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>>> Genasys Inc. Receives Multi-Year Enterprise Software Services Contract from Global Automaker
Yahoo Finance
Genasys Inc.
March 23, 2021
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/genasys-inc-receives-multi-enterprise-123000692.html
SAN DIEGO, March 23, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Genasys Inc. (NASDAQ: GNSS), the global leader in critical communications systems and solutions, today announced an enterprise software services contract from a major automobile manufacturer for its operations in North America. Genasys Enterprise software services went live with the manufacturer on March 15th, replacing a competitor's system.
“Under the multi-year contract, Genasys Enterprise software is facilitating the delivery of life safety and other critical event notifications to more than 15,000 employees located in Canada and 12 U.S. states,” said Richard S. Danforth, Chief Executive Officer, Genasys Inc. “Genasys Enterprise is deployed at the automaker’s production facility and 23 other corporate sites.”
As part of the Genasys Emergency Management (GEM) software suite, Genasys Enterprise delivers notifications during everyday duties and critical business events via voice calls, SMS messages, email, desktop alerts, WhatsApp, and other corporate communication channels. It also offers a user-friendly solution to message transient workers, contractors, and visitors.
Genasys Enterprise integrates with active directories and HR, visitor management and building control systems, to provide full redundancy and high resilience for workforce safety.
Mr. Danforth continued, “With real-time situational awareness in a single dashboard that features two-way polling, duress buttons, field check-ins, and recipient locations, Genasys Enterprise helps keep people safe and businesses working.”
About Genasys Inc.
Genasys™ is a global provider of critical communications systems and solutions to help keep people safe. Genasys provides a multichannel approach to deliver geo-targeted alerts, notifications, instructions, and information before, during, and after public safety threats and critical business events. The Company’s unified critical communications platform includes Genasys Emergency Management (GEM) applications, National Emergency Warning Systems (NEWS), LRAD® long-range voice broadcast systems, and more.
Genasys systems are in service in 72 countries in a range of diverse applications, including public safety, emergency warning, mass notification, critical event management, defense, law enforcement, homeland security, and other applications. For more information, visit genasys.com.
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>>> Zendesk, Inc. (ZEN), a software development company, provides software as a service solutions for organizations in North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Australia, and the Asia Pacific. Its flagship product is Zendesk Support, a system for tracking, prioritizing, and solving customer support tickets across various channels. The company also offers Zendesk Chat, a live chat software to connect with customers on Websites, applications, and mobile devices; Zendesk Talk, a cloud-based call center software; Zendesk Guide, a knowledge base that powers customer self-service and support agent productivity; Zendesk Sell, a sales customer relationship management (CRM) product solution to enhance productivity, processes, and pipeline visibility for sales teams; and Zendesk Explore, which provides analytics for organizations to measure and enhance the customer experience. In addition, it provides Zendesk Sunshine, a CRM platform; Sunshine Conversations, a messaging platform solution; Zendesk Embeddables, which allow developers to embed support, chat, and guide experiences on the Web and mobile applications; and Zendesk application platform interfaces and Apps. Zendesk, Inc. has a strategic alliance with Tata Consultancy Services to provide enterprise grade CRM solutions for enterprises. The company was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
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>>> 5 Great Tech ETFs That Aren’t the XLK
Investor Place
by Aaron Levitt
January 31, 2020
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/5-great-tech-etfs-aren-193011007.html
There are some ETFs that are clearly investor and trader’s favorites. When it comes to tech ETFs, the Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSEARCA:XLK) is the runaway leader. The XLK covers all the major tech stocks in the S&P 500 and includes plenty of top hardware, software, semiconductors and services muscle. Add in its low expense ratio as well as its nearly 4 million shares per day trading volume and it’s easy to see why investors have put more than $20 billion in the ETF.
However, as awesome as the XLK is as a core tech fund, it isn’t the only fish in the sea. There are plenty of other tech ETFs out there.
And in many cases, these specialized ETFs may offer something better than the popular XLK. Investors just gravitating to the XLK may actually be doing themselves a disservice. Thinking outside the box could lead to better returns.
But what other tech ETFs are worthy of your time? Here are five that could give the popular XLK a run for its money.
Invesco S&P SmallCap Information Technology ETF (PSCT)
Perhaps one of the biggest hits against the XLK is that it’s full of the big boys — the Microsofts (NASDAQ:MSFT), the Alphabets (NASDAQ:GOOG), etc. There’s nothing wrong with these stocks, it’s just many of the current and future leaders in tech are actually much smaller. And in this case, if you’re looking for pure growth, then small-cap tech stocks should be where you focus your attention.
And that’s why the Invesco S&P SmallCap Information Technology ETF (NYSEARCA:PSCT) should be on your list.
PSCT is just like the XLK, only this time it tracks all the tech stocks in the small-cap focused S&P 600. This currently includes 88 different stocks. Top holdings include networking equipment maker Viavi Solutions (NASDAQ:VIAV) and cloud computing communications firm 8×8 Inc (NASDAQ:EGHT). The makeup of the ETF is a bit different as well — with electronic components and semiconductors making up the top sector weightings.
That makeup and focus on smaller tech stocks haven’t hurt the ETF on the performance front. PSCT has managed to post an average annual return of 18% over the last five years. That beats the broader S&P 600 and comes close to the XLK’s performance.
All in all, with more than $300 million in assets and a low 0.28% — or $28 per $10,000 invested — expense ratio, the PSCT is one of the best tech ETFs outside the XLK.
ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK)
Active management works and can beat indexing when a) fund managers keep their funds small and b) when they take concentrated bets in only a handful of stocks. And that’s just what Catherine Wood and her team do at the ARK Innovation ETF (NYSEArca:ARKK).
ARK looks for stocks conducting so-called “disruptive innovation.” Basically, any new technology that potentially changes the way the world works. The firm focuses its attention on four core areas — the genomic revolution, industrial innovation, the next generation internet and fintech innovation.
From here, Wood will select the best ideas and run a pretty concentrated portfolio of usually just 35 to 55 stocks. And she tends to sticks to her guns. For example, Wood bought tons of Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) during its last meltdown.
Say what you will about Wood and her views on TSLA. But the concentrated strategy has worked for ARKK. Over the last three years, ARKK has managed to post a whopping 43% average annual return. That smashes the XLK over that time by a wide margin.
Perhaps the only downfall for ARKK is that its rather expensive at 0.75% in annual costs. However, if Wood can keep up the gains, that’s a small price to pay to own one of the best performing tech ETFs out there.
iShares Exponential Technologies ETF (XT)
If you like the idea of innovation and transformative tech, but don’t think an active manager can make the right calls, then the iShares Exponential Technologies ETF (NYSEArca:XT). XT uses an index approach to get the job done.
XT tracks the Morningstar Exponential Technologies Index. Exponential technologies are defined as advances which “displace older technologies, create new markets and have the potential to create significant positive economic benefits.” This includes everything from 3-D printing and robotics to genomics/personalized medicine and data mining.
The beauty is that XT doesn’t just track strictly tech stocks like the XLK. It looks at all sectors to find these disruptors. There’s plenty of industrials, healthcare and even real estate firms in the ETF. The fund currently 200 different global stocks — with top holdings including ServiceNow (NYSE:NOW), Align (NASDAQ:ALGN) and First Solar (NASAQ:FSLR).
Performance-wise, XT has been great. Through the end of April, the ETF has managed to produce an 18.70% annual return over the last three years. That’s not too shabby. Even better is that XT has been less volatile than some other tech ETFs including the XLK. This is due to it not focusing purely on tech.
Either way, with expenses clocking at 0.47%, XT makes a great choice for those investors looking to add some tech ETFs to their portfolios.
First Trust ISE Cloud Computing Index Fund (SKYY)
Perhaps one of the biggest and most immediate advances in the tech sector has to be cloud computing. Every time you’ve used an app on your phone or accessed a data center at work, you’ve used the power of the cloud.
Increasingly, our information and programs are being stored off-site. Software as a Service (SaaS) has become big business. That’s why the First Trust ISE Cloud Computing Index Fund (NYSEARCA:SKYY) could be one of the best tech ETFs to buy.
SKYY tracks the ISE Cloud Computing Index. The underlying index looks for firms that provide network hardware/software, storage, cloud computing services or those firms that deliver goods and services that utilize cloud computing technology.
Preference is placed on those stocks that are pure cloud computing plays with tech conglomerates or those firms only derive a portion of their revenues from the cloud receiving a smaller weighting.
The ETF is fairly concentrated with relatively few holdings. Top stocks include Salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM), SAP (NYSE:SAP) and VMware (NYSE:VMW).
That explosive nature of cloud computing has helped propel SKYY one of the best performing tech ETFs around. Over the last three years, the fund has produced a 22% annual return.
Expenses for SKYY clock in at just 0.60%.
The KraneShares CSI China Internet ETF (KWEB)
Silicon Valley isn’t the only place where tech innovation is happening. In fact, China has just as many global tech stock giants as the U.S. In looking for alternative ETFs to the XLK, heading to the Dragon Economy could be a smart bet and the KraneShares CSI China Internet ETF (NYSEArca:KWEB) could be the way to access the opportunity.
KWEB tracks an index of China-based companies whose primary business are in internet-related sectors. The ETFs holdings read like a who’s who of internet retailers, social media, gaming, travel and commerce sites in the nation.
This includes giants like Alibaba (NYSE:BABA), NetEase (NASDAQ:NTES) and JD.com (NYSE:JD). With the ETF, you’re basically getting the Facebook’s (NYSE:FB) and Amazon’s (NASDAQ:AMZN) of China.
Given the sheer size of China’s population and the growth of the internet in the nation, KWEB could be a solid long term bet for investors looking to expand their tech holdings. However, don’t expect a smooth ride. The fund has been pretty volatile — especially these days as the trade war has persisted. But the longer term looks rosy for China and its growth.
With nearly $1.69 billion of assets and a 0.75% expense ratio, KWEB is the prime way to get a piece of the action.
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Wix, Medallia, Bandwidth - >>> 3 Top Software-as-a-Service Stocks to Buy for 2021
2020 was a big year for software tech, and the momentum could carry over into 2021.
Motley Fool
by Nicholas Rossolillo
Dec 23, 2020
https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/12/23/3-top-software-as-a-service-stocks-to-buy-for-2021/?source=eptyholnk0000202&utm_source=yahoo-host&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=article
The software-as-a-service (SaaS) business model worked wonders in 2020. Demand for all things digital spiked during the pandemic and businesses flocked to the low up-front costs of subscription-based services. The model worked well for investors too, as the recurring and predictable revenue from SaaS companies proved resilient during the economic downturn. Many SaaS stocks were up double-digit -- or even triple-digit -- percentages.
The future remains bright for software delivered in this fashion, and Wix.com (NASDAQ:WIX), Medallia (NYSE:MDLA), and Bandwidth (NASDAQ:BAND) look like three promising picks for 2021.
1. Wix: Helping small businesses navigate new e-commerce challenges
Shelter-in-place orders and social distancing sent e-commerce into the stratosphere, and I see no reason for it to go backward in 2021. E-commerce and related services like digital payments and digital marketing are still exceptions rather than the rule in most parts of the world, however, and I think Wix.com and its subscription-based, cloud-based website development business remain a top way to play the global growth of the trend.
Unlike other e-commerce stocks, Wix is more a play on businesses and entrepreneurs themselves making the migration online -- an egg rather than a chicken type of investment. I like this positioning. After all, if consumers are to make online spending decisions, they first have to have a place to go to on the web from which to make said decisions. And Wix is helping its business customers do this in a big way. At the end of September 2020, Wix's total user count had increased to 189.4 million (up 19% from 159.5 million a year ago), and premium subscriptions were 5.31 million (up 20% from 4.41 million a year ago). As a result, the company's annualized recurring revenue increased by 24% year over year to $841 million.
Wix stock has done well amid the boom in e-commerce, more than doubling in value in 2020. However, Wix is still a small-ish company with a market cap of just over $15 billion as of this writing. When global consumer purchases are measured in the tens of trillions of dollars every year, suffice to say Wix is barely a blip on the map. Also of note is that this is a profitable growth company. While the bottom line isn't its top priority at the moment (Wix plows the cash it generates from its operations back into expansion efforts), it did generate free cash flow (revenue minus cash operating expenses and capital expenditures) of $106 million through the first nine months of 2020.
Headed into a new year and with the pandemic still wreaking havoc on the world, I say Wix remains a timely buy as businesses look for help navigating the new normal. And with the long-term potential beyond the pandemic still mostly untapped, this e-commerce SaaS stock should have many more good years ahead of it.
2. Medallia: A rare SaaS play on economic recovery
Not all SaaS stocks have been success stories in 2020. Medallia, a little-known name in the "experience management" segment of the software universe, is a case in point. Shares are up "only" 13% this year, but they had lost some 40% of their value during the worst of the economic lockdown during the spring. So much for SaaS being a slam-dunk investment.
However, Medallia's financials have remained very stable this year, so what gives? Revenue was up 20% through the first nine months of the company's 2021 fiscal year (the 12-month period ending Jan. 31, 2021) to $349 million. But the pace of growth slowed early in the year, and many investors were worried that Medallia's customers would take a break from using software to measure the effectiveness of digital communication. In part, this did indeed transpire: Many enterprise software investments were put on hold as organizations took stock of their budgets during the pandemic.
Also of concern to some investors was the total net loss of $100 million Medallia racked up so far in its current fiscal year (although free cash flow, which measures actual cash burn, was a more modest negative $26.0 million). This SaaS play is returning to pre-pandemic growth, but its loss-generating operation is simply not going to sit well with everyone.
However, for investors looking for a growing software play, I like Medallia's positioning. It's a leader in experience management, with an AI-based subscription platform that helps customers automate and predict the best actions to take with their digital applications. And $654 million in cash and short-term marketable securities isn't going to hurt this small firm's chances at staying in growth mode. Trading for just under 11 times trailing 12-month sales and with a market cap of just $5.3 billion, Medallia looks like a buy to me as corporate budgets normalize from the effects of the pandemic.
3. Bandwidth: Betting on the cloudification of communications
Online video conferencing turned into an essential service in 2020. Zoom Video Communications (NASDAQ:ZM) went from a little-known internet company to a household name. But Zoom Video is an incredibly expensive stock at this juncture, and the jury's still out on how long its epic rise can last. Bandwidth -- which counts Zoom, Microsoft, and other tech giants and digital communications companies as customers -- might be a much more palatable investment option.
Bandwidth offers subscription access to its library of APIs -- software industry parlance for the ability to embed digital capabilities into applications. Specifically, Bandwidth's APIs enable voice, messaging, and 911 access in an app. Given the fast-evolving communication landscape, Bandwidth lies at the heart of a massive movement -- peers like Twilio (NYSE:TWLO) have soared in the last year. But investors have already piled into Twilio, much like they have with Zoom Video. Those two companies trade for a respective 34 and 62 times trailing 12-month sales and have market caps of $60 billion and $117 billion, respectively, as of this writing. Broadband, by comparison, trades for just under 16 times trailing 12-month sales and has a market cap of just $4.6 billion. Talk about a relative value.
That isn't to say Bandwidth is a slouch -- far from it. This SaaS company's revenue is up nearly 35% through the first nine months of the year to $230 million, including a 40% year-over-year increase in Q3 alone. It also operated at nearly breakeven. Free cash flow was only negative $51,000 through the first three quarters of 2020. For a company trying to maximize its growth, that's not a bad figure. It means Broadband is self-funding its expansion at this point.
And as a final positive, Bandwidth had $531 million in cash and short-term investments on its books at the end of September. As cloud-based subscription communication services become an increasingly important function of the business world and everyday life in general, Bandwidth is well-positioned to continue growing for some time. Headed into 2021, this looks like a timely cloud SaaS stock. I plan on making a purchase.
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>>> Here's Why Growing Software Stocks Could Outperform Again In 2021
Investor's Business Daily
by REINHARDT KRAUSE
12/23/2020
https://www.investors.com/news/technology/software-growth-stocks-2021-outlook/?src=A00220
Software stocks outperformed the market for the fourth straight year during the coronavirus pandemic. Can this sector make it five in a row in 2021 with the likes of Snowflake stock, Zoom Video stock and Shopify stock trading at high multiples?
Heading into 2021, some analysts are cautious. They say investors should be picky about software stocks, rather than diving into the sector across the board.
One reason is that on average, software stocks trade at a higher multiple of forward-looking revenue than before the coronavirus pandemic hit. Bullish analysts expect spending on so-called digital transformation projects to stay strong in 2021.
Those initiatives work to automate business workflows and digitize customer-facing functions amid the corporate shift to remote work. At many companies, digital transformation involves speeding up internal software development.
Goldman Sachs analyst Heather Bellini expects spending on cloud computing software to be prioritized in 2021. In addition, she says increased demand for next-generation collaboration and productivity tools will persist.
Top Performing Software Stocks
"We believe the upward pressure on multiples is a result of an improved fundamental outlook for the pace (of) digital transformations in a post-Covid world," she said in a report to clients. Bellini added that a sustained low interest rate environment has boosted software stocks. Low rates make borrowing money cheaper.
Also, individual investors have been big buyers of software stocks.
"We don't think any of these three factors are likely to change in the near-to-medium term, and therefore remain bullish on the group despite record high valuations," she added.
