Technology

Cowen's 4 Top Tech Stocks to Buy Before and After Earnings

With the third-quarter numbers and earnings coming in fast and furious, and guidance from the top companies out for the rest of the year and into 2015, investors are starting to get a feel for just where things might be headed. That feels good, especial after a horrible start to the third quarter that had the markets a day or so from a full-blown correction. The technology team at Cowen highlights four top technology stocks to buy in a new research note, and investors may want to pick up some prior to earnings releases.

The four stocks are rated Outperform and are good fits for any aggressive growth portfolio.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) absolutely blew out fiscal fourth-quarter numbers and the demand for the two new iPhone 6 models is so great that the company may not have the ability to fill all the orders that keep pouring in. The results were aided by a sale of almost 2 million more units than the Cowen team was expecting, and they lift their 2015 iPhone numbers to a very gaudy 201 million units, which would imply 11% year-over-year growth. While tablet growth is slowing, the company remains a compelling buy for investors at current prices.

Apple investors are paid a 1.90% dividend. The Cowen price target for the tech giant is raised from $110 to $113. The Thomson/First Call consensus number is posted at $115.53. Apple closed Tuesday at $102.47.

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Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) continues to dominate internet e-commerce as third-party sellers on its platform were up 45% year-over-year in August, the seventh month this year with sequential increases. In addition to incredible sales growth, the company’s Web Services division is considered the top player in the public cloud business. The AWS division delivers a set of services that together form a reliable, scalable and inexpensive computing platform. Amazon also recently announced its CloudTrail security system, which is designed to work with all third-party reporting dashboards and alert systems. This helps to keep all stored data safe and secure. Combine the huge retail backbone that dominates Internet sales, with a host of additional new initiatives, and Jefferies and most of Wall Street agree the company is a top stock to own.

The Jefferies team does caution recent investments may continue to weigh on Wall Street’s EBITDA forecasts, and they are 6% below consensus. The Jefferies price target for the Internet sales giant, which reports earnings tomorrow, is a whopping $435. The consensus target is $390.69. The stock closed trading on Tuesday at $315.33.

Pandora Media Inc. (NYSE: P) is clearly not the only company with a big desire to be in the music streaming business, but it is the current leader in installation and use in the automotive world, and hopes to stay that way. The Jefferies team expects a higher rate of Pandora adoption in new and used vehicles, which can help drive increased listenership and monetization of existing ad inventory. The analysts are slightly above Wall Street consensus at $240 million in revenue for the quarter, where mobile ad revenue should rise 54% to $150 million.

Pandora will report earnings tomorrow, and the Cowen price target is $38, while the consensus is posted at $34.31. The stock closed trading on Tuesday at $22.95.

Yelp Inc. (NYSE: YELP) has backed off nicely from 52-week highs posted way back in March, offering a much better entry point for investors. The company will release earnings after the close today, and the Cowen team believes growing traction and increased hiring in the first half of 2014 make acceleration in both total revenue and EBITDA likely for the first time this year. Most importantly, they see this boosting Wall Street sentiment, and forward estimates, which may finally boost the stock back to levels not seen in over six months.

Cowen has a $93 price target, and the Wall Street consensus figure is $89.21. Shares closed trading on Tuesday at $71.28.

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With three of the stocks to buy at Cowen set to report today and tomorrow, investors will have to make a quick decision on whether to buy before the numbers. Either way, all four are solid additions to long-term growth portfolios.

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