their users or content creators rather than a single, Samsung Galaxy A20 Antutu a40s antutu score central corporate entity.

Stranger Things has been one of Netflix's biggest hits but the streaming service's latest results were not so well received

How quickly people migrate over to these and huawei y7 prime 2018 antutu score y6 2019 antutu score to what degree will ultimately be a crucial factor in whether the tech giants are brought down from their lofty positions or not in the coming years.

The official numbers that Facebook puts out do not yet seem to show a huge drop-off in popularity for the social media site, but anecdotal evidence that many people no longer use the site with anything like the same enthusiasm as five or so years ago is widespread.

There is also the inescapable fact that every social networking site that has had success in the past has eventually fallen out of favour as fickle consumers lose interest or decide they like something else better. Myspace, Bebo and Friends Reunited being well known examples.

Another central risk area for big tech stocks is whether they have great innovations left in them to come or have already given the world their best ideas.

Apple's customers are hungry for fresh innovation from the gadget giant with its recently released products offering only minor advances in technology

Apple stands out in this area. The ipod, galaxy a8s antutu ranking iphone and ipad were revolutionary in their first few iterations. Now though, each iphone is increasingly similar to the last model and the biggest difference tends to be that it comes with a higher price each time.

Consumers will only stand for so much of this, and the drop-off in device upgrades is already being seen.

Not to forget Amazon. Perhaps the Bezos behemoth has less to worry about than the other FAANGs and has a clearer path to continued boom times. 

There are similar questions though around how much more it can grow without watchdogs biting back, given its vice-like stranglehold on retail markets around the world. 

This leads us to the second major risk area, the regulators. 

The US Department of Justice antitrust probe announced this week could potentially be a game changer. It's too early to know much about how it will play out but the signs suggest the DoJ is set on serious action.

Facebook's presumption that it could roll out a cryptocurrency for its billions of users without clearing it with regulators also went down like a lead balloon in Congress, and it has just had to cough up $5billion to the Federal Trade Commission over user privacy failures.

US Attorney General William Barr at the Department of Justice in Washington

Google has already run into major trouble with the EU competition watchdog and huawei y7 prime 2018 antutu score mate 20 lite antutu score more seems likely.

There is an interconnected aspect to the risks to the tech giants based around changing consumer preferences and the actions taken by watchdogs.

The harder big tech firms try to keep profits growing by squeezing more money from each customer the greater the risk they overstep the line in a way that the regulator doesn't like.

Likewise, the more aggressive the likes of Google or Facebook become in trying to see off any potential rivals, the greater the chance of them been deemed to be acting in an anti-competitive way.

This story is still in its early chapters and the share prices of the companies involved are likely to see some volatility as the pages of the book turn.

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