Zoom Video Communications (ZM), Snowflake (SNOW), DocuSign (DOCU), Shopify (SHOP), ServiceNow (NOW) and Twilio (TWLO) are among the top performers in software growth stocks in 2020.
In addition, Shopify stock trades just above a buy zone, with an entry point of 1,147.01. Also, DocuSign stock is forming a cup base.
Zoom Video stock has retreated from its all-time high amid positive vaccine news. The initial public offering of Snowflake stock raised $3.4 billion. That set a record as the largest U.S. software IPO ever.
ServiceNow stock is extended. Twilio stock has surged some 430% in 2020.
Software Stocks: Recurring Revenue Models
One reason for the four-year run of the software sector is that it sees recurring revenue streams, produced by subscription-based services.
RBC Capital, in its 2021 outlook for software stocks, said: "2020 was a year in which the defensiveness, durability, and long-term opportunity of software-as-a-service became fully appreciated in the public markets, both in terms of growth and valuations."
"Most companies enter 2021 with more efficient go-to-market strategies, favorable bookings comparisons, and larger pipelines than a year ago," RBC analyst Alex Zukin said in a report to clients.
He added: "We believe that while general IT budgets for next year are likely to be flat to down across many industries, budgets for digital and security transformation are likely to rise."
Will 2021 Returns Be More Moderate?
But Morgan Stanley analyst Keith Weiss is cautious on the outlook for software growth stocks. He says interest rates could rise. Also, if the U.S. economy rebounds, he says investors could shift to more cyclical sectors of the stock market.
Further, he expects software companies to ramp up investments. That would pressure operating margins of software growth stocks.
"Given often conflicting headwinds and tailwinds to assess for software stocks heading into 2021, finding broad themes across the group appears exceedingly difficult," he said in his note to clients.
Mizuho Securities analyst Gregg Moskowitz also is cautious on software stocks. "Following another year of meaningful software outperformance, valuations are near peak levels," he said in a note. Moskowitz added, "We believe 2021 returns will be more moderate."
Software Stocks An Expensive Space
One lingering concern is that software firms with direct sales models will see large deals delayed if in-person meetings and conferences continue to be canceled.
At Canaccord Genuity, analyst David Hynes said investors will need to "navigate an expensive space in 2021."
"Table stakes for consideration is leadership standing in a big TAM (total addressable market)," he said in a note. "You can't create a big business without a big opportunity. The second thing we look for is a defensible moat."
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>>> Siebel-Led C3.ai Exceeds IPO Target to Raise $651 Million
Bloomberg
Katie Roof and Crystal Tse
December 8, 2020
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/siebel-led-c3-ai-exceeds-005254137.html
(Bloomberg) -- C3.ai Inc., the software maker founded by former Oracle Corp. executive Tom Siebel, has priced its initial public offering above the marketed range to to raise $651 million, according to a people familiar with the matter.
The Redwood City, California-based company sold 15.5 million shares Tuesday for $42 apiece after marketing them for $36 to $38, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information wasn’t public yet. Based on the outstanding shares listed in its filings, the company will have a market value of about $4 billion at $42 a share.
A representative for C3.ai didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
C3.ai has said that big name backers including one of its partners, Microsoft Corp., would acquire shares in a private placement as part of the listing.
Spring Creek Capital, an affiliate of Koch Industries, planned to buy $100 million in common stock while Microsoft would buy $50 million of them at the IPO price, according to an earlier filing.
Earlier this year, C3.ai formed a partnership with Microsoft and Adobe Inc. for a new customer-relationship management software seeking to combat Salesforce.com Inc.
C3.ai’s offering is being led by Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp. The company’s shares are expected to begin trading Wednesday on the the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol AI.
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>>> C3.ai - >>> In 2009, Siebel founded C3.ai, originally to provide enterprise software for energy management.[21] C3.ai currently provides an enterprise AI software platform and applications for multiple commercial uses, including energy management, predictive maintenance, fraud detection, anti-money laundering, inventory optimization, and predictive CRM.[22] Its customers include 3M, Royal Dutch Shell, the US Air Force, and New York Power Authority.[23][24] C3.ai was included in the 2019 “CNBC Disruptor 50” list, with a valuation of $2.1 billion.[25]
Enterprise AI software applies artificial intelligence methods, such as machine learning and neural networks, to solve complex analytical problems in commerce, industry, and government.[26] Organizations use enterprise AI software to increase efficiencies, reduce costs, and improve operations.[27] The US Air Force, for example, uses AI to predict engine failure in aircraft before a failure occurs in order to improve maintenance and increase aircraft readiness.[24]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Siebel#Siebel_Systems
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>>> Keysight Technologies, Inc (KEYS). provides electronic design and test solutions to commercial communications, networking, aerospace, defense and government, automotive, energy, semiconductor, electronic, and education industries in the Americas, Europe, and the Asia Pacific regions. Its Communications Solutions Group segment provides electronic design automation (EDA) software; and radio frequency and microwave test instruments; oscilloscopes, logic and serial protocol analyzers, logic-signal sources, arbitrary waveform generators, and bit error rate testers; optical modulation analyzers, optical component analyzers, optical power meters, and optical laser source solutions; and repair, calibration, and consulting services, as well as resells refurbished used Keysight equipment. The company's Electronic Industrial Solutions Group segment offers design tools; design verification solutions; digital multi-meters, function generators, frequency counters, data acquisition systems, audio analyzers, LCR meters, thermal imagers, precision source measure units, ultra-high precision device current analyzers, and test executive software platforms, as well as various power supplies comprising AC/DC modular supplies and electronically programmable loads. This segment also provides printed-circuit-board-assembly testers, integrated circuit parametric testers, and sub-nano-meter positioning sub-assemblies; test and measurement products and software; and repair, calibration, and consulting services, as well as resells refurbished used Keysight equipment. Its Ixia Solutions Group segment offers software applications and services, including warranty and maintenance offerings, and hardware platforms. The company sells its products through direct sales force, distributors, resellers, and manufacturer's representatives. It has partnership with Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. The company was incorporated in 2013 and is headquartered in Santa Rosa, California.
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>>> TE Connectivity Ltd. (TEL), together with its subsidiaries, manufactures and sells connectivity and sensor solutions in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the AsiaÂ?Pacific, and the Americas. The company operates through three segments: Transportation Solutions, Industrial Solutions, and Communications Solutions. The Transportation Solutions segment provides terminals and connector systems and components, sensors, antennas, relays, application tooling, and wire and heat shrink tubing products for use in the automotive, commercial transportation, and sensor markets. The Industrial Solutions segment offers terminals and connector systems and components; and heat shrink tubing, interventional medical components, relays, and wires and cables for aerospace, defense, oil and gas, industrial equipment, medical, and energy markets. The Communications Solutions segment supplies electronic components, such as terminals and connector systems and components, relays, heat shrink tubing, and antennas for the data and devices, and appliances markets. TE Connectivity Ltd. sells its products to approximately 140 countries primarily through direct selling to manufacturers, as well as through third-party distributors. The company was formerly known as Tyco Electronics Ltd. and changed its name to TE Connectivity Ltd. in March 2011. TE Connectivity Ltd. was incorporated in 2000 and is based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland.
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>>> Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. (BR) provides investor communications and technology-driven solutions for the financial services industry worldwide. The company's Investor Communication Solutions segment processes and distributes proxy materials to investors in equity securities and mutual funds, as well as facilitates related vote processing services; and offers ProxyEdge, an electronic proxy delivery and voting solution. It also distributes regulatory reports and corporate action/reorganization event information, as well as tax reporting solutions; and provides end-to-end platform for content management, composition, and multi-channel distribution of regulatory, marketing, and transactional information, as well as mutual fund trade processing services. In addition, this segment offers financial reporting document composition and management solutions; SEC disclosure and filing services; registrar, stock transfer, and record-keeping services; customer communication solutions; cloud-based marketing and customer communication tools; customer and account data aggregation and reporting services, as well as creates sales and educational content, including seminars and a library of financial planning topics; and mutual fund trade processing services. The company's Global Technology and Operations segment offers desktop productivity tools, data aggregation, performance reporting, portfolio management, order capture and execution, trade confirmation, margin, cash management, clearance and settlement, asset servicing, reference data management, reconciliations, securities financing and collateral optimization, compliance and regulatory reporting, and accounting. It also provides capital market, wealth management, asset management, and international securities processing solutions; managed services; and customizable advisor Websites, search engine marketing, and electronic and print newsletters. The company was founded in 1962 and is headquartered in Lake Success, New York.
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>>> Apple’s New Mac Chip Is Winning Raves. Here’s What It Means for Investors.
Barron's
By Max A. Cherney
Nov. 17, 2020
https://www.barrons.com/articles/apple-new-mac-chip-winning-raves-heres-what-it-means-for-investors-51605641502?siteid=yhoof2
Apple announced a big shift in its personal computers months ago, telling consumers that it was going to abandon chips designed by Intel in favor of its own semiconductors it promised would be better.
The reviews are in on the first batch of machines with the new chips, and are overwhelmingly positive.
Most tended to focus on the new processor, or system on a chip, which includes central and graphics processing units, among other pieces of technology packed onto a single product. The new design from Apple (ticker: AAPL) called the M1 is based on technology from Arm Holdings, and is a departure from the Intel semiconductors that have powered its computers since 2005.
“The new MacBook Air with Apple’s M1 chip is a triumph,” tech site the Verge declared. The site rated that version of the laptop 9.5 out of 10 and said that the computer is the most impressive laptop in years. Ars Technica described the M1 as a “seriously fast x86 competitor” referring to the instruction set that Intel and AMD chips use. TechCrunch wrote that the new processor’s performance gains will make Intel’s chips “obsolete overnight.”
In its review of the two new laptops, a MacBook Air for $999 and MacBook Pro for $1,299, The Wall Street Journal wrote that the machines “change everything that you’ve come to hate about your laptop over the last couple of…decades.” Similar to several tech sites, the Journal also gave a significant amount of credit to the new chip powering the laptops, talking about the improved battery life, cool temperatures, quiet running, and speed. (Dow Jones, publisher of Barron’s, also publishes the Journal.)
The change away from x86-based processors to technology licensed by Arm—which Nvidia has made a $40 billion bid to acquire—isn’t without risks. Chief among them is whether software developers will make apps optimized for the new Arm architecture. Apple appears to have addressed some of the risk, as several reviews in the tech trade media have indicated that Apple’s Rosetta software is able to effectively run apps coded for x86-base chips.
Wall Street has already largely weighed in on Apple’s new hardware. As Barron’swrote earlier this month, most analysts were keen on the new specifications, and the increasing ties between the Mac and iPhone software—the machines with the M1 processor can run iOS apps. The new Mac laptops and desktop (Mac Mini for $699) at the announcement weren’t enough to persuade many analysts to change their price targets or ratings.
Investors have had plenty of time to grapple with Apple’s decision to move its machines over to its own line of processors. The company officially made the announcement in June at its Worldwide Developers Conference, after weeks of rumors and leaks.
Apple sold $28.62 billion worth of Mac computers in fiscal 2020, up from $25.48 billion in 2019. Sales of the Mac segment have remained flat at roughly $25 billion for the past five years, except in 2016 when they fell to $22.83 billion. Analysts project Mac sales of $30.12 billion for 2021.
Apple stock has gained 34% since its announcement about its new chips, as the S&P 500 index advanced 16%.
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>>> ServiceNow Projects Robust Sales on Workflow Software Demand
Bloomberg
by Nico Grant
October 28, 2020
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/servicenow-projects-robust-sales-workflow-213034382.html
(Bloomberg) -- ServiceNow Inc. projected subscription sales in the current quarter that narrowly topped Wall Street estimates, signaling that companies are continuing to invest in upgrading their business workflow software while employees remain stuck at home.
Subscription revenue will be $1.15 billion to $1.16 billion in the period ending in December, the Santa Clara, California-based company said Wednesday in a statement. Analysts, on average, estimated $1.13 billion. The company raised its fiscal-year subscription sales forecast to as much as $4.26 billion from about $4.23 billion.
Chief Executive Officer Bill McDermott has pledged to turn 17-year-old ServiceNow into a “software juggernaut.” The company has a plan to reach $10 billion in revenue, on an unspecified time frame, from selling applications that help companies organize their personnel, customer service and IT operations and transition to more online work.
Like rival Salesforce.com Inc., ServiceNow has offered clients a set of software tools to help them safely return to their offices during the coronavirus pandemic. The National Basketball Association and Women’s National Basketball Association used the company’s applications to resume their seasons during the pandemic, McDermott said on a call with analysts. The U.S. Senate, U.S. Air Force and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs also signed deals with ServiceNow in the third quarter, he said.
“The reality is, others came into the market with good marketing; we came into the market with a great product that was ready to implement in minutes,” McDermott said in an interview. “That’s why we have thousands and thousands of downloads, hundreds of customers and we’re operating at mass scale.” Uber Technologies Inc. selected ServiceNow because it needed a system up and running in two weeks and no other software maker could do that, he added.
Salesforce has said its product, called work.com, is being used by 60 government customers worldwide, including 35 U.S. state agencies and federal agencies including NASA.
In the third quarter, ServiceNow reported subscription revenue increased 31% to $1.09 billion, compared with analysts’ estimate of $1.06 billion. Total sales increased 30% to $1.15 billion in the period ended Sept. 30. Profit, excluding some items, was $1.21 a share. Analysts projected $1.03.
McDermott said companies are using ServiceNow’s software to address a variety of needs, even in the face of business slowdowns during the pandemic, which has forced them to change “on the fly.”
“You’re hiring people, you’re on-boarding people, you need to train people, you need to provide people a self-service employee experience on mobile,” the executive said. “And by the way, you actually need to keep them safe if you do give them the option of coming into the office.”
Shares rose more than 2% in extended trading after closing at $484.05 in New York. The stock has climbed 71% this year.
ServiceNow also appointed Apple Inc. executive Larry Jackson to its board of directors, now enlarged to 11 seats. Jackson, the global creative director of Apple Music, will be ServiceNow’s first Black director. McDermott said in a statement that Jackson would bring a focus on customer experience to the board.
The software maker earlier Wednesday said it named Gabrielle Toledano, previously of Keystone Strategy LLC and Comcast Ventures, as chief talent officer effective in January.
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Fastly, Twilio, Shopify - >>> 3 Top Software-as-a-Service Stocks to Buy Ahead of the Election
These stocks are worth buying before the election and holding onto long after the president's term is over.
Motley Fool
by Chris Neiger, Danny Vena, And Brian Withers
Oct 31, 2020
https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/10/31/3-top-software-as-a-service-stocks-to-buy-ahead-of/
Trying to pick a stock based on who you think will win the upcoming presidential election can be difficult.
To help investors find technology stocks that could thrive over the next presidential term, we asked a few Motley Fool contributors for stocks to buy ahead of the election. They came back with Fastly (NYSE:FSLY), Twilio (NYSE:TWLO), and Shopify (NYSE:SHOP). Here's why.
Fastly: Buy this stock fast
Danny Vena (Fastly): It's been a rollercoaster ride for Fastly investors in 2020. The content delivery network (CDN) and edge computing specialist had been on a mind-boggling run, gaining 540% through early October -- then the bottom dropped out. The company released preliminary third-quarter results on Oct. 14, giving investors pause. In the two weeks since that announcement, Fastly stock has lost nearly 48%.
You might think the news was simply awful, given the cratering stock price, but that simply wasn't the case. I would argue that while extenuating circumstances have taken Fastly out behind the woodshed, investors with a long-term outlook should view this as a buying opportunity. Here's why.
In conjunction with its acquisition of cybersecurity provider Signal Sciences, Fastly gave a sneak peek at its results, saying that its revenue would be about 5% lower than it first estimated, in a range of $70 million to $71 million, down from its initial guidance of $73.5 million to $75.5 million.
Management gave investors a couple of reasons for the revised outlook. Usage by its largest customer -- which has previously been revealed as TikTok parent ByteDance -- was lower than expected, due to the "uncertain geopolitical environment." But it turned out TikTok wasn't the only culprit, as "a few customers had lower usage" than management estimated late in the quarter.
Since Fastly's revenue is based on usage, it's hard to fault management for its inability to peg exactly how much its various customers would use its services, so I'm willing to give the company a pass on that. I think it's the TikTok factor that's the biggest issue for investors, since the platform was responsible for 12% of Fastly's revenue in the most recent quarter.
The Trump administration has been dogging the heels of the viral video platform, citing national security concerns and a risk to user data. President Donald Trump has worked to ban the app, but a federal judge granted TikTok a temporary injunction back in September, effectively staying the ban. At the same time, Oracle and Walmart have entered into a deal to buy TikTok's U.S. operations and Trump has given his tentative blessing to the deal.
The former issue is still working its way through the courts, but with the U.S. election next week, I would say the time to buy Fastly is now. The court seemed reticent to allow the ban, so if the injunction is upheld, Fastly could soar. Additionally, if there's a change in administration, the point could be moot, the result of different priorities, again benefiting Fastly.
I'm not just giving empty advice, either: I added to my Fastly position just last week.
Expanding on an already massive opportunity
Brian Withers (Twilio): Twilio was founded to make software-driven communications easier. It has a set of easy-to-embed communication-based application programming interfaces (APIs) and makes money on each communication message that's created as software developers use the APIs to enable a company's applications to initiate calls, texts, emails, and even video chats. This might be an automated call to remind you of an upcoming appointment, a text message letting you know that your package was delivered, or an email that your prescription is ready for pickup. This robust communication platform has turned into an impressive business.
