Fund managers who relied on the so-called FANG stocks - Facebook, Amazon.com, Netflix, and Google - to boost their performance numbers in 2015 are cutting ties as the global economy looks weaker than many expected, leaving last year's outperformers in the midst of a deep selloff.

The group of stocks that could do no wrong last year now seems like it can do little right. Amazon.com Inc is down 28.7 percent for the year, Netflix has slumped 27.6 percent, and Google parent Alphabet Inc has dropped 11.4 percent over the same time.

Only Facebook Inc entered this week with a flat performance for the year before sliding 5.2 percent in midday trading Monday, or about half the 10.2 percent the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 index has fallen since the start of January.

Fund managers say that last year's outsized gains among FANG stocks - Facebook, for instance, jumped 37 percent, while Netflix soared 144 percent - make them the first choice to sell now. The U.S. stock market is down 12.6 percent over the last three months and investors are questioning whether stocks could fall the 20 percent that signals a bear market.

“We’re moving away from growth because the economy is decelerating and investors are starting to play defense,” said Phil Orlando, senior portfolio manager at Federated Investors in New York.

Orlando said he began selling FANG stocks in early January during the selloff that marked the first weeks of the year and has been moving into defensive healthcare stocks like Pfizer and Johnson and Johnson that pay high dividends.

With so many investors sitting on large profits, the FANG group is the easiest to sell because it is an easy way to lock-in gains while also shifting a portfolio from expensive, growth-oriented stocks, Orlando said. Netflix, for instance, trades at a trailing price-to-earnings ratio of 294.8, while Amazon.com trades at a P/E ratio of 404.9, both more than 17 times the valuation of the S&P 500 index as a whole.

Bill Nygen, portfolio manager of the Oakmark fund, said that he sold all of his position in Amazon in late 2015 because it had doubled in price while the retailers it competes with had fallen sharply, suggesting it was fully valued. He used the proceeds to move into financial and industrial companies instead.

Safety Over Growth

The move away from FANG stocks is just one sign that more fund managers are now starting to favor reliable, steady earning companies over the less profitable but higher-growth companies they gravitated to during the earlier stages of the bull market.

Utility Consolidated Edison, toy maker Hasbro and pest control company Rollins Inc have each seen more fund managers adding shares this quarter, and as a result have each gained 3 percent or more year to date.

Utilities, meanwhile, which are attractive to investors mainly for their dividends rather than the prospects of share price appreciation, are up almost 13 percent since mid-December, partly on the prospects that a weaker U.S. economy could slow the Federal Reserve's plans to raise interest rates.

Still unclear is whether the move-to-safety is in itself a sign that the stock market will improve rather than continue to spill blood. The S&P 500 has gained an average of 18.5 percent in the six months after surges in defensive stocks such as telecoms and utilities, and 28.2 percent in the 12 months following the defensive jump, said Gina Martins Adams, equity strategist at Wells Fargo. Consumer discretionary and technology stocks are the most likely to outperform the broad market in the six months ahead, she said.

Eric Schoenstein, co-portfolio manager of the Jensen Quality Growth fund, said that defensive stocks will likely continue to outperform as investors prepare for the first prolonged downmarket since 2009. His fund only invests in companies that have been able to post a 15-percent return on equity every year for the last 10 years, and has its largest positions in PepsiCo Inc, Microsoft Corp and surgical tool company Becton Dickinson and Co.

"We've had six years that have unfolded almost entirely as a bull market and people have been taught to pursue momentum," he said. "We are looking for companies that are able to weather the storms."