Technology

Top Technology Stocks Among Oppenheimer's Best Ideas for 2016

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One of the best ways for investors to judge investment recommendations from Wall Street is to have the ideas not only match up on a fundamental basis, but also look good on all the technical charts. The combination of the two makes the process of choosing an investment much easier. Plus, it covers the areas at which the top portfolio managers on Wall Street look closest.

A new Oppenheimer research report features the firm’s current U.S. MAER best ideas list. The MAER rating analyzes trends in revisions to the consensus estimates, alongside price and fundamental information. The stocks also have an attractive technical profile and are rated Outperform at the firm.

We found three that make very good sense now.

Amazon

The absolute leader in online retail is also a dominate player in cloud storage business, and it crushed earnings this past quarter. 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), which provides compute, storage, database, analytics, applications and deployment services that enable virtually various businesses. It is a momentum part of the company RBC says is one of the most compelling in tech today.

The company has had outstanding unit and revenue growth. In addition, 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.


Wall Street analysts have noted that holiday spending data suggests that desktop online sales grew but rates slowed from last year, with mobile significantly outgrowing desktop. They cited Channel Advisor data that noted that Amazon’s showed an outstanding 21% growth rate on Black Friday last year. Many think that the company has as many as 50 million Amazon Prime subscribers in the U.S. alone.

The Oppenheimer price target for the stock is $745, and the Thomson/First Call consensus target is $741.10. The stock closed Wednesday at $632.65 per share.
Nuance Communications

This stock was a target last year by activist investor Carl Icahn, who as of the end of the third quarter last year owned over 60 million shares of the company. Nuance Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN) is a leading provider of voice and language solutions for businesses and consumers around the world. Its technologies, applications and services make the user experience more compelling by transforming the way people interact with devices and systems.

The company recently announced that its Dragon Drive connected car voice technologies will power the in-car infotainment systems for BMW vehicle models in 2015 and 2016. The BMW Group 7 Series was the first to hit the market this year featuring a conversational user interface built with Nuance’s hybrid embedded-cloud voice recognition, natural language understanding, barge-in and text-to-speech solutions that together create intuitive access to in-car functions and connected services while minimizing distraction.

Oppenheimer has a $26 price target, and the consensus target is posted at $22.78. Shares closed most recently at $19.31.

Texas Instruments

This old-school chip tech company is also a top large cap pick. Texas Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ: TXN) is a global semiconductor design and manufacturing company that develops analog integrated circuits and embedded processors. The company generates up to 90% of its revenues from its analog and embedded processing businesses, which have well-diversified end markets (autos, industrial, personal/consumer electronics), long product life cycles and limited capital intensity.

Numerous Wall Street pros see this as core large cap holding and cite a solid high-single-digit and very diverse revenue flow, solid capital allocation to lever the balance sheet if needed, and substantial room for margin expansion as the ramp up new facilities. The company boasts sustained impressive cash flow over the past several years and has impressively returned 100% plus of that back to shareholders via stock buybacks and dividends. Given modest capital expenditure requirements coupled with room for margin expansion, Texas Instruments should be able to sustain double-digit free-cash-flow growth despite slower sales growth.

Texas Instrument investors are paid a solid 2.85% dividend. The Oppenheimer objective for the stock was unavailable, but the consensus target is $58.70. The stock closed Wednesday at $53.42.


While 2016’s first week of trading has been grim for investors, most of the selling is event driven. Once things start to settle down, and fourth-quarter earnings start to hit the tape, investors will again start to focus on the merits of individual stocks.

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