Twilio just announced solid results from its third quarter ended Sept. 30. The top line grew 52% year-over-year to reach $448 million for the quarter, beating analysts consensus of $407 million. Its dollar-based net expansion rate was 137%, up from 132% for the same quarter a year ago, and its adjusted net income per share beat analysts' expectations to come in at a positive $0.04. The company is still losing money under generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) as it focused on growth rather than profits. But investors shouldn't worry too much about the $112 million GAAP loss from operations for the quarter, as its $3.3 billion in cash and marketable securities on its balance sheet will keep the company afloat for years.
The company's addressable market for digital communications is an impressive $62 billion for 2020, growing to $87 billion by 2023. With $1.5 billion in trailing-12-month revenue, it has less than a 3% share of the market. But its market is set to get even bigger. In mid-October, Twilio announced an all-stock $3.2 billion acquisition of Segment, a customer data platform company. This platform collects data from disparate data sources across the enterprise, such as a consumer's browsing history on the company website, the text from a customer service chat, or a post made on the company's social media page. Once this data is consolidated, it can provide a 360-degree view of the customer, allowing the business teams inside the enterprise to get to know their customers better. This adds an estimated $17 billion in market opportunity for Twilio.
After the acquisition closes sometime in the fourth quarter, investors will get a better idea of Segment's revenue, and the opportunities to cross-sell and integrate the products. But on the surface, this acquisition looks like a great fit. The customer data platform allows Twilio's APIs to plug into a rich data source on a company's customers to enable messaging to be more personalized, smarter, and targeted to better engage customers, which is something that Twilio's customers have been asking for.
Twilio's stock has pulled back from its recent 52-week high, and investors could scoop up an incredible growth story at this discounted price before the election. As the market comes to realize the massive opportunity still ahead for this proven operator, investors may not be able to get the stock at this price in the future.
This company will win big no matter who's president
Chris Neiger (Shopify): Shopify, an e-commerce platform company, has experienced explosive growth this year as many companies were forced to shift from their physical shops to online ones. Shopify's platform has allowed these businesses to adapt to the pandemic, and no matter who wins the election on Nov. 3, this company is poised for more growth.
In Shopify's third quarter (reported Oct. 28), the company's revenue skyrocketed 96% and its gross merchandise volume, the amount spent on Shopify's platform, jumped 109%. Additionally, the company's subscription revenue increased 48% from the year-ago quarter thanks to more merchants joining Shopify's platform.
As impressive as those figures are, Shopify is poised to continue growing for years to come. There's no end in sight to the pandemic right now, and even after it's long gone, many businesses have learned that they need to have a strong online presence to continue reaching customers who prefer online shopping.
E-commerce sales account for just 16% of all U.S. retail sales right now and as more businesses set up online shops many of them will use Shopify to get them up and running.
Shopify's stock is down 7% over the past three months (though its share price is up 146% year to date) which means that right now might be a good time to snatch up some shares before the stock begins climbing again.
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Square, Pinterest - >>> 3 Growth Stocks That Can Soar Even With a Coronavirus Vaccine
A return to normal wouldn't be bad news for these fast-growing companies.
Motley Fool
Sean Williams
Nov 12, 2020
https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/11/12/3-growth-stocks-that-can-soar-even-with-a-covid-19/
November has been wild for Wall Street. The week prior to the U.S. election saw equities nosedive, but since election night, the stock market has been virtually unstoppable.
The stock market really took off after Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) and BioNTech (NASDAQ:BNTX) reported an interim analysis of their late-stage coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine candidate, BNT162b2. This first look from an independent data monitoring committee showed vaccine effectiveness (VE) of over 90% for Pfizer's and BioNTech's therapeutic, which blew researchers' VE expectations out of the water.
There's still a lot of pending data, such as how at-risk groups fared and how long this vaccine provides protection, but there now appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel to the coronavirus disease pandemic. Unfortunately, that's been perceived as bad news for work-from-home stocks, which plummeted on the news of Pfizer's and BioNTech's success.
I'm here to tell you that high-growth work-from-home stocks can still thrive, even with a COVID-19 vaccine. Here are three growth stocks to consider buying on any significant weakness following this vaccine interim analysis data.
Pinterest
Despite getting clobbered on Monday, a COVID-19 vaccine isn't going to be able to derail Pinterest's (NYSE:PINS) momentum.
Social media stock Pinterest has certainly benefited from people having more downtime and being stuck at home, but it's not as if the company's user growth was slowing prior to the pandemic. In the most recent quarter, Pinterest tallied 442 million monthly active users (MAU), which was 120 million MAUs higher than the prior-year period. In the four years prior to the pandemic, Pinterest's MAUs grew by an average of 30% a year. This innovative and popular platform is drawing eyeballs, COVID-19 or not.
One of the keys to Pinterest's rapid growth is the company's ability to lure new international users. Though average revenue per user (ARPU) in overseas markets is considerably lower than ARPU in the U.S., Pinterest has demonstrated that it can double international ARPU many times over this decade.
Pinterest also has the makings of a burgeoning e-commerce platform. Since Pinterest's MAUs are willingly posting about the products, places, and services that interest them, it only makes sense for the company to connect these Pinners with small businesses that cater to those desires. According to the company, 89% of Pinners use Pinterest as their inspiration when making a purchase.
Pinterest can double its sales every four years, COVID-19 vaccine or not.
Square
Another growth stock that took a beating following the new BNT162b2 data is fintech stock Square (NYSE:SQ). With cash viewed as a harbinger of germs, interest in cashless payment platforms spiked during the pandemic. This interest is going to continue well after COVID-19 is put into the rearview mirror.
Most folks probably know Square best for its point-of-sale devices that have historically targeted smaller businesses. In the eight years leading up to the pandemic, gross payment volume (GPV) traversing Square's network surged to $106.2 billion, or 49% a year.
What's noteworthy about Square's oldest operating segment is that it's not just for small businesses anymore. In the third quarter, 61% of GPV was derived from businesses with at least $125,000 in annualized GPV (i.e., medium and large businesses). Since we're talking about a business segment driven by merchant fees, bigger businesses are liable to generate more revenue for Square.
Even more impressive has been Square's peer-to-peer payment platform Cash App. In the 30-month stretch following the end of 2017, Cash App's user count more than quadrupled to 30 million, with the app becoming especially popular among young adults. Cash App enables Square to make money from transfer fees, bitcoin exchange fees, investment fees, and merchant fees. By as soon as next year, this should be Square's leading gross profit generator.
This company isn't going to take its foot off the gas, no matter what happens with a vaccine.
Okta
On Monday, Wall Street was very concerned about the potential for cloud-based companies moving forward. While the brick-and-mortar work environment was never going away, it'd be foolish (with a small "f") to think that we're going to see cloud spending slow in any meaningful way. This is especially true for cloud-focused security companies like Okta (NASDAQ:OKTA).
If the past few quarters have taught us anything, it's that cloud security is now a basic-need service. No matter how the U.S. economy is performing, hackers and robots are active. Businesses of all sizes will need security products moving forward as consumers push online and employees favor remote work environments.
Another key advantage of Okta, which specifically handles identity verification, is its reliance on artificial intelligence to drive results. Okta's machine-learning technology makes its cybersecurity solutions smarter over time, which helps the company identity threats more effectively. The quality of the company's cybersecurity solutions has played a big role in helping it sign up new clients, as well as in encouraging existing users to spend more.
It's also worth pointing out that Okta's business model is built atop subscriptions. The cybersecurity subscription model is designed to achieve high margins and reduce customer churn.
COVID-19 vaccine or not, Okta has the potential to generate consistent double-digit growth throughout the decade.
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>>> Apple is taking control, and a risky bet, with its M1 chip
Yahoo Finance
by Daniel Howley
Technology Editor
November 11, 2020
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-m1-chip-taking-control-and-a-risky-bet-205657151.html
Apple is trying what no other computer company has been able to pull off
Apple’s most widely known product, by a country mile, is its iPhone. It’s the device that has helped turn the company into an empire and pushed its market valuation past the $2 trillion mark in August, a first for a publicly traded U.S. company.
And while the new iPhone 12 lineup is expected to kickstart a major increase in device upgrades and sales, the biggest news out of Apple (AAPL) in 2020 has little to do with its popular smartphone. Instead, the company’s most significant advancement in years comes in the form of its new M1 system on a chip, or SoC.
Apple CEO Tim Cook introduced a trio of new Mac products powered by the company's first M1 chip, replacing Intel's processors in its laptops and desktop products.
The tiny piece of silicon, which Apple debuted during a virtual press conference out of its Cupertino, California, headquarters on Tuesday, is the first of its own design to power its Mac line of products. As Wedbush analyst Dan Ives puts it, the chip “has been a vision 15 years in the making in Cupertino.”
With the new chip, Apple isn’t just signaling that it’s no longer willing to remain beholden to Intel’s (INTC) product pipelines and delays. It’s telling the world that it’s about to transform everything from how users interact with their favorite apps to what they should expect of their laptops and desktops.
But it’s a risky bet. Other companies have tried to use Arm-based chips in laptops before, but couldn’t squeeze out the kind of power Apple is touting. If it fails, the firm’s carefully laid plans could crumble beneath the weight of its goals.
Apple is making some big promises
During its announcement, Apple said that its new M1 chip offers improvements over leading PC processors in terms of both CPU and GPU performance, hitting right at the heart of Intel and AMD (AMD). In a statement, the firm said the M1 has “the fastest integrated GPU in the world,” and features “the world’s fastest CPU cores in low-power silicon.”
From a practical standpoint that means, as Apple tells it, that its new MacBook Air will offer 3.5 times the CPU performance and 5 times the GPU performance of the previous generation Air, all while extending battery life from 12 hours of video playback to a whopping 18 hours. What’s more, the Air won’t have an internal fan, so you won’t have to listen to the annoying whir of your laptop as it struggles to cool itself down while streaming Netflix.
The MacBook Pro, meanwhile, gets a 2.8 times faster CPU thanks to the M1 chip and a 5 times faster GPU. That’s a massive gain for a system that professionals rely on for things like high-end video and photo editing. Oh, and it gets, according to Apple, 20 hours of battery life when using video playback.
What makes this all the more impressive is that Apple is doing this using what’s referred to as a 5-nanometer process, which generally refers to the size of the transistors packed into a chip. Transistors are, more or less, on/off gates on a processor that allow it to perform instructions. The smaller the transistor, the more tightly it can be packed onto a chip alongside other transistors, allowing for greater energy efficiency and power. Apple’s chip, for instance, holds 16 billion transistors.
With the M1, Apple has jumped past both Intel and AMD in terms of sophistication. Intel still hasn’t delivered its 10-nm processors for desktops and, in its latest earnings report, announced delays for its 7-nm chips, sending its stock price plummeting. AMD, meanwhile, is currently using 7-nm chips.
If that weren’t enough, Apple is doing something that no other laptop or desktop maker has done before: using Arm-based processors, which have been traditionally found in low-power machines like smartphones and tablets, to power full-fledged laptops and desktops.
We’ve seen companies like HP and Microsoft (MSFT) use Arm-based Qualcomm (QCOM) processors to power their own laptops before, and while they’ve provided impressive battery life, the performance just wasn’t there.
That’s what makes Apple’s bet so massive. It’s aiming to do something other firms simply haven’t been able to accomplish: taking its own Arm-based chips and crushing the likes of Intel in terms of performance and power efficiency. If it fails, it will sour some of the company’s most loyal fans and could push them to Intel and AMD-based Windows PCs.
And the three Macs the company unveiled are just the beginning. Apple is going to use Arm-based chips throughout its entire laptop and desktop lineup by 2022.
And what about those apps?
So, Apple wants to make its chips its own secret sauce. But what does that have to do with apps? Well, since Apple is leaning on the same style of chip used in its iPhone and iPad, that means the majority of iOS and iPadOS apps will be usable on Macs.
That opens up Apple’s laptops and desktops to the millions of apps available through the App Store. That could be a game changer for Apple, which would bring users access to their favorite apps to the very laptops and desktops they’re now using more than ever due to the pandemic.
Those apps aren’t just going to be the same version from your smartphone slapped onto your Mac’s display with loads of distortions, either. They’ll function as full Mac apps complete with their own windows.
The App Store has been a goldmine for Apple, and to open it up to even more devices could allow for use cases that developers haven’t imagined before.
“We view the chip announcement as the first step of many more on the horizon in our opinion as Cupertino takes the reigns of its architecture and the cross pollination between software and hardware become ubiquitous over the coming years,” Ives wrote in a research note following Apple’s announcement.
Apple is taking control
Of course, it’s important to point out that Apple’s move is also a pragmatic one. Apple coughed up $2.9 billion for Intel’s processors in 2019. By ditching Intel, it cuts out the need to pay the firm for its chips, and allows it to create desktop and laptop experiences more akin to what you’d expect from an iPhone and iPad.
That means a more seamless user experience with advanced features like instantly waking from sleep like the iPhone. How that plays out down the line remains to be seen. But for now, Apple is clearly taking control of its own future — and placing some big bets on it.
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Adobe - >>> 3 Recession-Ready Stocks to Buy Right Now
https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/10/29/3-recession-ready-stocks-to-buy-right-now/
Adobe
Software giant Adobe arguably isn't as recession-resilient as consumer staple leader Clorox, but it's one of the safest growth stocks on the market today. Although Adobe has been around for decades, it's really the last five years that have marked a truly breakout time period for the company.
In 2011, Adobe released its Creative Cloud suite, which bundled together recognizable editing and graphic design software like Acrobat, Photoshop, and Illustrator. In 2013, it shifted its pricing model from selling its software to selling a subscription to use its software -- one of the first successful software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies. After some pushback and grumbling by customers over the new pricing model, the strategy ultimately became a success. Over the past five years, Adobe's revenue has more than doubled, but more importantly, its earnings have increased an astounding 370% thanks to higher profitability.
To this day, customers still gripe about the high cost of Adobe's Creative Cloud. Like it or not, the software package is the staple for high school and college students, self-employed professionals, and the largest corporations in the world. Looking ahead, Adobe expects 2020 to be another record-breaking year, with fourth-quarter revenue forecasted to be $3.35 billion, a 12% increase compared to the fourth quarter of Fiscal Year 2019.
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>>> Ansys collaborates with Microsoft to enhance cloud engineering productivity for customers
Yahoo Finance
October 29, 2020
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ansys-collaborates-microsoft-enhance-cloud-110000018.html
Expanded strategic collaboration brings more engineering simulation solutions to Microsoft Azure
The collaboration brings together the complementary strengths of both companies to benefit engineers needing to bring products to market and make sure they are optimized and safe.
Key Highlights
Ansys is teaming with Microsoft to deploy public cloud high-performance computing (HPC) and digital twin solutions that will significantly advance the state of the art in engineering simulation across several key industries
The integration of Ansys' simulation solutions with Microsoft Azure cloud, HPC, digital twin and IoT services helps customers increase productivity, cut development costs and speed time to market
Ansys (NASDAQ: ANSS) is teaming with Microsoft to advance the state of the art in engineering simulation across industries, including industrial manufacturing and automotive. Integrated with Microsoft Azure cloud, HPC, digital twin and IoT services, Ansys' solutions will empower customers to swiftly solve some of the most challenging engineering problems imaginable — substantially increasing productivity, cutting development costs and expediting time to market.
Ansys® Cloud™, the underlying platform for running Ansys products in the cloud, integrates Azure cloud and HPC services with Ansys flagship simulation technologies. Since its initial release, Ansys Cloud continues to add powerful new capabilities. Supporting more physics-based solvers than ever, the new features will enable customers to use their existing software licenses and reduce modeling run times by increasing cores per job. Additionally, the features will deliver tremendous price-performance improvements and incorporate customers' existing Azure contracts. This will make it easier for larger organizations that have traditionally leveraged on-premises HPC to migrate to Ansys Cloud — equipping teams with extra capacity during peak usage.
"As a strategic partner and customer of both Microsoft and Ansys, our engineering teams will accelerate their product development processes with these dynamic new cloud capabilities," said Scot Tutkovics, vice president, engineering operations, Rockwell Automation. "Adding Ansys Cloud to our existing technology infrastructure sped up our simulations by 50% and we have solved larger problems with more accuracy. Together, we are boosting engineering productivity and driving top-line impact, even while our engineers work from home."
Additionally, Ansys is working with Microsoft to integrate Microsoft Azure Digital Twins with Ansys® Twin Builder™ to help customers better understand the current and future performance of operational assets. Employing physics and simulation-based analytics, users can markedly enhance operations — decreasing product maintenance costs and expediting next-generation products to market. Ansys' runtime digital twins will be natively represented in Azure Digital Twins. Feedback from early adopters across several industries is positive and Ansys and Microsoft engineers are working closely together to power the program's success.
Ansys is also collaborating with Microsoft to offer cloud-enabled autonomous vehicle (AV) simulation capabilities to joint customers. Ansys VRXPERIENCE, an AV virtual test platform, can unlock massive scalability when run on Azure, empowering users to test drive millions of virtual miles across countless scenarios in an expedient manner — greatly optimizing safety and development costs. The platform's general availability is planned for January 2021 and Ansys is exploring joint go-to-market opportunities with Microsoft.
