For all the new investors that emerged in 2020 with their pandemic bankrolls and had a two-year free-for-all making money without really trying, 2022 has surely been a comeuppance. While most of the gamblers in the meme stock crowd have been pushed to the sidelines, either temporarily or for good, real investors are staring at account statements and are stunned at the carnage. They likely are wondering what to do now.

Technology dominates the American economy. While the sector is taking it in the chin now, it will be back. When it does return, it could dominate a market rally later this year or in 2023. While there is a good chance the market decline is not over, it likely is closer to the end than the beginning. Now might be a good time to nibble at some of the top stocks in the sector, especially if they pay a solid dividend.

We screened our 24/7 Wall St. technology research database looking for blue chip companies that pay a dependable dividend that have extremely high bounce-back potential. The following eight stocks hit our screens. While all are rated Buy by top Wall Street firms, it is important to remember that no single analyst report should be used as a sole basis for any buying or selling decision.

Cisco

Investors who are more conservative may want to consider this mega-cap tech leader, which recently posted outstanding results. Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) designs, manufactures and sells internet protocol (IP) based networking products and services related to the communications and information technology industry worldwide.

The company provides switching products, including fixed-configuration and modular switches, and storage products that provide connectivity to end users, workstations, IP phones, wireless access points and servers, as well as next-generation network routing products that interconnect public and private wireline and mobile networks for mobile, data, voice and video applications.

Its cybersecurity products give clients the scope, scale and capabilities to keep up with the complexity and volume of threats. Putting security above everything helps corporations innovate while keeping their assets safe.

Shareholders receive a 3.84% dividend. Evercore ISI has its target price for Cisco Systems stock set at $56. The consensus target is $54.78. Thursday’s $40.61 closing share price was almost 4% higher on the day.

Corning

This company continues to be a huge player in the fiber optic world. Corning Inc. (NYSE: GLW) is a technology pioneer that manufactures LCD glass for flat-panel displays for multiple product lines.

Telecommunications (30% of sales) produces optical fiber and cable, component hardware and equipment, and photonic components for the telecommunications, CATV and networking industry. In addition, the company’s Environmental Technologies division (12% of sales) produces specialized glass, glass ceramic and polymer-based products for the automotive industry.

Investors receive a 3.61% dividend. UBS’s $40 price target compares to the $38.72 consensus target for Corning stock. The shares closed on Thursday at $30.58.

This high-quality company pays a solid dividend and its shares have been hit hard. Dell Technologies Inc. (NYSE: DELL) designs, develops, manufactures, markets, sells and supports information technology (IT) hardware, software and services solutions worldwide. It operates through three segments.

Infrastructure Solutions Group provides traditional and next-generation storage solutions, and rack, blade, tower and hyperscale servers. It also offers networking products and services that help its business customers to transform and modernize their infrastructure, mobilize and enrich end-user experiences and accelerate business applications and processes. It also offers attached software and peripherals, as well as support and deployment, configuration and extended warranty services.

Dell’s The Client Solutions Group offers desktops, notebooks and workstations; displays and projectors; attached and third-party software and peripherals; as well as support and deployment, configuration and extended warranty services.

The VMware segment supports customers in the areas of hybrid and multi-cloud, modern applications, networking, security and digital workspaces, helping customers to manage IT resources across private clouds and complex multi-cloud, multi-device environments.

Dell also provides information security and cloud software and infrastructure-as-a-service solutions that enable customers to migrate, run, and manage mission-critical applications in cloud-based IT environments.

The dividend yield is 3.83%. The Credit Suisse price target is $60, while the consensus target is $55.21. The final Dell Technologies stock trade for Thursday was almost 4% higher at $34.99.

HP

Legendary investor Warren Buffett stunned Wall Street earlier this year when Berkshire Hathaway reported a purchase of 121 million shares of the venerable tech giant. HP Inc. (NYSE: HPQ) provides personal computing and other access devices, imaging and printing products and related technologies, solutions and services in the United States and internationally. It serves individual consumers, small and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including customers in the government, health and education sectors.

HP’s Personal Systems segment offers commercial and consumer desktop and notebook personal computers, workstations, thin clients, commercial mobility devices, retail point-of-sale systems, displays and other related accessories, software, support and services. The Printing segment provides consumer and commercial printer hardware, supplies, solutions and services, as well as scanning devices. And the Corporate Investments segment includes HP Labs and business incubation projects.

HP stock investors receive a 4.04% dividend. The $33 Credit Suisse target price is higher than the $30.49 consensus target. The stock closed 5% higher on Thursday at $26.02.

