The week of May 20 seemed as though it was starting off on the right foot, rising to over 17,700 on the Dow Jones Industrial Average. A series of mixed economic reports and sudden reversal of the Federal Reserve’s dovish bias heading back toward tightening interest rates put the Dow barley in the red at 17,500.94.
Overall in the land of technology, things looked marginally better with the Nasdaq rising 1.1% to 4,769.56 this last week. All in all, it wasn’t enough of a weekly move to count for very much — but there were several big stock wins in the tech sector.
24/7 Wall St. covered many earnings reports and tracked other post-news trading developments and there were five big technology winners from news this last week.
These companies have been covered with the news, and links back to the reports for more investigative or inquisitive readers and investors. Trading history and a portion of the key analyst coverage has been included as well.
As you will see, each of these rose by 5% or high (some much higher).
Apple
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) had an interesting week for once. It was one thing that Warren Buffett’s team added it to the full Berkshire Hathaway holdings, but that made for 11 strong considerations in Apple stock. Apple was also reiterated as Outperform with a $150 price target (versus a prior $93.49 close) at Credit Suisse, noting that mix shifts will drive upside – new memory options will be in the iPhone 7 and they retain the average sale prices and gross margin estimates for 2016 and 2017.
Apple’s consensus analyst price target has drifted since the start of the year, and is now at $126.25 versus a 52-week range of $89.47 to $132.97. Apple rose 3.7% to $93.88 after the Buffett stake news, up from $90.52 before the stake was disclosed.
Apple shares generally drifted higher the rest of the week, and a 1.1% gain to $95.22 on Friday gave Apple a gain of 5.2% for the whole week. Too bad that Warren Buffett has a very limited and mixed history with tech stocks.
24/7 Wall St.Applied Materials
Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT) surged after reporting its earnings, and Friday’s gain of 13.8% to $22.66 ended up giving it a weekly gain of 15.5%. The chip-equipment giant had originally seen only a 7.4% gain to $21.38 after the report, but the reception to earnings just kept getting better. B. Riley raised Applied Materials to Buy from Neutral with a $27 price target. Several analysts issued price target hikes, and here are just a few:
- Credit Suisse raised its target price to $25 from $23.
- Morgan Stanley raised its price target to $25 from $23.
- Deutsche Bank raised its price target to $26 from $24.
- JPMorgan raised its price target to $27 from $24.
Cisco Systems
Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) would have likely done better after earnings unexpected beat expectations had the market been positive. Its pre-earnings close of $26.72 rose to $27.57 after earnings and another 1.5% gain on Friday took Cisco to $27.97 — for a 5.4% gain for the week. The networking giant beat earnings and managed to give a positive (or better than negative) update about China concerns.
Credit Suisse maintained its Underperform rating but it raised its downside price target to $24 from $22 in the call. Some of the other price target hikes were as follows:
- RBC raised its target to $33.
- Wunderlich raised its target to $28.
- Wells Fargo raised its valuation range up to $33 to $35.
- and Goldman Sachs raised its price target to $35.
CyberArk Software
CyberArk Software Ltd. (NASDAQ: CYBR) had positive earnings earlier in the month. Its shares rose 2.5% to $42.54 on Thursday but then a 0.8% gain to $42.90 on Friday took its shares, up for a weekly gain of over 5.5% from the previous Friday. Jim Cramer hosted its CEO, who talked up the need for more security and effectively a new layer for a business they previously did not have.
Another big development was that CyberArk Software was raised to Buy from Neutral and the price objective was raised from $46.00 to $50.00 (versus a $40.10 prior close) at Merrill Lynch. The firm said that CyberArk had solid execution and there is a large opportunity with new and existing customers.
24/7 Wall St.Imperial Capital also recently kept its Outperform rating but raised its target to $45 from $41 in the call, although this on the surface might seem like very limited upside.
CyberArk has a 52-week range of $31.50 to $76.35 and it has a consensus analyst price target of $48.93. The highest price target is still all the way up at $60.00, but you can see some of the upside extremism for data security and cyber security has leveled off.
Salesforce.com
Salesforce.com Inc. (NYSE: CRM) saw its shares rise over 4% initially to $81.09 after beating earnings and raising guidance, and the tiny drop of 7-cents on Friday to $81.02 still have Salesforce.com a jump up of 6.1% for the week. Two of the analyst calls seen were Mizuho reiterating its Buy rating and price target jump to $100 from $90, and Credit Suisse reiterating its Outperform rating and raising its target price to $115 from $110.
Salesforce.com’s management and leadership team was very ‘chatty’ after the earnings gain. Quotes have been provided below.
Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO:
We’re thrilled that first quarter revenue growth accelerated to 28% year-over-year in constant currency. Given the strong response to our Customer Success Platform, we are raising our fiscal 2017 revenue guidance by $80 million to reach $8.2 billion at the high end of the range.
Keith Block, vice chairman, president and COO:
Our first quarter was an extremely strong start to our fiscal year, with outstanding execution across the board. We continued to drive larger and more strategic transactions in the first quarter, including yet another 9-figure transaction. No other enterprise software company is building strategic relationships of this size and scale—and certainly not at this pace.
Mark Hawkins, CFO:
Operating cash flow grew 43% in the first quarter from a year ago, surpassing the $1 billion quarterly milestone for the first time in our company’s history. We also expanded our non-GAAP operating margin by 283 basis points, which is our eighth consecutive quarter of year-over-year improvement.
Also from technology this week, here are three tech stocks big well-known tech leaders riding the waves of the future.
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