"The rise of scalable, affordable, high-powered public cloud computing and IoT breakthroughs runs in parallel with our customers' view of simulation as a strategic differentiator," said Ajei S. Gopal, CEO at Ansys. "Bringing these elements together can significantly boost the impact and reach of simulation and equip Ansys' vast user community to rapidly design and deliver transformational products on time and under budget."
"Our collaboration brings together Azure's compute and IoT capabilities with Ansys' simulation excellence to help businesses across industries transform at scale," said Scott Guthrie, executive vice president, Cloud + AI at Microsoft. "During a time when autonomous systems are on the rise, Ansys will enable cloud engineers to increase productivity and accelerate the delivery of innovative solutions."
About Ansys
If you've ever seen a rocket launch, flown on an airplane, driven a car, used a computer, touched a mobile device, crossed a bridge or put on wearable technology, chances are you've used a product where Ansys software played a critical role in its creation. Ansys is the global leader in engineering simulation. Through our strategy of Pervasive Engineering Simulation, we help the world's most innovative companies deliver radically better products to their customers. By offering the best and broadest portfolio of engineering simulation software, we help them solve the most complex design challenges and create products limited only by imagination. Founded in 1970, Ansys is headquartered south of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. Visit www.ansys.com for more information.
Ansys and any and all ANSYS, Inc. brand, product, service and feature names, logos and slogans are registered trademarks or trademarks of ANSYS, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States or other countries. All other brand, product, service and feature names or trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
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Datto Holding (MSP) - >>> Could This IPO Be the Next Shopify?
Datto is on a mission to bring big IT to small and medium businesses. Here's what investors should look for.
Motley Fool
by PT Lathrop
Oct 30, 2020
https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/10/30/could-this-ipo-be-the-next-shopify/
Investors have seen time and again how some platforms can turn small businesses into big profits. Shopify (NYSE:SHOP) was a pioneer in helping small businesses establish themselves online, and its stock has soared more than 3,000% over the last five years. Square (NYSE:SQ) cut its teeth by empowering small business with payment systems and services. Now meet Datto (NYSE:MSP), which went public on Oct. 21 with a mission to bring big IT solutions to small and medium businesses (SMBs). Unlike many recent IPOs, the company just turned profitable . Here are three key indicators that could give investors confidence that Datto's story and stock has a bright future.
1. Landing more MSPs
Datto's ticker, MSP, is an homage to its unique strategy. SMBs often can't manage their own information technology needs. Imagine you own a local chain of bakeries, or a dentistry practice. You want to access and protect your and your customers' data easily, but you didn't acquire networking and cybersecurity skills at culinary or dental school. Additionally, your business may not be big enough to invest in your own IT department, with multiple contracts from multiple vendors.
For these reasons, many small businesses turn to "managed service providers," or MSPs, essentially one-stop shops that provide IT solutions. The total addressable market here is very big and growing. According to Datto's S-1 filing, SMBs spend $159 billion on IT annually. We can reasonably expect that figure to keep growing, since all businesses need software, data storage, and security. 125,000 MSPs currently manage about 10% of that market .
Datto offers a data storage and security platform to MSPs, which they in turn can offer their customers. This model allows Datto's customers more efficiency, since they can consolidate much of their work onto Datto's platform. It also allows MSPs to focus more of their time on growing their business relationships, rather than getting bogged down troubleshooting: They have Datto for that. Essentially, Datto is the MSP for MSPs.
This strategy seems to be paying off. Datto currently has 17,000 MSP customers. That's a nice diverse customer base and healthy 14% of the market. A growing market also invites growing competition. If Datto is going to be a multibagger from its current $4.4 billion market cap, it needs to not only keep market share, but also grow its market share
2. Expanding with MSPs
Datto has shown its ability to grow relationships so far. Its S-1 filing shows a dollar-based net retention rate of 115% for the 12 months ending June 30, 2020 and 119% in the previous fiscal year. For comparison, the more enterprise-focused cloud storage company, Box, recently reported a 106% net retention rate for the year ending July 31, 2020. . Datto has a three-pronged approach to growing revenues with existing MSP partners.
The first involves helping MSPs get Datto services to even more SMB customers. Datto invests heavily into this initiative. If offers a wide variety of tools, from books to videos, that help MSPs with marketing, pricing, customer service, and even hiring. Datto prices its technology to MSPs in tiers, and as the MSPs expand or bring new business into the Datto ecosystem, it can push them into higher pricing tiers . More on this later.
The second opportunity is to offer more solutions to the MSP business. One key product here is Datto's "Autotask Professional Services Automation," (PSA) -- essentially, software that helps MSPs triage, assign, and track workflow. There is plenty of competition in this arena as well. Datto has a bit of network effect going for it: If an MSP is already tied into the Datto platform for its customers, it might be more likely to use Datto's PSA software as well.
The third growth driver lies in expanding Datto's solutions for SMBs. The company's current focus is backup and recovery service, helping that imaginary dental office access your records even when their systems crash. That's a smart place to start, since different businesses all share that same need. For Datto to grow into a megacap cloud king, investors should look for new successful products and services for SMBs, additional business solutions for MSPs, and that net retention rate to stay above 100% for the foreseeable future.
3. Top line, bottom line
Since 94% of Datto's revenue comes from subscriptions, the company tends to highlight its annual run-rate revenue, the yearly value of all its current subscriptions . Whether investors chose to use that metric or the slightly more inclusive net revenue, they should hope for some acceleration in top-line growth. Datto grew its year-over-year subscription revenue nearly 20% for the six months ending June 30.
That kind of revenue growth is great ... unless you're a cloud software company. Other companies in the broader industry are posting revenue growth rates of 65% and even 121% . Granted, those companies, JFrog and Snowflake, come at much higher premiums. Nonetheless, if Datto is going to grow to be the dominant cloud services provider for SMBs through their network of MSPs, it may need get those network effects compounding and grow revenue above 19%.
Datto has not garnered as much media attention as other IPOs. That might work in investors' favor. Small companies will continue to need more and more technology solutions to compete. Most small businesses will look to their local MSP partners. If Datto emerges as the top dog in this space in the long term, its potential could easily turn this $4 billion company into a 10-bagger.
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>>> Datto Holding Corp. (MSP) provides cloud-based software and technology solutions for delivery through the managed service provider (MSP) channel to small and medium businesses in the United States and internationally. Its Unified Continuity products include Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery that protects servers and workstations, and minimize downtime; Cloud Continuity, an image-based continuity solution for Windows-based laptops and desktops; SaaS Protection, an automated and secure backup and restoration product; Workplace, a cloud-hosted file sync and share solution, which enable end-users to synchronize files across platforms, including mobile devices; and File Protection, an MSP-managed secure and scalable backup product that enables MSPs to protect and recover files and folders on workstations and laptops. The company's networking Products comprise access points, switches, edge routers, and managed power devices. Its business management products that consists of Autotask Professional Services Automation, an IT business management product; and remote monitoring and management. The company was formerly known as Merritt Topco, Inc. and changed its name to Datto Holding Corp. in January 2020. Datto Holding Corp. was incorporated on 2017 and is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut.
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>>> The Biggest Techs Can Get Bigger—and More Profitable. A Veteran Analyst Tells Why.
Barron's
By Al Root
Oct. 16, 2020
https://www.barrons.com/articles/a-veteran-analyst-on-why-the-biggest-techs-will-get-bigger-51602871471?siteid=yhoof2
Veteran analyst Steve Milunovich explains why Nvidia, Shopify, and ServiceNow have staying power.
When Steve Milunovich started his career as a technology analyst in 1983, personal computers were just starting to become ubiquitous. He didn’t have email for another decade.
In the 37 years since, he’s been a critical, and crucial, observer of virtually every technological trend—and every company behind it—through decades of political and cultural change. Investors and business leaders have been wise to listen to him; those who didn’t often regretted it. In 2003, Milunovich penned an open letter to Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy warning that the company needed to embrace Linux or risk irrelevance. Sun stock peaked in 2000 at $258.63. Oracle (ticker: ORCL) bought Sun in 2010 for $9.50 a share.
In 2010, he recommended Tesla (TSLA) stock, and referred to Elon Musk as the next Steve Jobs. Tesla has earned investors about 59% a year over the past decade.
Calls like those landed Milunovich in Institutional Investor’s All-America Research Team Hall of Fame; he recently retired after many years at Wolfe Research. Barron’s sat down with Milunovich—virtually, of course—to hear his views on tech after all these years. An edited version of that conversation follows.
Barron’s: The Nasdaq is up 31% this year, crushing the S&P 500’s 7%. Are we heading into a bubble?
Steve Milunovich: Today does rhyme, at least, with the [1999] tech bubble. And valuations are at extremes. You’ve got day traders coming back, and SPACs [special purpose acquisition companies]. Those all seem to be signs of excess exuberance.
Tech investors who have a bit of a value bias, or just can’t buy stocks at 30 times sales, are extremely frustrated. Many of them were around during the [dot-com] bubble, and they’re waiting for this to blow up. They’re saying, “We know how this ends. We just don’t know when.” To some degree, I’m in that camp. Even growth investors are concerned. In 1999, everybody understood it was getting crazy. But if you weren’t in Yahoo! and other stocks that were hot, you were underperforming and at risk of losing your job. Today has some similarities to that. From a fundamental standpoint, it does feel different. We’re beyond valuing eyeballs.
True, the metric of price-to-eyeballs was used to justify impossible price/earnings ratios. Today, cloud-based software companies like Zoom Video Communications [ZM] and Salesforce.com [CRM] are trading at triple-digit P/Es, while others, like Slack [WORK], lack earnings. Is that justifiable?
A lot of these software-as-a-service companies do have visibility on business. You can make a case that with 30% revenue growth and [improving] margins, some of these valuations are justified. And the current ability to generate free cash flow is a difference between today and the tech bubble.
And the coronavirus has sped up the pace of tech adoption.
Covid-19 has been a real accelerant to digital transformation—and Covid is hanging around. When I talk to resellers, they believe that over half of employees will not go back to offices. There’s an increasing belief that there’s a secular tailwind here.
There’s concern, however, that the economy could not come back; that’s an issue even for software companies. And I still worry about valuations. We are also now seeing the promise of the internet that people back then anticipated. We are seeing technology become pervasive in its effect on other industries. The total addressable markets for these companies is much bigger than forecasted.
What’s a big trend you’re watching?
Perhaps the most important thing in the last five to 10 years is the rise of the platform company—a company that sits between two user groups and benefits from network effects. It really is a different form of corporate structure. It inverts the corporation, so that the value is created outside the corporate walls [by others].
Define platform company.
There are two types of platform companies. [First] are platforms that create a transaction between a buyer and a seller, like Uber Technologies [UBER]. The platform company is in the middle, taking a piece of every transaction. The other type is the ecosystem company. Microsoft [MSFT] and Apple [AAPL] create ecosystems with lots of third-party value. Amazon.com [AMZN], Alphabet [GOOGL], and Facebook [FB] are ecosystem-style platform companies. Also Alibaba [BABA] and maybe Tencent [TCEHY]. Visa [V] and Mastercard [MA] are in our tech universe. You can debate that.
Those are huge companies.
Nine of the 10 largest tech companies by market value are platform companies. They’ve been getting stronger as they get bigger, and that, of course, brings antitrust concerns. They get huge because they have very fast revenue growth, because of increasing returns—the more buyers, the more sellers; the more sellers, the more buyers. You get very profitable companies. They still have three to five years of double-digit earnings growth in front of them.
What could limit their growth?
When you look back at technology leaders, they tend to fall off over time. There comes a point where size works against you. That hasn’t yet happened to these companies. So we’re in the middle innings, before size becomes a problem. IBM [IBM] and Microsoft went through their issues. Antitrust challenges definitely affected their ability to operate, and caused them to be less aggressive than they might have been otherwise.
But on the positive side, it wasn’t antitrust that got them—it was disruptive technology. In the case of IBM, it was the rise of the microprocessor that changed the economics of computing. For Microsoft, it was first the internet, and later mobile, which they missed.
What’s the next disruptive trend?
The new technologies we all think about: the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, autonomous driving. The platform companies are leaders in those areas; they have the resources. I don’t yet see smaller companies that are going to put them on their back feet.
You’re not concerned that these platform giants will be broken up?
There is certainly some risk; I don’t think it’s going to be the death knell. Breaking them up is negative for consumers, and historically U.S. antitrust regulation uses consumer harm as the criterion. Breaking up a Facebook or a Google would probably reduce the network-effect benefit of the multiple businesses they are in. Regulators might take away the ability to make acquisitions; that‘s concerning. Now everybody looks back and says, “Oh, Facebook shouldn’t be allowed to buy Instagram,” although, at the time, nobody knew Instagram was going to be anything like what it is today.
U.S.-China relations have been deteriorating. What do you foresee?
The China situation goes well beyond the trade concerns we had last year. It’s a philosophical issue in terms of the way the two countries want to run their governments. There’s plenty of evidence that China has stolen U.S. technology for many years, and put companies like Motorola and Nortel in very difficult positions. Espionage helped Huawei [China’s largest tech conglomerate] create products comparable to Nortel and other comm-equipment vendors, then [China] underpriced them. To its credit, the Trump administration woke up to that. China wants to become a technology power. It needs indigenous capabilities. The one thing it has not had is semiconductors.
Semiconductors are used in virtually every electronic device.
I would argue that Taiwan Semiconductor [TSM] has become the most important tech company in the world. Intel [INTC] is having problems; it has fallen behind in fabrication tech and has suffered product delays. TSM is fabbing [fabricating] 80% of the semis used in the U.S. It might actually build a fab in the U.S. in the next four years.
China wants to build its own semi industry. But the equipment makers and software makers are American. The U.S. is trying to hit Huawei and not allow it to buy semiconductors from the U.S. We allow them to buy semiconductor capital equipment and tools—but they can’t design semiconductors if they don’t have software. Probably the status quo will be maintained: The U.S. will limit certain technologies, but a total cutoff of U.S.-based semiconductor-tools technology would cause repercussions.
Any favorite stocks?
[At Wolfe Research] we did a more quantitative screen with a mix of fundamental technical and quantitative factors. When you look at some of the big outperformers over the last six to 12 months—names like Shopify [SHOP], Nvidia [NVDA], ServiceNow [NOW], PayPal [PYPL]—these companies, I do believe, have sustaining powers. They are category creators.
The most powerful thing a tech company can do is create a new category, and then become the leading brand within that category. Nvidia, for example. It basically created the category of GPUs, graphical processing units [for video games]. Shopify is a fascinating company; it’s the back office for everyone that wants to compete with Amazon. ServiceNow wants to be the enterprise software company for the 21st century. It started providing IT service management—tracking IT assets and providing help-desk support—and has branched out into customer and human-resources service management. One reseller we spoke with said, “You’re either a ServiceNow customer today, or you will be.”
Thanks Steve.
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>>> Wix.com Ltd (WIX), together with its subsidiaries, develops and markets a cloud-based platform that enables anyone to create a website or web application in North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia, and internationally. The company offers Wix Editor, a drag-and-drop visual development and website editing environment platform; Wix ADI that enables users to create a website for their specific needs; and Corvid by Wix to create websites and web applications. It also provides Ascend by Wix, which offers its users access to a suite of approximately 20 products or features enabling them to connect with their customers, automate their work, and grow their business; Wix Logo Maker that allows users to generate a logo using artificial intelligence; Wix Answers, a support infrastructure enabling its users to help their users across various channels; and Wix Payments, a payment platform, which helps its users receive payments from their users through their Wix Website. In addition, the company offers various vertical-specific applications that business owners use to operate various aspects of their business online. Further, it provides a range of complementary services, including App Market that offers its registered users the ability to install and uninstall a range of free and paid web applications; Wix Arena, an online marketplace that brings users seeking help in creating and managing a website, together with Web experts; and Wix App, a native mobile application, which enables users to manage their Websites and Wix operating systems. As of December 31, 2019, the company had approximately 165 million registered users and 4.5 million premium subscriptions. The company was formerly known as Wixpress Ltd. Wix.com Ltd. was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel.
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>>> Alteryx, Inc. (AYX) provides end-to-end analytics platform for data analysts and scientists worldwide. Its software platform includes Alteryx Designer, a data profiling, preparation, blending, and analytics product used to create visual workflows or analytic processes; Alteryx Server, a server-based product for scheduling, sharing, and running analytic processes and applications in a Web-based environment; Alteryx Connect, a collaborative data exploration platform for discovering information assets and sharing recommendations across the enterprise; and Alteryx Promote, an analytics model management product for data scientists and analytics teams to build, manage, monitor, and deploy predictive models into real-time production applications. The company also offers Alteryx Analytics Gallery, a cloud-based collaboration offering that allows users to share workflows in a centralized repository; and Alteryx Community, which allow users to gain valuable insights in its platform. In addition, it provides technical support, instruction, and customer services. The company was formerly known as Alteryx, LLC and changed its name to Alteryx, Inc. in March 2011. Alteryx, Inc. was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in Irvine, California.
