24/7 Wall St.

As we begin to finish up the final month of what has been a tremendous year for the stock market, the 24/7 staff is reviewing what the major Wall Street firms are recommending for the stretch run and in 2014. The third-quarter earnings season wrapped up in November with stocks providing solid earnings for the quarter. The fourth quarter is expected to be solid again, if not spectacular.

The analysts at Cowen and Company are very positive on many of the top tech names for 2014. They see continued IT spending for infrastructure improvement, cyber security, cloud storage and hosting, and other positive spending patterns they may even prove to be better than expected. We went through a new research report, and pulled four of their top names to buy for 2014.

Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ: CHKP) is the worldwide leader in firewall market share with 22.4%, according to Gartner. That is 7.7% more than their nearest competitor, and the future looks very promising for the company. The Cowen price target for the stock is $70. The Thomson/First Call estimate is $67.25. Checkpoint closed Friday at $61.

Citrix Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CTXS) provides cloud computing solutions that enable information technology (IT) and service providers to build private and public clouds worldwide. The company operates in two divisions, Enterprise and Online Services. The Cowen price target for the stock stands at $79, and the consensus target is lower at $70. Citrix closed Friday at $60.03.

FireEye Inc. (NASDAQ: FEYE) was a top new initial public offering (IPO) this past summer and has maintained the early momentum. The good thing for investors is the stock has backed up off the highs and is providing a much better entry point. The company provides various real-time protection products to enterprises and governments. It provides malware protection system (MPS) products, including software-based appliances, such as Web MPS appliances that are deployed inline at enterprise Internet access points to analyze all Web traffic. The Cowen price target for the stock is $53. The consensus target is posted at $50. FireEye closed Friday at $36.59.

VMware Inc. (NYSE: VMW) remains a top stock to buy at Cowen for 2014. Majority owned by storage giant EMC, VMware alone contributes almost 24% of EMC’s total revenue. In the third quarter, VMware experienced a 17% rise in revenue to $1.28 billion year over year. VMware’s maintenance revenue supported this increase. The Cowen price target for the stock stands at $100, and the consensus is slightly higher at $102. VMware closed Friday at $86.48.

Cyber security is a huge issue for business and governments. As data increases, the ability of hackers to exploit the availability does as well. The leading stocks in the industry should have the ability to stay on top long past next year.