A new report from Jefferies highlights this week’s top stocks to buy. We screened the list and found three huge, hot tech stocks that still have outstanding upside potential that are among this biggest favorites at Jefferies, and of course, all are rated Buy.
Amazon
This is the absolute leader in online retail, and it is also a dominate player in cloud storage business and just crushed earnings last week. Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) serves consumers through retail websites, which primarily include merchandise and content purchased for resale from vendors and those offered by third-party sellers. In addition, the company serves developers and enterprises through Amazon Web Services (AWS), the company’s cloud computing platform which provides storage, database, analytics, applications and deployment services that enable virtually all businesses to move their commerce and back-office to the cloud.
Jefferies notes that Amazon posted outstanding earnings and that the company had incredible unit and revenue growth. The firm also notes that the online retail giant’s fulfillment advantage over peers may end up being one of the most significant silos in the company’s overall business structure.
The Jefferies price target for the stock is a gigantic $775, and the Thomson/first Call consensus target is $795.71. The stock closed Friday at $599.03.
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Facebook
This stock has fought back from a huge drop one month ago and is trending higher. Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) has made a huge push with Instagram, for which Jefferies sees revenues tripling in 2017 as opposed to 2016, and Premium video and Graph Search capabilities to strengthen the social media giant’s earnings flow. Some analysts feel that Facebook can drive revenue growth even without a huge increase in advertising placement. It has been reported that Instagram is opening its platform for advertisers, particularly direct response advertisers via new direct response ad units like mobile app install ads. With a talented and experienced sales team, this should only continue to drive revenue higher.
Most Wall Street analysts point to the fact that Facebook remains the top beneficiary of the adoption of mobile Internet trends, with total U.S. Internet time spent on Facebook and Messenger. Other metrics continue to explode, and the key is there are no viable challengers anywhere in sight. They cite positive monthly data use, easier growth comparisons and positive data on ad revenue drivers as the top catalysts. Jefferies views Facebook’s longer term opportunities as almost unmatched by its mega-cap consumer internet peers, especially with over a billion users and the potential for more growth.
Facebook also announced earlier this summer a willingness to share ad revenue to acquire premium content, a totally new avenue for the company. It hopes to draw content away from Alphabet’s YouTube. Facebook will offer contributors 55% of the revenue from ads that appear alongside videos, the same split as YouTube.
The Jefferies price target is raised to $130 from $120. The consensus target is $112.57. The shares closed Friday at $102.19.
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Alphabet
The technology giant also crushed estimates when it reported last week. Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL) recently introduced Android Pay, a revamped photos and a lightweight Android derivative operating system it calls Brillo, which is designed to power the Internet of Things. The company also recently announced a new mobile version for the Android OS, which is expected to be released this fall.
Google remains the undisputed leader in Internet search, and when you add in a diverse portfolio that includes everything from the Android platform and YouTube to the Google Wallet for automatic pay and the Google Flights tool, continued growth is not out of the question. YouTube watch time accelerated a massive 60% year-over-year, and the average view session was up 50% to 40 minutes. The YouTube surge represented the best growth in two years.
Jefferies cited the company’s 21% year-over-year revenue growth as a strong increase over the 18% in the second quarter. The strong mobile search report also should quiet bearish Wall Street analysts concerned about mobile monetization. Toss in a shareholder friend $5 billion stock buyback and all systems are go.
The Jefferies price target is monster $900, and the consensus target is $853.67. Shares closed trading on Friday at $702.
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Clearly the three tech monsters are absolutely killing it, and while the competition for each in their separate Internet spaces is there, it is way behind them in overall strength, and in the case of Facebook almost nonexistent. All have had big runs, so investors looking to initiate positions may want to scale buy, looking for pullbacks to add shares.
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