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>>> ExlService Holdings (EXLS), Inc. provides operations management and analytics services in the United States, the United Kingdom, and internationally. The company offers business process management (BPM) services to the insurance industry in the areas of claims processing, subrogation, premium and benefit administration, agency management, account reconciliation, policy research, underwriting support, new business processing, policy servicing, premium audit, surveys, billing and collection, commercial and residential survey, and customer services. It also provides BPM services related to the care management, utilization management, multi-chronic case management, disease management, payment integrity, revenue optimization, and customer engagement for the healthcare industry; BPM services related to business processes in corporate and leisure travel, such as reservations, customer service, fulfillment, and finance and accounting; and finance and accounting BPM services, including procure-to-pay, order-to-cash, hire-to-retire, record-to-report, regulatory reporting, financial planning and analysis, audit and assurance, and treasury and tax processes. In addition, the company offers BPM services for banking and financial services industry comprising residential mortgage lending, retail banking and credit cards, commercial banking, and investment management; BPM services related to enhancing operating models, enhancing customer experience, reducing costs, shortening turnaround time, and simplifying compliance for clients; and industry-specific digital transformational services. Further, it provides predictive and prescriptive analytics in the areas of customer acquisition and lifecycle management, risk underwriting and pricing, operational effectiveness, credit and operational risk monitoring and governance, regulatory reporting, and data management. The company was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in New York, New York.
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Apple - >>> 3 Warren Buffett Stocks You Can Buy and Hold Forever
These three very different companies have one thing in common: Each can continue to grow for decades to come.
Motley Fool
by Danny Vena
Sep 16, 2020
https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/09/16/3-warren-buffett-stocks-you-can-buy-and-hold-forev/
Let's get this out of the way right up front: Forever is a very long time and it almost seems disingenuous to suggest it. In all honesty, nobody knows what will happen tomorrow or a year from now, let alone in five or ten years' time -- or forever.
That said, Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A) (NYSE:BRK.B) CEO Warren Buffett has said, "Our favorite holding period is forever." And given his enviable track record, investors could do far worse than following his example. Since Buffett took the helm of Berkshire Hathaway in 1965, the company has had a compound annual growth rate of more than 20%, and by the end of 2019, its total returns have grown to a whopping 2,744,062%.
There are a number of criteria investors can use to increase the likelihood that a stock will still be successful decades from now. Buying a firmly entrenched industry leader, a company with a track record of innovation, or one with the ability to adapt to changing conditions can all improve your chances of success. Let's look at why Visa (NYSE:V), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) represent great "forever" stocks.
1. Payments titan Visa
When it comes to dominating the payments industry, Visa (NYSE:V) simply has no equal, accounting for more than 53% of U.S. credit card network purchase volume, totaling nearly $2 trillion in payments processed -- more than all three of its biggest competitors combined.
The company has another huge advantage over its chief rivals, particularly in times of economic uncertainty: While it processes payments, it's not a lender. Unemployment rates, while showing marked improvement in recent months, are still near record highs, raising the risk of credit delinquency and default.
Not content to rest on its laurels, Visa recently made a big bet on fintech, spending more than $5 billion to acquire financial technology provider Plaid. While the company wasn't a household name, many have used it without knowing it, as its technology secures users' financial information while connecting their bank accounts to a growing number of financial apps.
There's a whole big world out there and Visa still has international markets to conquer. The company estimates that cash is still used in annual purchases of more than $21 trillion and there are nearly 2 billion adults who don't yet have a payment account, showing the enormity of the opportunity that remains.
Buffett's still a believer, holding nearly 10 million Visa shares, worth almost $2 billion.
2. It's still Day One at Amazon
Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) dominates not one, but two industries: e-commerce and cloud computing.
While estimates vary, eMarketer contends that Amazon will account for 38% of online sales in the U.S. this year, while its nearest competitor Walmart will top out as less than 6%. Those estimates could prove conservative, as more consumers made the move to e-commerce in the midst of the pandemic. Amazon has also been working to increase its international penetration in recent years, so it too has worlds yet to conquer.
When it comes to cloud computing, Amazon popularized the notion and was among the first to recognize the massive opportunity. Being one of the first out of the blocks gave Amazon an advantage it still enjoys today. Amazon Web Services is still the undisputed leader in cloud computing, with a 33% share of the market -- more than its next three competitors combined, according to estimates by Synergy Research Group. It's also extremely lucrative, accounting for 25% of Amazon's sales and 65% of its operating income for the first half of 2020.
It may be the company's culture of innovation and expansion that makes it a forever stock, however. While Amazon began as an online bookseller, it has evolved into the "everything store." In addition to its e-commerce empire, the company has a sprawling logistics and delivery operation, a growing footprint in physical retail, leading streaming video and music offerings, and a massive artificial intelligence operation, including a growing ecosystem of Alexa-powered devices. Not to mention that Amazon has quickly become the third-largest digital advertiser in the country. And its Amazon Go stores -- which eliminate the need for cashiers -- are just getting started.
Buffett famously said that he regretted not investing in Amazon earlier. "I'm a fan [of Amazon], and I've been an idiot for not buying," Buffett said in an interview. It was one of Buffett's trusted money managers Todd Combs or Ted Weschler who eventually pulled the trigger.
That position has grown to more than half a million shares, valued at $1.66 billion.
3. Apple's prescient pivot
Apple is another company that has given new meaning to "industry-leading." While most companies would be happy with just one groundbreaking product, Apple has had several over the years. No competitor came close to the dominance of the iPod, a product Apple famously cannibalized with the introduction of the iPhone.
While the company has never been the global market share leader, iPhone has the distinction of gobbling up the majority of the profits. Apple captured about two-thirds of all profits in the global handset market last year, more than its next three competitors combined.
The company has other industry-leading products as well. The Apple Watch began as a sideline when it was introduced back in late 2014, but in just five short years, the device outsold the entire Swiss watch industry. Apple's wireless AirPods are another product line that dominates the market, accounting for nearly half of all sales in the category in 2019.
Apple is no longer counting on its fan-favorite products to fill its coffers. The company has worked to rapidly expand its services offerings over the past several years, with streaming music and video, mobile gaming, and digital payments, to name just a few. That strategy is bearing fruit, as services has grown to nearly 19% of Apple's trailing-12-month revenue, up from less than 12% just four years ago.
It's also worth noting that Apple is Buffett's largest holding, representing nearly half of Berkshire Hathaway's invested assets. "We bought about 5% of the company. I'd love to own 100% of it," Buffett said in a 2018 interview. "We like very much the economics of their activities. We like very much the management and the way they think." That's high praise indeed coming from one of the world's most successful investors.
But seriously, forever?
When it comes to investing, there are simply no guarantees, but choosing industry leaders with ongoing opportunities will certainly increase the likelihood of success. While Buffett's favorite holding period is forever, even the storied investor has sold distressed companies in beaten-down industries, with 2020 seeing his biggest turnover in years.
That said, it takes a certain caliber of company to become an industry leader, and it's even rarer to find those that simply dominate the competition. Each of these top-notch companies has what it takes to succeed for years and perhaps even decades to come.
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Alphabet, Facebook - >>> 4 Unstoppable Stocks to Buy With $2,500
It's easy to build wealth when you own top-notch stocks like these.
Motley Fool
Sean Williams
Sep 14, 2020
https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/09/14/4-unstoppable-stocks-to-buy-with-2500/
Investing in 2020 should really come with a disclaimer. The past six-plus months have been one of the most volatile periods on record, with the benchmark S&P 500 losing 34% of its value in less than five weeks, then regaining everything that was lost (and some) in the subsequent five months. This year has undeniably taught investors how fruitless it is to try to predict short-term market movements.
But at the same time, it's been a great year for long-term investors to buy into great companies on the cheap. With volatility picking back up over the past week and change, opportunity has come knocking yet again for long-term investors looking to buy into the market's most unstoppable stocks.
Best of all, long-term investors don't need to be rich to eventually become wealthy. If you have $2,500 that you can spare, which won't be needed to pay bills or cover emergencies, you have more than enough to buy the following four unstoppable stocks.
Alphabet
If you can get any sort of meaningful discount on shares of Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL), the parent company of Google and YouTube, I strongly suggest you consider taking it.
As you can imagine, Alphabet has been clobbered by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. As an ad-based business, Alphabet has seen companies of all sizes pull back on their spending, which led the company to report its first year-on-year sales decline since going public.
However, long-term investors would be smart not to read too much into this data. As a whole, GlobalStats finds that Google has accounted for between 92% and 93% of all online internet search (on a monthly basis) over the trailing year. It's the clear go-to when it comes to search ad placement, which means it'll boast considerable pricing power during the many long periods of economic expansion.
Alphabet's cloud infrastructure segment, Google Cloud, is also a stealthy fast-growing segment. It's no secret that cloud subscription margins are much higher than ad-based margins. With Google Cloud raking in over $3 billion in the second quarter and accounting for nearly 8% of Alphabet's total sales, it's going to be responsible for a significant uptick in the company's operating cash flow in the years that lie ahead.
Facebook
You don't have to get cute and find the hidden gem in the social media space. Just consider buying Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), which is far and away the most unstoppable social media presence.
Like Alphabet, Facebook's business model is driven by ad revenue. But in Facebook's case, ads make up an even larger percentage of total sales. This means COVID-19 concerns and recent questions about Facebook's filtering of hate speech have adversely impacted the company's near-term results.
And yet, despite the worst quarter for the U.S. economy in decades, Facebook still logged an 11% year-on-year sales increase during the June-ended quarter. That should tell you something about how important Facebook and its family of social media assets are to the advertising world.
As of June 30, Facebook had 2.7 billion monthly users, as well as 3.14 billion family monthly active users (family accounts include owned assets Instagram and WhatsApp). There's simply nowhere else that advertisers can go where they're going to get access to at least 2.7 billion targeted eyeballs, and Facebook knows it.
Furthermore, the company has only monetized a portion of its assets. The vast majority of current sales are derived from ad revenue on Facebook and Instagram, with Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp not yet monetized in any meaningful way. When the company does monetize these platforms, as well as rolls out additional initiatives beyond Facebook Pay, we could witness sky-high sales growth from a megacap company.
Teladoc Health
If you're not closely watching Teladoc Health (NYSE:TDOC), you're missing the blossoming of an industry giant and a company on the cutting edge of precision medicine.
As the name implies, Teladoc is a leading telemedicine company in the healthcare sector. It was already seeing a boon in businesses well before the pandemic struck. However, keeping sick and immunocompromised people out of hospitals and doctor's offices has made virtual visits that much more important. After generating $20 million in full-year sales in 2013, Teladoc might hit $1 billion this year, and top $2 billion by 2023.
Additionally, you should understand that telemedicine visits are a benefit to all parties. It puts less time constraint on physicians, provides convenience for the patient, and happens to be cheaper than in-office visits for health insurance companies. We're really just scratching the tip of the iceberg after Teladoc registered 2.8 million visits during the June-ended quarter.
Also, don't overlook Teladoc's transformative cash-and-stock merger with applied health signals company Livongo Health (NASDAQ:LVGO). Livongo gathers copious amounts of data on patients with chronic illnesses and, using artificial intelligence as an aid, sends these folks tips and nudges to incite lasting behavioral changes. What Livongo is doing is clearly working, as the company has delivered three consecutive quarterly profits and continues to double its year-over-year Diabetes member counts.
When combined, this duo will be unstoppable in the healthcare space.
Visa
It's rare when payment-processing giant Visa (NYSE:V) isn't kicking tail and taking names, but when those short periods of time do occur, it's important for long-term investors to pounce.
About the only way this freight train can be slowed down is during a recession. Visa witnessed gross dollar volume on its network decline in 2009 from the previous year, and it'll likely face that same fate in 2020 with the coronavirus pandemic briefly pushing the U.S. unemployment rate to levels not consistently seen since the 1930s. But it's going to be impossible to keep this well-oiled money machine down for long.
Working in Visa's favor is the fact that its success is tied to U.S. and global economic growth. Even though economic contractions and recessions are a natural part of the economic cycle, periods of expansion tend to last considerably longer than recessions.
Also, understand that Visa's sole purpose is to aid in the facilitation of payments. Unlike some of its competition, it's not a lender. The big advantage of staying away from lending is that it means no direct exposure to rising loan delinquencies during periods of contraction or recession. This is why Visa's gross margin is often at or above 50%.
Visa has the highest credit card market share by network purchase volume in the U.S., and more than doubles the share of its next-closest competitor. It's absolutely unstoppable in the payments space.
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Twilio, Okta, Shopify - >>> 3 Growth Stocks for In-the-Know Investors
It may pay to get to know these behind-the-scenes cloud platforms.
Brian Withers
Sep 13, 2020
https://finance.yahoo.com/m/9b4ebfde-cf46-3435-8cef-decb8416979f/3-growth-stocks-for.html?source=eptyholnk0000202&utm_source=yahoo-host&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=article&yptr=yahoo
Sometimes it takes a little digging to find a great opportunity. Investors who are willing to put in a little time to understand cloud software platforms Twilio (NYSE:TWLO), Okta (NASDAQ:OKTA), and Shopify (NYSE:SHOP) will be well rewarded. Let's look at why in-the-know investors love these behind-the-scenes operators that have become powerhouse growth stocks.
Twilio(TWLO): Enabling digital communications
Twilio is a communications platform that allows software developers to embed digital messaging capabilities into a company's existing applications. Twilio makes it easy for software to generate an email to let you know about a new product, produce a text message saying your delivery is delayed, or initiate a phone call reminding you of your medical appointment.
Since it was founded in 2008, the company has built a $1.4 billion annual revenue run-rate business with over 200,000 customers around the globe. Even in the throws of the coronavirus, the company posted solid 42% year-over-year growth for its most recent quarter ending June 30, 2020. A majority of its revenue (76%) comes from usage-based fees for each message, which has been highly successful in driving growth. Once on the platform, customers spend more as they find more ways to utilize its powerful messaging tools. Last quarter, this increase in customer spend drove an impressive 132% dollar-based net expansion.
In addition to messaging, the company has expanded into video communications and contact center tools. With a HIPAA-certified platform, its video tools have been instrumental in helping healthcare software platforms implement online medical appointments. As for contact centers, these are catching on too. Last quarter, it landed 25 coronavirus contact tracing center deals for university, city, and state government customers.
But the best may be yet to come. It has tapped only around 2% of its $66 billion addressable market, giving this communication specialist plenty of room to grow.
Okta(OKTA): Identity management made easy
It's a challenge for companies to secure their network applications from hackers and still make it easy for its employees to log in. But Okta has created an identity management solution that does both. Employees use a single sign-on to access to a dashboard of all the applications they use on a daily basis. It provides information technology teams powerful tools to manage secure access to corporate applications for employees and business-critical external partners.
Okta was born in the cloud era and has grown tremendously with the popularity of cloud-based applications. Today it serves 8,950 customers and integrates with more than 6,500 software tools. Revenue expanded 46% year over year in its most recent quarter ending July 31, 2020. Net dollar retention hit a solid 121% and large customers with annual contract values of $100,000 or more grew at an impressive 38% year over year.
As more customers sign on and more applications become integrated on the platform, this cloud security service specialist extends its leadership position even more. With trailing-12-month revenue of $703 million, it's captured a tiny 1.3% of its massive $55 billion market. That's something in-the-know investors can really get excited about.
Shopify: The backbone of small business e-commerce
E-commerce stocks have been riding a huge wave of activity as consumers flock to online stores to provide everything from new furniture for the home office to everyday household goods. Since 2006, Shopify has provided entrepreneurs and small businesses an easy on-ramp to starting and running an online store. It's attracted more than 1 million merchants in 175 countries and surpassed Ebay in 2019 to take second place behind Amazon in online market share in the U.S.
Last quarter, which ended June 30, 2020, was Shopify's best quarter ever, achieving record revenue of $714 million (a 97% year-over-year gain). But equally important is the achievements of its customers. Last quarter, its merchants achieved the highest-ever platform sales of $30 billion and realized average sales gains per merchant across the board. Its customer-centric approach aligns the company's success with that of its merchants, creating a powerful incentive for management to focus on over the long term.
With e-commerce getting a coronavirus boost, consumer habits may forever be changed with the convenience and selection of online shopping, which will benefit Shopify for years to come.
Three winning opportunities
E-commerce, cloud software, and digital communications are powerful tailwinds for these three category leaders that are setting them up with a long runway of growth. In-the-know investors understand that winners keep on winning and these three behind-the-scenes cloud platforms have the momentum to continue to win over the long term. With recent pullbacks in the stocks, now may be a great time to get on board.
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Accenture - >>> 3 Attractive Dividend Stocks Whose Dividends Could Double
Apple and two other well-known tech stocks could easily afford to double their dividends.
Leo Sun
Sep 11, 2020
https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/09/11/3-attractive-dividend-stocks-whose-dividends-could/
Over the past six months, many companies have cut or suspended their dividends to conserve cash throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. As those streams of passive income dried up, investors likely considered themselves lucky as long as their stocks maintained their existing payments.
However, there are still plenty of cash-rich companies that can easily afford to double their existing dividends without missing a beat. Let's take a closer look at three of those companies: Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Oracle (NYSE:ORCL), and Accenture (NYSE:ACN).
1. Apple
Apple reinstated its long-suspended dividend back in 2012, and it subsequently raised its payout every year. However, the stock's multi-year rally reduced its forward yield from over 2% in 2016 to just 0.7% today.
That paltry payout won't attract any serious income investors, but Apple spent less than 20% of its free cash flow on its dividend over the past 12 months -- which suggests it can easily afford to double its current yield.
