3 Tech Plays for a Thriving, Tech-Driven Market

The technology sector has been outperforming the averages for several months now. A breather is overdue. But that could be just the chance for investors to get on board! Here are three picks from three different MoneyShow contributors for this thriving, tech-driven market. Paul Dykewicz, StockInvestor.com Our team has identified five cutting-edge software investments to buy as technology rises again. The list features three funds, a cybersecurity company, and another primed to grow from artificial intelligence and automation. First Trust NASDAQ Technology Dividend Index Fund is one of the diversified names. We're showcasing investments that have been climbing as technology stocks recover from a plunge of more than 30% in 2022. Investors who don't mind volatility may be able to outperform the market by taking the ups and downs of technology stock investing in stride to pursuit potentially strong returns in 2023. A broader-based tech fund with a higher dividend yield is TDIV. The ETF tries to track the Nasdaq Technology Dividend Index, which is composed of technology and telecommunications companies. The fund recently had 94 holdings, and its 10 largest positions accounted for 59% of its assets. The biggest weightings were Microsoft , Apple , Intel , Broadcom and IBM . Roughly 13% of the fund was in communication services and the rest fit into the technology sector. Recommended Action: Buy TDIV Hilary Kramer, GameChangers We rarely get much of a chance to talk about it, but momentum in the market works like physics. Any stock in motion will continue moving along that trajectory until some outside force gets in its way. Palantir Technologies is a name that has shot into the scoring zone. Most of our stocks reported good enough operational performance in the last few works to start moving toward the upside . . . some faster than others, but generally the right direction. Positions we were holding before they reported their quarterly numbers have rallied an average of 14.3% since. That's pretty good. When you consider that the S&P 500 is down a fraction since the start of earnings season, it's exceptional. What we're left with is a generally warm vibe. A lot of people on Wall Street underestimated these companies. Estimates were too low, which means that now price targets need to rise in order to make the models match reality. After all, while everyone is entitled to an opinion on where the numbers are going, the magic of earnings season means that once the quarterly report comes out, there's no more debate on how the numbers have stacked up. And once you accumulate enough data points pointing in one direction (UP), it gets really hard to argue that they should be going the other way. Most of our data points have pointed up this season, forcing stubborn investors and analysts to concede that they were wrong and that these companies are worth buying at this price. The machine-learning software and data-mining specialist PLTR in particular has been a revelation. Palantir Technologies (PLTR) That stock had been left for dead before earnings proved that last quarter's promises were more than a mirage. On the eve of its quarterly report, it had relapsed to $7.74. Here we are now, back above $12 and even $13.50 where the action gets especially intense. There's absolutely nothing stopping PLTR from continuing to do well. I'd be inclined to see how far it can reach back toward what's now the 2022 ceiling. Remember, we weren't in the grip of zero-rate Fed mania then. That was close to the depth of bear market misery. And even then, PLTR managed to trade close to $15 before starting its long dreadful slide. That's the kind of scenario I want to reach toward as the bull recovers. And it means that PLTR is a gift at this price. Recommended Action: Buy PLTR. George Gilder, Gilder's Moonshots SkyWater Technology specializes in helping its customers develop and then manufacture customized integrated circuit devices. Setting the company apart is a trifecta of differentiation. For starters, it's the only U.S.-based and solely U.S.-owned pure-play semiconductor foundry. Then there is SkyWater's portfolio of specialized wafer fabrication processes including mixed-signal CMOS, rad-hard ICs, power discretes, MEMS (microelectromechanical systems), superconducting ICs, photonics, carbon nanotubes, and others. Finally, the company's novel customer engagement model, dubbed Technology as a Service (TaaS), enables innovative chip firms to co-create novel solutions across SkyWater's technologies, diverse manufacturing capabilities, and design/production services. One innovator taking advantage of SkyWater's Technology as a Service model is Weebit Nano. If that name sounds familiar, until a few months ago we held WBT in the Special Situations Portfolio of the Gilder Technology Report. We got great results: The stock more than doubled in less than a year, meeting its total return target before we closed the position. You have not heard the last of Weebit, which makes an emergent form of nonvolatile memory called ReRAM (resistive random-access memory) that is enabling new applications from neuromorphic computing to industrial IoT. Weebit is one of more than a dozen breakthrough startup companies spun out of James Tour's lab at Rice University. Yes, that's another familiar name as we've written a great deal about Tour's pioneering work in nanotechnology and graphene. Most of the Tour spinoffs are still privately held. One of the few publicly traded Tour spinoffs, WBT is on the Australian Stock Exchange. On the verge of generating revenue after years of R&D with the help of SkyWater, the company recently raised A$60 million of equity to continue development of its ReRAM technology. SkyWater's engagement with ReRAM started with a collaboration on a carbon nanotube-based 3D project with MIT, funded through DARPA's Electronics Resurgence Initiative. That work built the core competences underlying SkyWater's development partnership with Weebit. ReRAM offers strategic advantages over currently dominant Flash memory including improved write time, endurance, cost-effectiveness, and power consumption. (See exhibit below.) It may seem counterintuitive that these specialized memory devices can undercut Flash on costs. This is thanks in part to the fact that ReRAM fabrication is highly complementary to SkyWater's foundational CMOS platform. The fabrication of NAND Flash is a far more complex process. Source: Weebit Nano SKYT is one of the most exciting opportunities in the Moonshots portfolio. Its work to date confirms its great potential for growth. Recommended Action: Buy SKYT.

3 Tech Plays for a Thriving, Tech-Driven Market

Three Tech Plays for a Thriving, Tech-Driven Market

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