Technology
RBC Says Take Advantage of Sell-Off in Top Technology Stocks
Published:
Last Updated:
One thing smart traders always seem to do is buy weakness and sell euphoria. It seems easy, but many investors are often scared of having seller’s remorse when stocks may go higher. A new report from RBC says to take advantage of selling in three top tech stocks now, for what could be solid gains not far down the road.
Often investors, and certainly Wall Street analysts, become myopic on stocks and focus so closely on the near-term results that the big picture gets lost in the sell-off dust. The RBC analysts are focused on positives that could be just a quarter or so down the road.
These three tech stocks are all rated Outperform at RBC.
Apple
This remains the world’s biggest and boldest technology company in the world. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) came in with numbers for the quarter that were above expectations, but the actual iPhone sales were somewhat below what was a pretty high bar. The company has an incredible $200 billion in cash, most of it stored overseas, that could be used to buy back shares and make strategic investments.
The RBC team acknowledged in the research report that near-term selling of the shares not only Wednesday, but possibly for the foreseeable short term, is inevitable. But they pointed to four major points that investors positive on the long-term outlook for the stock to consider.
The company is also widening its lead over Google in the app marketplace. In fact, revenue at Apple’s global App Store was about 70% higher than on Google Play in the first quarter, compared with about a 60% advantage last year.
ALSO READ: 5 Merrill Lynch Stock Picks With Huge Cash Flow
Toss in the recent huge streaming music announcement, with some concessions made due to push-back from superstar Taylor Swift, and the company continues to expand the gigantic reach it already commands. Apple has updated the iOS operating system, updated and added new apps and is quickly expanding Apple Pay. In other words, it continues to add to its 800-pound gorilla status.
Apple investors are paid a 1.68% dividend. The RBC price target for the stock is $150. The Thomson First Call consensus figure is $149.28. The stock closed Wednesday at $125.22, down over 4%.
Microsoft
The iconic software company lagged some Wall Street estimates on guidance and was hit Wednesday. Microsoft Inc. (NASDAQ: MSFT) remains the RBC analysts’ favorite mega-cap software stock, and they pounded the table for investors to buy any weakness in the shares. The stock traded down on weakness in the phone market and other current issues. Excluding restructuring charges and other items, per-share earnings actually rose to $0.62 from $0.56. Analysts expected per-share profit of $0.56. The revenue fell 5.1% to $22.18 billion.
The sales were actually skewed to the hardware upside, and the per-share beat was a result of better non-operating income and a lower share count due to buybacks. Wall Street analysts were also less than thrilled by the forward guidance from the company.
One thing the RBC team is stressing is they think that the company is two quarters away from a very important upswing in sales, earnings per share and cash flow growth. Another huge item for the company is that the new edition of Windows 10 is to be released next week. The software update is expected by many to be the biggest, most well-received and feature-rich update in recent memory, with a new and much faster browser named Edge replacing the venerable Internet Explorer.
ALSO READ: Merrill Lynch Makes Huge Social Media Addition to US 1 List
Microsoft investors are paid a solid 2.72% dividend. The RBC price target is set at $54, and the consensus target is $50.13. The stock closed Wednesday at $45.54, down 3.7%.
VMware
This company actually reported very solid numbers, but the stock is down huge over the past year and a half. VMware Inc. (NYSE: VMW) is a global leader in cloud infrastructure and business mobility. VMware’s industry-leading virtualization technology solutions deliver a brave new model of IT that is fluid, instant and more secure. Customers can innovate faster by rapidly developing, automatically delivering and more safely consuming any application. With 2014 revenues of $6 billion, VMware has more than 500,000 customers and 75,000 partners.
The company reported very solid earnings, which they had reaffirmed earlier this month. The RBC analysts feel that VMware is very well positioned for the rest of the year and should benefit from increased government spending and continued ramp up in new products and new and renewed enterprise license agreements (ELAs) in 2016.
VMware reported earnings, adjusted for one-time gains and costs, that came to $0.93 per share. The results surpassed Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of 16 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $0.91 per share. Revenue was right in line with expectations at $1.6 billion on an adjusted basis.
The company is adding ELAs at a furious pace, and cloud management tools are now 16% penetrated into the customer base, with plenty of room to grow. The bottom line is this company is back, and back with a vengeance. Despite the big move Wednesday, the stock still is trading almost 22% below highs printed in April of 2014.
The $100 RBC price target is higher than the consensus target of $96.08. The shares closed Wednesday at $86.11, up over 5%.
ALSO READ: 4 Large Cap Biotech Stocks to Buy Before Earnings
The trade here is pretty easy for long-term technology investors. Buy the cream-of-the-crop while the stocks are trading down. Put them in the portfolio and sit back and wait. If the RBC team is right, the gains should be substantial.
Thank you for reading! Have some feedback for us?
Contact the 24/7 Wall St. editorial team.