Apple, which generated over half its year-to-date revenue from iPhones, still faces short- and long-term headwinds. In the near term, It needs to nurture the growth of its services ecosystem, sell more Apple Watches and AirPods to expand its hardware business, carefully navigate the trade war, and deal with the pandemic-induced delay of its 5G iPhones later this year.
Over the long term, it needs to curb its long-term dependence on the iPhone while expanding into next-gen hardware markets. That transition could be challenging, and investors are putting a lot of faith in Apple, as its stock trades at over 30 times forward earnings. Therefore, Apple could reward patient investors for sticking around as its valuations throttle the stock's near-term growth.
2. Oracle
Oracle currently pays a forward yield of 1.7%, but it hasn't raised that payout in a year and a half. That isn't surprising, because Oracle usually favors buybacks over dividends: It bought back $19.2 billion in shares over the past 12 months, but spent just $3.1 billion on dividends.
Oracle spent just 27% of its FCF on dividends during that period. The company prefers to plow its cash into buybacks, since it helps the tech giant squeeze out earnings growth from its anemic revenue growth, but doubling its dividend could make it a more appealing tech dividend stock alongside other blue chips like IBM (NYSE:IBM) and Texas Instruments.
Like IBM, Oracle is struggling to expand its higher-growth cloud services and reduce its dependence on its legacy database and on-site software businesses. But analysts expect that turnaround to remain slow, with roughly flat revenue growth and 5% earnings growth this year, and investors aren't flocking to the stock -- which trades at just 14 times forward earnings. However, plowing more cash into its dividend could bring back more bulls.
3. Accenture
Accenture currently pays a forward dividend yield of 1.3%. The IT services giant started paying annual dividends in 2005, switched to semi-annual dividends in 2010, then finally started paying quarterly dividends last year. Its annual dividend payments have risen every year since fiscal 2011.
Accenture generated 65% of its revenue from its "new" digital, cloud, and security markets last year, up from about 40% back in 2016, and that transformation enabled it to generate much stronger revenue and earnings growth than IT rivals like IBM.
Accenture also generated rock-solid growth throughout the COVID-19 crisis, as elevated demand for IT services from the health and public services sectors easily offset softer demand from other macro-sensitive industries. It expects its revenue and earnings to both grow about 4% in constant currency terms for the full fiscal year, which ended in late August.
Accenture's stock isn't cheap at nearly 30 times forward earnings, but that higher valuation highlights its strengths as a defensive investment in an increasingly wobbly market. Accenture spent just 23% of its FCF on its dividend over the past 12 months -- so it can easily afford to double its payout and lock in more income investors.
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>>> AppFolio, Inc. (APPY) provides industry-specific cloud-based business software solutions, services, and data analytics for the real estate and legal markets. The company offers AppFolio Property Manager, a cloud-based software solution for the real estate market that provides property managers of various sizes and tools and services designed to streamline their property management businesses; and AppFolio Investment Management, a cloud-based software solution for real estate investment managers of various sizes tools and services designed to streamline their real estate investment management businesses. It also provides MyCase, a legal practice and case management solution that provides managing calendars, contacts and documents, time tracking, billing and collections, and communicating with clients and sharing sensitive and privileged materials. In addition, the company offers Value+ services, such as Website design, electronic payment, tenant screening, insurance, contact center, premium leads, tenant debt collections, and utility management services. AppFolio, Inc. was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Santa Barbara, California.
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>>> Apple’s Bet on a Cashless Future Could Pay Big Dividends for Investors, Analyst Says
Barron's
Aug. 28, 2020
https://www.barrons.com/articles/apples-bet-on-a-cashless-future-could-pay-big-dividends-for-investors-analyst-says-51598657910?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo
Apple’s Bet on a Cashless Future
Aug. 28: Like “jet packs” and “flying cars,” a frictionless future without physical money has been a staple of pundits’ and authors’ sci-fi speculations since the first ATMs were installed in 1969....
However, the fact remains: In 2020, cash is still very important to Americans’ everyday lives. According to Federal Reserve numbers, while 86% of people report using “plastic” at least sometimes, nearly 13% of economic activity in the U.S. is still in cash. That’s roughly $2.7 trillion dollars, and it’s “money on the table” for fintech innovators. Traditional credit-card companies and banks haven’t shown much interest in going after it.
But there’s a company with the vision to see this as a $2.7 trillion opportunity for the taking....I’m talking about Apple (ticker: AAPL). The iPhone is still very important—and could become more so with the 5G model on the horizon—but Apple’s Apple Pay fintech and its other innovations have become bigger and, indeed, more important contributors to Apple’s bottom line since about 2014. Apple watchers like me were excited earlier this month when the company spent $100 million to acquire a small start-up called Mobeewave. It didn’t generate many headlines, but in my view, this is a critical step on the road to another trillion in Apple’s market cap.
The Mobeewave tech that Apple now owns specializes in near-field communication, or NFC, a set of communications protocols that two electronic devices can use to talk over a distance of just 1.5 inches or less. It has an array of applications—it can be used for identification and authentication and keyless entry, for instance.
But perhaps its biggest and most important application is in the growing field of contactless payments. They are coming of age at an interesting time: a novel coronavirus pandemic. The digital-payment market is expected to more than double to $87.6 billion by 2023 and, beyond that, to $98 billion by 2027. A great deal of that business will go to companies like Apple and Square (SQ)....
A recent study by Visa, conducted during the pandemic, revealed the unsurprising result that two of every three American consumers would now prefer contactless, cashless transactions. It’s clear to me that these consumers and the businesses that serve them will practically beat a path to Apple’s door.
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>>> Is Accenture Stock a Buy?
The IT and consulting services giant is still firing on all cylinders.
Motley Fool
Leo Sun
Aug 28, 2020
https://finance.yahoo.com/m/fce10cf1-623e-3979-9827-e2fb7490c8c1/is-accenture-stock-a-buy%3F.html?source=eptyholnk0000202&utm_source=yahoo-host&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=article&yptr=yahoo
Accenture (NYSE:ACN), which provides information technology (IT) and consulting services to a wide range of industries, has fared better than many industry peers over the past five years. Its stock has advanced over 150% in that time as it's acquired dozens of smaller companies, pivoted away from slower-growth markets, and expanded its reach across the higher-growth digital, cloud, and security markets.
Accenture's stock dipped briefly in March during the COVID-19 crash, but it's now trading near its all-time highs again. Let's take a closer look at this IT services giant and see if its stock still has room to run.
Separating the old from the new
Accenture generated 55% of its revenue from technology services last year. Another 32% came from its strategy and consulting services, and the remaining 14% came from its operations business, which helps companies optimize their business operations.
It serves five end markets: product makers (28% of its revenue last year), communications, media, and technology companies (20%), financial services (20%), health and public services (17%), and natural and chemical resources (16%). All five markets generated positive sales growth last year, led by an 18% year-over-year jump in the resources business.
Accenture's sprawling business includes a lot of moving parts, but its main strategy is to pivot away from slower-growth markets and toward the "new" digital, cloud, and security markets. Revenue from those new businesses grew 20% in constant currency terms last year and accounted for approximately 65% of its revenue -- up from just 40% in 2016.
The growth of those newer businesses, along with a steady stream of acquisitions and disciplined cost-cutting measures, enabled Accenture to generate robust revenue and earnings growth over the past five years:
Last year, its revenue rose 5% (8.5% in constant currency terms) as its adjusted EPS grew 9%. In the first three quarters of fiscal 2020, its revenue grew another 4% (6% in constant currency terms) as its adjusted earnings rose 5%. For the full year, Accenture expects its revenue to rise 3.5% to 4.5% in constant currency terms, for its operating margin to expand, and for its adjusted earnings to rise 3% to 5%.
By comparison, IBM's (NYSE:IBM) global business services revenue stayed nearly flat last year and its global technology services revenue dropped 6%. IBM is also attempting to pivot its aging IT and consulting services toward higher-growth markets, but its transformation has been far less successful than Accenture's.
How did Accenture weather the COVID-19 crisis?
The COVID-19 crisis didn't significantly impact Accenture for two reasons. First, companies still needed to maintain their IT infrastructure throughout the pandemic, and accelerating demand from the health and public services sector easily offset softer demand from its other end markets.
Second, Accenture CEO Julie Sweet noted during last quarter's conference call that the crisis "immediately widened the gap" between the technological leaders and laggards. Sweet noted Accenture was seeing the "leaders doubling down on their investments, while the laggards recognize the speed to accelerate the pace of their transformation." Sweet also declared that the company was "seeing even more significant growth post-COVID across industries" in transitions to cloud infrastructure platforms like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.
Those improving market conditions explain why Accenture offered such a clear outlook for the rest of the year when several of its peers, including IBM, declined to provide any forward guidance.
A rosy outlook with a premium valuation
Wall Street expects Accenture's revenue and earnings to grow 5% and 6%, respectively, next year. However, the stock isn't cheap at nearly 30 times forward earnings, and its forward yield of 1.4% won't attract too many dividend investors. By comparison, IBM trades at just 11 times forward earnings and pays a forward yield of 5.2%.
Accenture's stock should generate stable gains for the foreseeable future since it's well insulated from the macro headwinds and it benefits from the secular growth of the cloud market, but its valuation could limit its upside potential. Accenture's stock remains a safe investment even as it hovers near its historic highs, but investors shouldn't expect it to blast off anytime soon.
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>>> Skyworks Solutions, Inc. (SWKS), together with its subsidiaries, designs, develops, manufactures, and markets proprietary semiconductor products, including intellectual property worldwide. Its product portfolio includes amplifiers, antenna tuners, attenuators, circulators/isolators, DC/DC converters, demodulators, detectors, diodes, directional couplers, diversity receive modules, filters, front-end modules, hybrids, LED drivers, low noise amplifiers, mixers, modulators, optocouplers/optoisolators, phase locked loops, phase shifters, power dividers/combiners, receivers, switches, synthesizers, technical ceramics, voltage controlled oscillators/synthesizers, and voltage regulators, as well as wireless radio integrated circuits. The company provides its products for use in the aerospace, automotive, broadband, cellular infrastructure, connected home, industrial, medical, military, smartphone, tablet, and wearable markets. It sells its products through direct sales force, electronic component distributors, and independent sales representatives. The company was founded in 1962 and is headquartered in Irvine, California. <<<
Open Text - >>> Co-op Automates Supplier Onboarding with Adaptive Supply Chain Technology from OpenText
PR Newswire
August 18, 2020
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/co-op-automates-supplier-onboarding-130000964.html
Rapid supplier onboarding creates a more efficient supply chain operation for leading UK retailer
WATERLOO, Ontario, Aug. 18, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- OpenText™ (NASDAQ: OTEX, TSX: OTEX) today announced that Co-op Group, a leading UK-based grocery retailer, has automated supplier on-boarding for some of its suppliers with OpenText Trading Grid. This new self-service functionality enables rapid on-boarding, while also allowing suppliers to share real-time information on orders including the sending of Advanced Shipping Notifications (ASNs) to notify Co-op Group of pending deliveries.
"Ease, speed, quality and choice is at the heart of our approach and OpenText Trading Grid has helped to streamline key supply chain processes, reducing administrative burden and improving our ability to more quickly bring new suppliers into our network," said Paul Wilkins, Head of Source to Pay, at Co-op Group. "Additionally, the ability of suppliers to electronically share information on inbound deliveries via an Advanced Shipping Notification allows our distribution centre teams to plan and allocate resources more efficiently, eliminate paper-based communication and ensure improved inventory accuracy – helping to deliver what our customers want, when and where they need it, conveniently."
With OpenText Trading Grid customers can create adaptive supply chain infrastructures that pivot and flex as the market demands. In a global trading ecosystem marked by uncertainty, this ability to quickly locate, introduce, and on-board new partners and suppliers is an important advantage.
Digital supply chain solutions also bring expanded options for notification and messaging – such as Co-op Group's new ASN functionality – that can improve visibility on order timing, status, and complication. Improved visibility helps companies react to disruptions and more effectively deploy resources to address gaps.
"Trading Grid connects customers such as Co-op Group to a powerful global network of over 1.2 million trading partners spanning multiple industries and business types," said Lou Blatt, Senior Vice President and CMO at OpenText. "Instead of setting up and maintaining separate connectors, a single connection to Trading Grid provides instant access to the world's largest commerce platform, rapidly accelerating supplier on-boarding and facilitating the sharing of key data on orders."
Co-op Group employs more than 63,000 people, operates a network of more than 2,600 retail stores, and is committed to creating social value in its communities and operating at the heart of local life.
About OpenText
OpenText, The Information Company™, enables organizations to gain insight through market leading information management solutions, on premises or in the cloud. For more information about OpenText (NASDAQ: OTEX, TSX: OTEX) visit opentext.com.
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Broadcom - >>> Got $1,500? Here Are 3 of the Safest Stocks to Buy Now
These great companies haven't delivered a negative annual total return in over a decade.
Motley Fool
by Sean Williams
Aug 17, 2020
https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/08/17/got-1500-here-are-3-of-the-safest-stocks-to-buy-no/
Who needs amusement parks when you have the stock market to take you on a wild ride? The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has led to unprecedented volatility this year, as measured by the CBOE Volatility Index. We witnessed the broad-based S&P 500 lose 34% of its value in less than five weeks, then regain everything back over the subsequent 140 calendar days.
Investors, both novice and tenured, have had their resolve to stay the course tested like never before.
Even though the stock market has a history of putting corrections and bear markets firmly into the rearview mirror over time, some investors simply aren't built or prepared to deal with wild swings in equity valuations or the potential for prolonged downside. To these folks I say, there's good news. There are a handful of companies that can be bought right now that are among the safest stocks on Wall Street.
Best of all, you won't need a fortune to begin investing in these tried-and-true businesses. If, say, you have $1,500 you can devote to these safe stocks over the long haul, you have more than enough capital to watch your wealth compound over time.
Costco Wholesale
Because of the retail industry's tie-ins to the U.S. economy, we wouldn't often think of retailers as a true safe-haven investment. Although the U.S. economy spends far more time expanding than contracting, recessions are an inevitable part of the economic cycle. However, recessions tend to be a virtual non-event for Costco Wholesale (NASDAQ:COST).
Just how steady is warehouse club Costco? Including its dividend, Costco hasn't delivered a negative total return since 2008. With its stock up 15.3% year-to-date, through August 13, Costco looks to be on track for a 12th consecutive year of gains, after delivering a 540% total return for investors during the 2010s.
A big reason Costco is able to separate itself from other retailers is because of its bulk-buying prowess. Costco frequently uses its size and deep pockets to negotiate significant discounts when buying items in bulk. These discounts can then be passed along to its members. And make no mistake about it, these low prices remain the primary draw of consumers to Costco.
Furthermore, Costco uses its memberships as a tool to fuel its competitive advantages. The revenue collected from these memberships can be used as a buffer on pricing to further undercut its competition. Additionally, having consumers pay annually for the right to shop at Costco makes it less likely that they're going to shop elsewhere. These memberships effectively lock consumers into Costco's ecosystem of products and services.
From what we've historically witnessed, Costco has excellent pricing power on its memberships. This is to say that any pushback on membership fee price hikes tends to be very short-lived, and rarely, if ever, adversely affects enrollments or renewals.
Since Costco carries everything from essential groceries to aisles upon aisles of higher-margin discretionary items, it makes for the perfect example of a safe stock to buy in the retail space.
Broadcom
Another one of the safest stocks on the planet than you can buy right now is chipmaker Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO).
Similar to Costco argument above, technology isn't exactly the sector that folks would typically look for "safe stocks." Tech stocks are usually very cyclical, and sport high premiums tied to their superior growth potential. In other words, we'd expect a lot of volatility. But that's really not been the case with Broadcom.
Throughout the 2010s, Broadcom's total return, inclusive of dividends, was positive every year -- and it's looking to keep that streak intact in 2020. Dividends have certainly helped Broadcom keep its streak of annual gains alive, with its quarterly payout of $3.25 having grown by more than 4,500% from where it was 10 years ago.
But Broadcom's income stream isn't the real lure here. Instead, it's two huge catalysts that should dominate this decade.
First off all, Broadcom is going to benefit from the rollout of 5G networks. We're talking about the first real upgrade to wireless infrastructure in about a decade, and it's liable to lead to a multiyear technology upgrade cycle for smartphones and other wireless devices. With wireless chips for smartphones accounting for the lion's share of the company's revenue, 5G should be a serious growth boon for Broadcom.
The other factor at play here is the surge in remote work environments created by COVID-19. As enterprise data continues to shift into the cloud, demand for data centers and storage should increase. Broadcom's connectivity and access chip solutions are at the heart of this growing data center demand.
Though its days of consistent double-digit sales growth are now in the past, Broadcom's current profile will check boxes for growth and value investors.
NextEra Energy
A final safe stock that investors can consider picking up right now is electric utility NextEra Energy (NYSE:NEE). If the company's nearly 19% total return holds for 2020, this'll mark its 12th straight positive year of returns.
When you think of safe, steady companies, utilities should rightly come to mind. That's because utilities provide a product or service that people almost universally need. In NextEra's case, it supplies electricity and natural gas, which are pretty much a necessity if you own a home or rent. Although weather can influence how much power a household uses, the beauty of investing in electric utility stocks is that demand and cash flow tend to be highly predictable in any economic environment.