This blue chip giant offers investors an incredibly solid entry point, a massive dividend and a degree of safety for investors who are more conservative. International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) provides integrated solutions and services worldwide through these four business segments.

The Software segment offers hybrid cloud platform and software solutions, such as Red Hat, an enterprise open-source solutions; software for business automation, AIOps and management, integration, and application servers; data and artificial intelligence solutions; and security software and services for threat, data and identity. This segment also provides transaction processing software that supports clients’ mission-critical and on-premise workloads in banking, airlines and retail industries.

The Consulting segment offers business transformation services, including strategy, business process design and operations, data and analytics, and system integration services; technology consulting services; and application and cloud platform services.

The Infrastructure segment provides on-premises and cloud-based server and storage solutions for its clients’ mission-critical and regulated workloads; and support services and solutions for hybrid cloud infrastructure, as well as remanufacturing and remarketing services for used equipment.

The Financing segment offers lease, installment payment, loan financing and short-term working capital financing services.

IBM’s second-quarter revenue of $15.5 billion was up sharply from a year ago and topped the consensus forecast. Profits also were ahead of analysts’ expectations.

Shareholders receive a 5.60% dividend. IBM stock has a $155 price target at BofA Securities. That is well above the $141.56 consensus target and Thursday’s closing print of $121.79, which was up close to 4% on the day.

Juniper Networks

This is another familiar name that could offer among the best total return potential. Juniper Networks Inc. (NYSE: JNPR) designs, develops and sells network products and services worldwide. The company offers various routing products, such as ACX series universal access routers to deploy new high-bandwidth services; MX series Ethernet routers that function as a universal edge platform; PTX series packet transport routers; and NorthStar controllers.

Juniper Networks also provides switching products, including EX series Ethernet switches to address the access, aggregation and core layer switching requirements of micro branch, branch office, and campus environments; QFX series of core, spine and top-of-rack data center switches; and Juniper access points, which provide wireless access and performance.

In addition, the company offers security products including SRX series services gateways for the data center; Branch SRX family provides an integrated firewall and next-generation firewall; virtual firewall that delivers various features of physical firewalls; and advanced malware protection, a cloud-based service and Juniper ATP.

Juniper Networks stock comes with a 3.25% dividend. Wells Fargo’s $32 price target is shy of the $32.71 consensus target. The shares closed at $26.32 on Thursday.

This is a conservative way for investors to participate in the massive cloud growth, and the company posted stellar second-quarter results. Microsoft Inc. (NASDAQ: MSFT) manufactures, licenses and supports a wide range of software products. The company has transformed its business model from a component-driven model (personal computer, server) to one driven by the need for cloud capacity.

Many Wall Street analysts agree that Microsoft has become a clear number two in the public or hyper-scale cloud infrastructure market with Azure, which is the company’s cloud computing platform offerings, and which continues growing at triple-digit levels. Some have flagged Azure as the biggest rival to Amazon’s AWS service.

Some analysts maintain that Microsoft is discounting Azure for large enterprises, so that Azure may be cheaper than AWS for larger users. The cloud was big in recent earnings reports and will remain a growing part of the software giant’s earnings profile.

Investors receive a 1.20% dividend. The Jefferies team has a conservative $275 price target, compared with the $329.56 consensus target. Microsoft stock closed on Thursday at $234.24.

Oracle

This top software stock has backed up recently and is offering an attractive entry point. Oracle Corp. (NYSE: ORCL) develops, manufactures, markets, sells, hosts and supports database and middleware software, application software, cloud infrastructure, hardware systems and related services worldwide.

The company licenses its Oracle Database software to customers, which is designed to enable reliable and secure storage, retrieval and manipulation of various forms of data. Its Oracle Fusion Middleware software aims to build, deploy, secure, access and integrate business applications, as well as automate their business processes.

Oracle recently announced that it would acquire Cerner, a leading provider of digital information systems used within hospitals and health systems to enable medical professionals to deliver better healthcare to individual patients and communities. The all-cash tender offer has approximately $28.3 billion in equity value.

The company pays a 2.05% dividend. The J.P. Morgan price objective is $84, though Oracle stock has a consensus target of $87.89. On Thursday, the closing share price was $65.20.

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We avoided semiconductor stocks for the time being, as the new government restrictions on sales to Chinese companies could be putting a big dent in sales. While we are not ready to nibble in that space, we will be closely watching third-quarter results of the top names. The software, networking and information technology leaders we did focus on could be the first to take off when the selling reverses.

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