Red-Hot Gaming and Tech Companies Are Jefferies Top Stocks to Buy

If one area has pushed the S&P 500 higher this year it’s the technology sector, and many investors may be wondering at this juncture if the ride is all but over. While some of the top companies in the arena are starting to look a little tired, others have either blasted out incredible earnings, or may be just at the beginning of what could be a substantial move higher.

Jefferies is out with the firm’s top growth stock calls of the week, and technology and a very hot gaming stock make the list. Investors looking for new alpha-generating ideas may want to consider these top picks. All are rated Buy, but they are for more risk-tolerant accounts as they can be subject to larger price swings.

Electronic Arts

This leading video game developer should benefit from not only the continuing rise in new console sales, but also the rising trend of mobile gaming. Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA) produces top-selling games and related content and services under the EA brand in various categories, including action-adventure, role-playing, racing and first-person shooter games.

The company, which is very well known for its EA sports games like Madden Football, has made the move into mobile play by adapting many of the top franchise titles, which have been popular for years, into the mobile arena.

The company posted solid quarterly numbers last week, and the analyst noted this in the report:

Company reported last week. Revenues were in line but earnings-per-share beat and that underscores the importance of in-game spending and its impact on profitability. For fiscal 2017, full game downloads accounted for 33% of unit sales, up from 24% last year. We raised fiscal 2018 EPS to $4.19 from $4.10, which is roughly in line with the Street.

The Jefferies price target for the shares is $123, and the Wall Street consensus price objective is $111.02. The stock closed at $110.90 a share on Monday.

Finisar

This stock was hit hard back in March and may be offering a very good entry point for investors. Finisar Corp. (NASDAQ: FNSR) provides optical subsystems and components for data communication and telecommunication applications in the United States, Malaysia, China and internationally.

Its optical subsystems primarily consist of transmitters, receivers, transceivers, transponders and active optical cables that provide the fundamental optical-electrical or optoelectronic interface for interconnecting the electronic equipment used in communication networks, including the switches, routers and servers used in wireline networks, as well as the antennas and base stations used in wireless networks.

The company also offers wavelength selective switches, which are used to switch network traffic from one optical fiber to multiple other fibers without converting to an electronic signal. In addition, it provides optical components comprising packaged lasers, receivers and photodetectors for data communication and telecommunication applications, as well as passive optical components for telecommunication applications.

Jefferies has a $34 price target on the shares, but the posted consensus target is up at $38.11. The stock closed most recently at $24.80.

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Lumentum

This top company looks to benefit big-time from the Facebook Voyager project. Lumentum Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: LITE) manufactures and sells optical and photonic products in the Americas, the Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. It operates in two segments.

The Optical Communications segment offers components, modules and subsystems that enable the transmission and transport of video, audio and text data over high-capacity fiber optic cables.

The Commercial Lasers segment offers diode, direct-diode, diode-pumped solid-state, fiber and gas lasers. This segment serves customers in markets and applications, such as manufacturing, biotechnology, graphics and imaging, and remote sensing, as well as in precision machining, including drilling in printed circuit boards, wafer singulation and solar cell scribing. Its lasers products are used in various original equipment manufacturer applications.

The company’s latest results missed Wall Street’s expectations, but the stock surged as the expectations for 3D sensing and the company having a big part in the new iPhone 8 were the driving force behind the sharp gains. The CEO recently said the company is working on several handset OEMs for 3D sensing and he could see $100 million or more a quarter growing up to a $1 billion opportunity annually. The last 12-month revenues were about $1 billion.

Jefferies has set its price target at $63. The consensus price objective is $53.46, but the shares closed trading on Monday at $54.55.

NVIDIA

This top chip company reported strong earnings all last year and also was the top performing stock in the S&P 500 in 2016. NVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA) is one of the leaders when it comes to supplying graphics processing technology for the 3D graphics market, including desktop graphics processors and gaming consoles.

NVIDIA is also moving into visual computing chips for cars, mobile devices and supercomputers. The company has been able to use its ability to leverage past investments, with a more controlled spending structure ahead on unified, which enables strong cash flow that is allowing a focus on capital return, which is currently estimated to be $1 billion next year.

Top Wall Street analysts feel the stock is maturing to a platform company from a pure chip company, and Jefferies sees the stock continuing to benefit from four secular trends: virtual reality, PC gaming, chips in the automobile industry and graphic processing units (GPUs) in the cloud.

The company posted gigantic first-quarter results that well exceeded Wall Street estimates, with much of the gains directly from the firm’s huge data center and AI business. NVIDIA reported net income that more than doubled.

Investors in NVIDIA are paid a small 0.55% dividend. The $140 Jefferies price target is well above the consensus target of $118.03. The shares closed Monday at $134.31 apiece.

While tech has run hard, there are clearly avenues to drive growth the rest of the year, not the least of which is continued cloud spending and the introduction of the iPhone 8, which is expected to have numerous new and upgraded features.