What allows NextEra to stand out from its peers and deliver consistent high-single-digit profit growth is the company's focus on renewable energy. Investing in solar and wind projects isn't cheap, but NextEra has been able to do so at historically low lending rates for years. As the leading utility for solar and wind capacity, NextEra's electricity generation costs are well below that of its peers. If and when green energy regulations are handed down from Washington, D.C., NextEra will be way ahead of the curve.
NextEra Energy also benefits from its traditional utility operations being regulated. Though this means the company can't pass along price hikes at will (it needs the authorization of a state's public utility commission), it also means no exposure to potentially volatile wholesale electricity pricing. Again, it all comes back to the predictability of the company's cash flow.
NextEra might be trading at a premium to other electric utilities, but it's well-deserved given its ability to execute on its renewable projects.
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Open Text - >>> Software Provider’s Earnings Highlight the Value of Cloud Capabilities
Barron's
By Al Root
Aug. 6, 2020
https://www.barrons.com/articles/open-text-stock-software-provider-earnings-cloud-data-subscriptions-51596748282?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo
Subscriptions for software are replacing the regular upgrade cycle that once made software company sales more cyclical.
Software provider Open Text beat earnings estimates Thursday evening. It is another strong result from the Canadian-based software maker specializing in digitizing text. Results show that the trend of taking data into the cloud is alive and well, despite Covid-19. That’s good news for Open Text stockholders as well as all software investors.
Open Text (ticker: OTEX) reported 80 cents in per-share earnings from $827 million in sales for its fiscal fourth quarter, which corresponds to the second calendar quarter.
Wall Street expected 60 cents from $805 million in sales. Analysts estimates for the second quarter came down coming into the earnings report—as they did for many other companies—because the pandemic has had an impact everywhere. When the year began, analysts expected the company to earn about 75 cents in per-share earnings in the calendar second quarter. Open Text’s earnings actually beat prepandemic levels.
Open Text stock was up more than 5% in after-hours trading.
“Fiscal 2020 was a pivotal year for Open Text, highlighting that digital technologies are the key to business resilience,” CEO Mark Barrenechea said in the company’s news release. “Businesses that build digital capabilities will recover faster and emerge stronger from this pandemic.”
Recurring revenue came in at $658 million, up 18% year over year, growing faster than overall sales. Subscription-type sales have been another powerful trend in the software industry—as, or even more, important than cloud computing-trends. Subscriptions for software are replacing the regular upgrade cycle that once made software company sales more cyclical.
Barron’s wrote positively about Open Text in 2019, believing it was an undervalued software play. Since that story was published, Open Text stock is up more than 20%, better than returns of the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average over the same span. Software components of the S&P 500, however, are up more than 60%. Open Text valuation remains below its software peers.
Year to date, Open Text stock is up about 4%. Again, that is a little better than major U.S. stock indexes, but lagging behind larger software peers in the S&P 500, which are up about 34%. The largest software component of the S&P 500 is Microsoft (MSFT). Its stock is up about 37% in 2020.
Wall Street likes Open Text shares, too. Almost 80% of analysts covering the company rate shares the equivalent of Buy. The average Buy-rating ratio for stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average is about 55%. What’s more, the average Buy-rating ratio for software stocks in the S&P 500 is about 60%—better than average, but not as high as Open Text ratings.
The average analyst price target is about $48, a little higher than where shares ended regular trading on Thursday.
Open Text management was conducting an earnings conference call that began at 4:30 p.m. Eastern time.
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>>> Zoom Video Says It's Fixed Outage Issue
Thousands of users reported service outages on Zoom's video conferencing platform on Monday morning, according to Down Detector.
The Street
by TONY OWUSU
AUG 24, 2020
https://www.thestreet.com/investing/zoom-video-widespread-outages?ocid=uxbndlbing
Popular video conferencing platform Zoom Video (ZM) - Get Report said on Monday afternoon it had resolved the issues that prevented many users from being able to access meetings and webinars for much of the morning.
On its service status page, Zoom reported at 12:37 a.m. ET that "We have resolved the issue causing users to be unable to start and join Zoom Meetings and Webinars. Users are now also able to sign up for paid accounts, upgrade, and manage their service on the Zoom website." And at 1:10 p.m. PT, it said that it had resolved further issues with meetings, webinars and accessing accounts. It said it first received reports of problems at 8:51 a.m. ET.
Web tracker Down Detector had documented almost 17,000 reports of issues with the platform as of 10 a.m. ET.
Shares of Zoom were falling 2.1% to $283.67 on Monday afternoon. Shares have more than quadrupled this year as usage of Zoom has increased exponentially during the global lockdowns spurred by the coronavirus epidemic.
Zoom reported in June that its revenue rose 169% annually during its April quarter, a major acceleration from the 78% growth seen during its January quarter. The company also disclosed that meeting minutes among Global 2000 customers tripled sequentially, and it nearly doubled its fiscal 2021 (ends in Jan. 2021) revenue guidance to a range of $1.775 billion to $1.8 billion.
Earlier this year, a couple of U.S. senators petitioned the Justice Department to investigate Zoom for allegedly disclosing private information about its users to the Chinese government.
"We are extremely concerned that Zoom and TikTok have disclosed private information about Americans to the [People's Republic of China] and engaged in censorship on behalf of the Chinese government," said Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Josh Hawley (R-MO).
"As tens of millions of Americans turn to Zoom and TikTok during the Covid-19 pandemic, few know that the privacy of their data and their freedom of expression is under threat due to the relationship of these companies to the Chinese government," the senators' letter said.
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>>> Okta, Inc. (OKTA) provides identity management platforms for enterprises, small and medium-sized businesses, universities, non-profits, and government agencies in the United States and internationally. The company offers Okta Identity Cloud, a platform that offers a suite of products to manage and secure identities, such as Universal Directory, a cloud-based system of record to store and secure user, application, and device profiles for an organization; and Single Sign-On that enables users to access their applications in the cloud or on-premise from various devices with a single entry of their user credentials. It also provides Adaptive Multi-Factor Authentication, a product that provides an additional layer of security for cloud, mobile, and Web applications, as well as for data; Lifecycle Management, which enables IT organizations or developers to manage a user's identity throughout its lifecycle; API Access Management that enables organizations to secure APIs; Advanced Server Access to secure cloud infrastructure; and Access Gateway that enables organizations to extend the Okta Identity Cloud from the cloud to their existing on-premise applications. In addition, the company offers customer support and training, and professional services. Okta, Inc. sells its products directly to customers through sales force, as well as through channel partners. The company was formerly known as Saasure, Inc. Okta, Inc. was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
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>>> Everbridge, Inc. (EVBG) operates as a software company in the United States and internationally. The company's Critical Event Management, a software as a service based platform with various software applications that address tasks an organization has to perform to manage a critical event, including Mass Notification that enables enterprises and governmental entities to send notifications to individuals or groups to keep them informed before, during, and after natural or man-made disasters, and other emergencies; Safety Connection that enables organizations to send notifications based on last known location of an individual; Incident Management for organizations to automate workflows and make their communications relevant; and IT Alerting that enables IT professionals to alert and communicate with members of their teams during an IT incident or outage. Its software applications also include Visual Command Center that enables customers to monitor and integrate threat data, as well as information on internal incidents; Public Warning that is used to reach international mobile populations; Community Engagement that integrates emergency management and community outreach; Crisis Management that provides mobile access to crisis, recovery, and brand protection plans; Risk Intelligence that aggregates data to assess incidents and provide incident information and analysis; and Secure Messaging for employees to communicate and share nonpublic information. The company provides customer support services. It serves enterprises, small businesses, non-profit organizations, educational institutions, and government agencies in technology, energy, financial services, healthcare and life sciences, manufacturing, media and entertainment, retail, higher education, and professional services industries. The company was formerly known as 3n Global, Inc. and changed its name to Everbridge, Inc. in April 2009. The company was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts.
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>>> RingCentral, Inc. (RING) provides software-as-a-service solutions that enable businesses to communicate, collaborate, and connect in North America. The company's products include RingCentral Office that provides communication and collaboration across various modes, including high-definition voice, video, SMS, messaging and collaboration, conferencing, online meetings, and fax; RingCentral Professional, a cloud based virtual telephone service that provides inbound call answering and management services for professionals; and RingCentral Fax that provides online fax capabilities. Its products also comprise RingCentral Contact Center, a collaborative contact center solution that delivers omni-channel; RingCentral Glip, a team messaging and collaboration solution that allows a range of teams to stay connected through various modes of communication through an integration with RingCentral Office; and RingCentral Meetings, a collaborative meetings solution that offers web meetings, video conferencing, and screen sharing. In addition, the company offers RingCentral Engage Digital, a digital customer engagement platform that allows enterprises to interact with their customers; RingCentral Engage Voice, a cloud-based outbound/blended customer engagement platform for midsize and enterprise companies; and RingCentral Live Reports, an add-on for RingCentral Office customers to gather real-time information. The company serves a range of industries, including financial services, education, healthcare, legal services, real estate, retail, technology, insurance, construction, hospitality, and state and local government, as well as others. It sells its products through a network of direct sales representatives, as well as sales agents, resellers, and channel partners. RingCentral, Inc. has a strategic partnership with Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise to offers Rainbow Office, a cloud solution. The company was incorporated in 1999 and is headquartered in Belmont, California.
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>>> Lumentum Holdings Inc. (LITE) manufactures and sells optical and photonic products in the Americas, the Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. The company operates in two segments, Optical Communications (OpComms) and Commercial Lasers (Lasers). The OpComms segment offers components, modules, and subsystems that enable the transmission and transport of video, audio, and text data over high-capacity fiber optic cables. It offers tunable transponders, transceivers, and transmitter modules; tunable lasers, receivers, and modulators; transport products, such as reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers, amplifiers, and optical channel monitors, as well as components, including 980nm, multi-mode, and Raman pumps; and switches, attenuators, photodetectors, gain flattening filters, isolators, wavelength-division multiplexing filters, arrayed waveguide gratings, multiplex/de-multiplexers, and integrated passive modules. This segment also provides Super Transport Blade, which integrates optical transport functions into a single-slot blade; optical transceivers for fiber channel and Ethernet applications; vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers; directly modulated and electro-absorption modulated lasers; and laser illumination sources for 3D sensing systems. It serves customers in telecommunications, data communications, and consumer and industrial markets. The Commercial Lasers segment offers diode-pumped solid-state, fiber, diode, direct-diode, and gas lasers for use in original equipment manufacturer applications. It serves customers in markets and applications, such as sheet metal processing, general manufacturing, biotechnology, graphics and imaging, and remote sensing, as well as in precision machining, such as drilling in printed circuit boards, wafer singulation, glass cutting, and solar cell scribing. Lumentum Holdings Inc. was incorporated in 2015 and is headquartered in Milpitas, California.
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>>> Guidewire Software, Inc. (GWRE) provides software products for property and casualty insurers worldwide. The company offers Guidewire InsuranceSuite comprising Guidewire PolicyCenter, BillingCenter, and ClaimCenter applications. It also provides Guidewire InsuranceNow, a cloud-based platform, which offers policy, billing, and claims management functionality to insurers that prefer to subscribe to a cloud-based solution. In addition, the company offers Guidewire Underwriting Management, a cloud-based integrated business application; Guidewire Rating Management to manage the pricing of insurance products; Guidewire Reinsurance Management to use rules-based logic to execute reinsurance strategy through underwriting and claims processes; and Guidewire Client Data Management to enable customer information management. Further, it provides Guidewire Product Content Management that offers software tools and standards-based line-of-business templates to introduce and modify products; Guidewire AppReader, a submission intake management solution; and Guidewire London Market Messaging that provides a message-processing and action framework. Additionally, the company offers data management and analytics products, such as Guidewire DataHub, an operational data store; Guidewire InfoCenter, a business intelligence warehouse; Guidewire Live Analytics, a cloud analytics platform; Guidewire Predictive Analytics, a cloud-based tool; and Guidewire Cyence Risk Analytics, a cloud-native economic cyber risk modeling solution, as well as Digital Engagement Applications, which enable insurers to provide digital experiences to customers, agents, vendors, and field personnel through their device of choice. It also provides implementation and integration, maintenance support, and professional services, as well as Guidewire Production Services. The company was founded in 2001 and is headquartered in San Mateo, California.
<<<
Workiva - >>> 19 of the Best Stocks You've Never Heard Of
Kiplinger
by Jeff Reeves
6-23-20
https://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/investing/t052-s001-19-of-the-best-stocks-youve-never-heard-of/index.html
Workiva
Sector: Information technology
Market value: $2.3 billion
Dividend yield: N/A
Most investors wouldn't think to look for a cloud computing leader in Ames, Iowa. But that's where you'll find the headquarters of Workiva (WK, $49.60), a reporting and compliance platform that offers companies ways to manage processes and data in the cloud to better collaborate – wherever they are in the world.
Needless to say, Workiva's business model is tailor-made for 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted the traditional office environment. However, most industries are openly discussing the likelihood that this year's surge in telecommuting will stick for the long haul and continue to benefit companies like Workiva.
You might say that cloud-based enterprise software firms are a dime a dozen. You'd be right. But the digital toolkit of Workiva's Wdesk software is unique in that it is specifically designed for governance, risk management and compliance – sensitive financial areas that demand accountability and security, and aren't easily managed in something like Google Docs.
Bank of America recently rated WK a Buy, and their analysis says it all: "While in a niche market, we think Workiva is a best-of-breed regulatory reporting application with growth opportunities as it replaces antiquated, manual processes."
<<<
NetEase - >>> 19 of the Best Stocks You've Never Heard Of
Kiplinger
by Jeff Reeves
6-23-20
https://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/investing/t052-s001-19-of-the-best-stocks-youve-never-heard-of/index.html
NetEase
Sector: Information technology
Market value: $53.3 billion
Dividend yield: 1.1%
NetEase (NTES, $409.30) is a video game studio that primarily serves the lucrative and fast-growing marketplace in China. In addition to highly successful in-house titles such as Fantasy Westward Journey, NTES also is the local partner of big Western studios like Activision Blizzard (ATVI) to service hits such as Overwatch that are more familiar to U.S. audiences.
The outlook for video game spending is always quite strong, as the sector always experiences year-over-year growth like clockwork. But the coronavirus pandemic has really accelerated spending among gamers in 2020.
Longer-term, investors are also quite bullish on NTES; Goldman Sachs recently upgraded the stock because of growth in its other education and music segments, creating a more diversified revenue stream, and maintained its Buy rating on expectations of "steady execution and good cash flows from its game biz."
All told, seven Buys versus just one Hold over the past three months puts NTES among some of the best stocks that don't make the average investor's radar.
<<<
Everbridge (EVBG) - >>> 19 of the Best Stocks You've Never Heard Of
Kiplinger
by Jeff Reeves
6-23-20
https://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/investing/t052-s001-19-of-the-best-stocks-youve-never-heard-of/index.html
Everbridge
Sector: Information technology
Market value: $4.9 billion
Dividend yield: N/A
Everbridge (EVBG, $135.86) is a cloud-based data and communications company that specializes in emergency responses. Its specialized team knows how to protect networks and ensure resilience, and how to step in and handle things when a critical event happens.
Whether it's fighting malicious hackers holding key information for ransom or conducting proactive programs at a company that has sensitive client info it needs to protect, Everbridge has what it takes to respond to the unique threats to business continuity in a digital age.
With working from home on the rise thanks to coronavirus in 2020, it's natural to see an increase in cybersecurity issues. After all, folks in the office can depend on the IT department to update their virus protection software and to monitor the security of the network -- but a decentralized workforce means more ways that bad actors could try to find a way in.
These trends have resulted in an acceleration in sales, and analysts everywhere from SunTrust to Robert Baird to Stifel Nicolaus have labeled Everbridge a Buy or increased their price target in recent weeks. Needham & Co.'s Scott Berg raised his price target from $135 to $175 in late May, writing, "we understand EVBG shares look expensive. Our new valuation for EVBG assumes that the company is firing on all sales cylinders and has multiple opportunities that can drive significant upside to current expectations."
<<<
>>> Everbridge, Inc. (EVBG) operates as a software company in the United States and internationally. The company's Critical Event Management, a software as a service based platform with various software applications that address tasks an organization has to perform to manage a critical event, including Mass Notification that enables enterprises and governmental entities to send notifications to individuals or groups to keep them informed before, during, and after natural or man-made disasters, and other emergencies; Safety Connection that enables organizations to send notifications based on last known location of an individual; Incident Management for organizations to automate workflows and make their communications relevant; and IT Alerting that enables IT professionals to alert and communicate with members of their teams during an IT incident or outage. Its software applications also include Visual Command Center that enables customers to monitor and integrate threat data, as well as information on internal incidents; Public Warning that is used to reach international mobile populations; Community Engagement that integrates emergency management and community outreach; Crisis Management that provides mobile access to crisis, recovery, and brand protection plans; Risk Intelligence that aggregates data to assess incidents and provide incident information and analysis; and Secure Messaging for employees to communicate and share nonpublic information. The company provides customer support services. It serves enterprises, small businesses, non-profit organizations, educational institutions, and government agencies in technology, energy, financial services, healthcare and life sciences, manufacturing, media and entertainment, retail, higher education, and professional services industries. The company was formerly known as 3n Global, Inc. and changed its name to Everbridge, Inc. in April 2009. The company was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts.
<<<
>>> ASML Holding N.V. (ASML) develops, produces, markets, sells, and services advanced semiconductor equipment systems consisting of lithography related systems for memory and logic chipmakers. The company provides extreme ultraviolet lithography systems; and deep ultraviolet lithography systems comprising immersion and dry lithography solutions to manufacture variosus range of semiconductor nodes and technologies. It also offers metrology and inspection systems, including YieldStar optical metrology solutions to measure the quality of patterns on the wafers; and HMI e-beam solutions to locate and analyze individual chip defects. In addition, the company provides computational lithography and software solutions to create applications that enhance the setup of the lithography system; and mature products and services that refurbish used lithography equipment and offers associated services. It operates in Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, China, the Netherlands, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the United States, and reat of Asia. The company was formerly known as ASM Lithography Holding N.V. and changed its name to ASML Holding N.V. in 2001. ASML Holding N.V. was founded in 1984 and is headquartered in Veldhoven, the Netherlands.
<<<
>>> An Internet ETF Crushing Its Competition
by Todd Shriber
Benzinga
May 07, 2020
https://www.benzinga.com/trading-ideas/long-ideas/20/05/15974340/an-internet-etf-crushing-its-competition?utm_campaign=partner_feed&utm_source=yahooFinance&utm_medium=partner_feed&utm_content=site
An Internet ETF Crushing Its Competition
Dozens of exchange traded funds are dedicated or offered exposure to internet stocks. With some of those equities among the names supporting U.S. indexes this year, it's not surprising investors have a lot of enthusiasm for these ETFs.
What To Know
An overlooked name among internet ETFs is the O'Shares Global Internet Giants ETF OGIG, though that overlooked status could and probably should be shed because OGIG is killing some of its larger rivals this year.
The O'Shares ETF is up 16.41% year to date after hitting an all-time high on Wednesday, making it one of just 13 ETFs to accomplish that feat. Not only that, but OGIG is beating the Dow Jones Internet Composite Index, one of the most widely followed gauges of internet stocks, by nearly 1,000 basis points this year.
Why It's Important
Internet stocks and funds are benefiting from the stay-at-home policies permeating the U.S. because of the coronavirus, but that doesn't mean OGIG will wilt when the virus eases. In fact, the fund has impressive long-term credentials, which are helped by its geographic diversity. That is to say while some internet ETFs are domestically focused, OGIG is not.
“Developed countries are nearing internet adoption saturation. North America and Europe account for roughly 15% of the world’s population and are nearing full adoption at 89% and 88%, respectively,” said O'Shares in a recent note. “Asia and Africa on the other hand, have populations exceeding 4 billion and 1 billion, respectively, accounting for over 70% of the world’s population but have much lower adoption rates.”
International equities represent about a third of OGIG's weight. The 10 ex-U.S. exposures in the fund include eight developed and two emerging economies.
What's Next
With e-commerce and online retail expected to continue capturing a greater slice of the retail pie, OGIG stands to benefit. As O'Shares notes, last year, the U.S. commanded 17% of the e-commerce market. That sounds impressive and it is, but it's dwarfed by the 54% controlled by China, OGIG's second-largest geographic weight.
Data indicate the law of large numbers isn't yet kicking because China's e-commerce market is growing at twice the rate of the U.S.
Data also say investors are starting to wake up to the OGIG story. The fund, which turns 2 years old next month, has $92.50 million in assets under management of which about $35 million has poured in just this year.
<<<
>>> Twilio Inc. (TWLO), together with its subsidiaries, provides a cloud communications platform that enables developers to build, scale, and operate communications within software applications in the United States and internationally. Its customer engagement platform provides a set of application programming interfaces that handle the higher level communication logic needed for nearly every type of customer engagement, as well as enable developers to embed voice, messaging, and video capabilities into their applications. The company was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California. <<<
>>> Nasdaq Settles ETF Legal Fight Over 'HACK'
ETF.com
May 4, 2020
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nasdaq-settles-legal-fight-over-171500801.html
A years-long battle over control of the world’s first cybersecurity exchange-traded fund may soon be over.
Nasdaq and ETF Managers Group announced May 1 plans to settle their dispute over the ETFMG Prime Cyber Security ETF (HACK) and four other ETFs with combined assets of $2.1 billion. Nasdaq will take over the funds from ETFMG in the second half of 2020, according to the press release.
What’s at stake is control of the funds along with the lucrative fund fees paid by investors. In December, a federal judge ordered ETFMG to pay $80 million to Nasdaq for breach of contract, but did not grant Nasdaq’s request to wrest day-to-day control of the funds away from ETFMG.
The brief statement gave few details. It’s unclear whether all of the disputed funds will be covered by the deal. It’s also unclear what role, if any, ETFMG or Sam Masucci, the firm’s founder and chief executive officer, will play in the funds after the settlement. Financial terms were not disclosed. A spokesman for Nasdaq declined to comment; a spokesman for ETFMG did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Cash Payments & Change Of Control
Nasdaq and ETFMG have agreed to certain cash payments from ETFMG to Nasdaq and PureShares, and have executed an asset purchase agreement to transfer certain ETFMG intellectual property and related assets, to a Nasdaq affiliate, according to the May 1 statement. “The transaction is expected to close in the last half of 2020.”
The settlement marks the end of a tangled feud that began nearly four years ago, shortly after Nasdaq bought the International Securities Exchange. The acquisition included ISE’s small ETF incubator, which helped would-be issuers bring new funds to market.
One such hopeful was Andrew Chanin, a former ETF trader and co-founder of PureShares, a New Jersey ETF startup. ISE provided the financial backing for Chanin’s PureFunds ETFs in exchange for the lion’s share of any profits—a risky venture, since most new funds fail.
Cash Payments & Control Transfer
HACK was by far the partnership’s biggest success. The fund debuted in November 2014, days before Sony Pictures suffered a massive cybersecurity breach. The publicity helped HACK raise $1 billion in assets in its first year.
To manage day-to-day business of the PureFunds ETFs, Chanin and ISE hired ETFMG, a New Jersey firm run by Masucci, a former mortgage trader turned ETF entrepreneur.
As the advisor to the funds, ETFMG collected the management fees from investors—at times as much as $600,000 a month from HACK alone—and used the money to pay the fund’s bills, including ETFMG’s own fees. Any profits—at times more than $300,000 a month just from HACK—were forwarded to ISE, which paid Chanin his share.
Nasdaq reaped the bulk of the profits while the ETFs traded under Chanin’s PureFunds brand, but the arrangement gave Masucci significant operational control. Masucci also led the board of trustees for the funds.
Arrangement Breakdown
The arrangement began to fray after Nasdaq bought ISE in June 2016. The final rupture came in 2017 when ETFMG stripped the PureFunds brand from the ETFs, renamed the funds with the ETFMG moniker, and claimed that ETFMG was entitled to keep all the fees for itself. Nasdaq sued in October 2017 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
In December 2019, Federal Judge Paul Engelmayer sided largely with Nasdaq, ordering ETF Managers Group to pay $80 million to Nasdaq. Engelmayer ruled that ETFMG had breached its contracts with Nasdaq and misappropriated millions of dollars in fund management fees.
Though ETFMG appealed, it was a major setback. Engelmayer called ETFMG’s conduct “little more than an act of theft.” In his 166-page judgment, Engelmayer described portions of Masucci’s testimony as “contrived and unpersuasive,” “threadbare and unconvincing,” “incredible—and clearly false,” consisting of “uncorroborated after-the-fact assertions,” “demonstrably false,” “knowingly false” and “fictitious” and “overwhelmingly disproven by the evidence at trial.”
(The full text of Engelmayer’s Dec. 20 opinion can be found at www.pacer.gov. The case is Nasdaq Inc. v. ETF Managers Group, LLC et al, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.)
The deal announced May 1 will also settle a separate lawsuit brought by PureShares against ETFMG in New Jersey Superior Court. Chanin declined to comment.
Unanswered Investor Questions
The brief statements from Nasdaq and ETFMG leave several questions unanswered.
It’s unclear whether the deal covers all five of the former PureFunds ETFs now trading under the ETFMG name. All five are passive funds tracking industry indexes. HACK is by far the largest, with $1.29 billion in assets under management.
The other ETFs are:
ETFMG Prime Junior Silver Miners ETF (SILJ) with almost $140 million in assets under management.
ETFMG Prime Mobile Payments ETF (IPAY) with about $561 million in assets
Wedbush ETFMG Video Game Tech ETF (GAMR) with about $81 million in assets
And the fund now known as the Wedbush ETFMG Global Cloud Technology ETF (IVES), which has about $32 million in assets. Until recently, IVES invested in the drone industry and traded under the ticker IFLY, but last month the fund changed its name, index, ticker and investment objective.
The settlement announcement also leaves a number of unanswered questions for investors.
The settlement is still “subject to future negotiations and approvals among independent third parties,” the statement said. It’s unclear whether the PureFunds brand will be restored to the funds, or indeed whether PureFunds will have any future role in the marketing or operation of the ETFs.
It is also unclear whether the settlement requires Masucci to resign from the board of trustees governing the funds, or whether the deal seeks to replace other independent trustees. It’s additionally unclear whether Nasdaq will continue to use benchmarks created by Prime Indexes, a firm run by a former Nasdaq employee who had been involved in ISE’s ETF business before Nasdaq’s acquisition.
For the time being, little has changed for investors. The funds continue to trade under the same tickers, tracking the same indexes.
<<<
====> Quantum Dots <====
Do your research!
=====> CORONAVIRUS UPDATE <=====
2 minute mark on Coronavirus update for a mitigation program to go BACK TO WORK SAFELY. That's HIPAA compliant, $2 covered by the testing program and QMC "is in talks with state and federal leaders".
http://www.kvue.com/video/news/health/coronavirus/coronavirus-san-marcos-company-covid19-test-verification-technology/269-98f146cc-aac6-456e-b955-f0e0fd15b624?jwsource=cl
________________________________________________________________
Quantum Materials Corp - QTMM
https://www.quantummaterialscorp.com/
Last close was at 3 cents!!
Name | Symbol | % Assets |
---|---|---|
Apple Inc | AAPL | 12.81% |
Microsoft Corp | MSFT | 10.19% |
Amazon.com Inc | AMZN | 9.98% |
Tesla Inc | TSLA | 4.24% |
Facebook Inc A | FB | 4.19% |
Alphabet Inc A | GOOGL | 3.80% |
Alphabet Inc Class C | GOOG | 3.69% |
NVIDIA Corp | NVDA | 2.65% |
PayPal Holdings Inc | PYPL | 2.02% |
Adobe Inc | ADBE | 1.84% |
Name | Symbol | % Assets |
---|---|---|
CrowdStrike Holdings Inc Class A | CRWD | 2.50% |
Roku Inc Class A | ROKU | 2.38% |
The Trade Desk Inc A | TTD | 2.20% |
Zscaler Inc | ZS | 1.74% |
AstraZeneca PLC ADR | AZN.L | 1.58% |
Fortinet Inc | FTNT | 1.55% |
Take-Two Interactive Software Inc | TTWO | 1.53% |
Coupa Software Inc | COUP | 1.52% |
Liberty Broadband Corp C | LBRDK | 1.50% |
Etsy Inc | ETSY | 1.48% |
Name | Symbol | % Assets |
---|---|---|
Tesla Inc | TSLA | 10.55% |
Roku Inc Class A | ROKU | 6.79% |
Invitae Corp | NVTA | 6.71% |
CRISPR Therapeutics AG | CRSP | 6.05% |
Square Inc A | SQ | 5.67% |
Slack Technologies Inc Class A | WORK | 4.49% |
Teladoc Health Inc | TDOC | 3.94% |
Proto Labs Inc | PRLB | 3.03% |
Zillow Group Inc C | Z | 2.84% |
Spotify Technology SA | SPOT | 2.81% |
Name | Symbol | % Assets |
---|---|---|
Tesla Inc | TSLA | 3.14% |
Square Inc A | SQ | 1.25% |
MercadoLibre Inc | MELI.SA | 1.05% |
Xiaomi Corp Ordinary Shares - Class B | 01810 | 1.04% |
Adyen NV | ADYEN | 0.99% |
Wuxi Biologics (Ca | N/A | 0.98% |
NVIDIA Corp | NVDA | 0.96% |
Advanced Micro Devices Inc | AMD | 0.92% |
Vestas Wind Systems A/S | VWS | 0.82% |
Albemarle Corp | ALB | 0.81% |
Name | Symbol | % Assets |
---|---|---|
Apple Inc | AAPL | 8.04% |
Microsoft Corp | MSFT | 7.99% |
Amazon.com Inc | AMZN | 7.65% |
Facebook Inc A | FB | 5.86% |
Alphabet Inc A | GOOGL | 4.45% |
Alphabet Inc Class C | GOOG | 4.36% |
Visa Inc Class A | V | 3.12% |
NVIDIA Corp | NVDA | 2.91% |
Mastercard Inc A | MA | 2.61% |
PayPal Holdings Inc | PYPL | 2.21% |
Name | Symbol | % Assets |
---|---|---|
Apple Inc | AAPL | 17.46% |
Microsoft Corp | MSFT | 15.92% |
Visa Inc Class A | V | 4.74% |
Intel Corp | INTC | 3.86% |
Mastercard Inc A | MA | 3.84% |
Cisco Systems Inc | CSCO | 3.10% |
Adobe Inc | ADBE | 2.07% |
Oracle Corp | ORCL | 1.99% |
Salesforce.com Inc | CRM | 1.98% |
International Business Machines Corp | IBM | 1.81% |
Name | Symbol | % Assets |
---|---|---|
Apple Inc | AAPL | 17.44% |
Microsoft Corp | MSFT | 15.91% |
Visa Inc Class A | V | 4.38% |
Intel Corp | INTC | 3.86% |
Mastercard Inc A | MA | 3.83% |
Cisco Systems Inc | CSCO | 3.10% |
Adobe Inc | ADBE | 2.07% |
Oracle Corp | ORCL | 1.99% |
Salesforce.com Inc | CRM | 1.98% |
International Business Machines Corp | IBM | 1.81% |
Name | Symbol | % Assets |
---|---|---|
Apple Inc | AAPL | 2.02% |
Alphabet Inc A | GOOGL | 1.80% |
Microsoft Corp | MSFT | 1.80% |
Amazon.com Inc | AMZN | 1.78% |
Facebook Inc A | FB | 1.68% |
NVIDIA Corp | NVDA | 1.62% |
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd ADR | BABA | 1.40% |
Tesla Inc | TSLA | 1.14% |
Tencent Holdings Ltd | 00700 | 1.07% |
Intel Corp | INTC | 0.98% |
Name | Symbol | % Assets |
---|---|---|
Qualcomm Inc | QCOM | 4.16% |
Meituan | 03690 | 3.69% |
Samsung Electronics Co Ltd | 005930.KS | 3.37% |
NVIDIA Corp | NVDA | 3.35% |
Salesforce.com Inc | CRM | 3.30% |
ServiceNow Inc | NOW | 3.13% |
Advanced Micro Devices Inc | AMD | 3.09% |
Facebook Inc A | FB | 3.02% |
Shopify Inc A | SHOP.TO | 2.97% |
Alphabet Inc A | GOOGL | 2.94% |
Name | Symbol | % Assets |
---|---|---|
Microsoft Corp | MSFT | 7.86% |
Adobe Inc | ADBE | 7.58% |
Salesforce.com Inc | CRM | 7.48% |
Oracle Corp | ORCL | 6.03% |
ServiceNow Inc | NOW | 5.55% |
Intuit Inc | INTU | 4.98% |
Zoom Video Communications Inc | ZM | 4.71% |
Activision Blizzard Inc | ATVI | 3.32% |
Autodesk Inc | ADSK | 3.32% |
DocuSign Inc | DOCU | 2.26% |
Name | Symbol | % Assets |
---|---|---|
Cabot Microelectronics Corp | CCMP | 4.18% |
Viavi Solutions Inc | VIAV | 3.48% |
Brooks Automation Inc | BRKS | 2.92% |
Qualys Inc | QLYS | 2.74% |
Itron Inc | ITRI | 2.55% |
Power Integrations Inc | POWI | 2.55% |
Rogers Corp | ROG | 2.40% |
LivePerson Inc | LPSN | 2.38% |
Anixter International Inc | AXE | 2.37% |
ExlService Holdings Inc | EXLS | 2.27% |
Name | Symbol | % Assets |
---|---|---|
DexCom Inc | DXCM | 7.61% |
STMicroelectronics NV | STM.SI | 7.48% |
Skyworks Solutions Inc | SWKS | 6.75% |
Garmin Ltd | GRMN | 6.22% |
Sensata Technologies Holding PLC | ST | 5.54% |
Cypress Semiconductor Corp | CY | 5.48% |
ADT Inc | ADT | 4.85% |
Advantech Co Ltd | 2395.TW | 4.75% |
Silicon Laboratories Inc | SLAB | 3.18% |
ams AG | AMS | 2.83% |
Name | Symbol | % Assets |
---|---|---|
Align Technology Inc | ALGN | 1.47% |
ADT Inc | ADT | 1.43% |
DexCom Inc | DXCM | 1.43% |
Fortinet Inc | FTNT | 1.24% |
Qorvo Inc | QRVO | 1.23% |
Splunk Inc | SPLK | 1.21% |
Insulet Corp | PODD | 1.19% |
Avast PLC | AVST.L | 1.18% |
Xero Ltd | XRO.NZ | 1.18% |
Brookfield Renewable Partners LP | BEP.UN | 1.17% |
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