Amid a prolonged slump by growth and technology stocks, some investors may be inclined to throw babies out with the bathwater. However, technology — the largest sector weight in a slew of broad domestic equity benchmarks — still offers potential secular winners.
At least that’s the view of Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, and assuming that his call is correct, there could be positive implications for exchange traded funds such as the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ ) and the Invesco NASDAQ 100 ETF (QQQM ).
Both QQQ and QQQM track the Nasdaq-100 Index (NDX). While that gauge is taking its lumps this year, it’s still home to some quality names with secular winner potential.
“Stocks betting on work-from-home plays, e-commerce, and consumer-facing technology have been especially battered as demand dries up. But that doesn’t mean the entire sector should be written off by investors, wrote Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives. Instead, the economic turmoil could be an opportunity for investors to build up their exposure to tech stalwarts, he added,” reported Sabrina Escobar for Barron’s.
Three of the tech stocks Ives is most bullish on are Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), and Salesforce (NYSE:CRM). Cloud computing giant Salesforce isn’t a member of the QQQ and QQQM portfolios, but the ETFs allocate about 23% of their weights to Apple and Microsoft, according to issuer data.
“This tech selloff has been unrelenting and it’s easy for investors to throw in the towel and further shed the tech sector,” Ives wrote in a report to clients. “To this point, we believe the secular drivers around cloud, cyber security, and the new digital age are not going away despite this shaky period for the economy.”
Citing a digital shift and a cloud computing boom that still has a long way to run, Ives is also constructive on several cybersecurity stocks, including Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW), Zscaler (NASDAQ:ZS), Tenable Holdings (NASDAQ:TENB), Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT), and CyberArk Software (NASDAQ:CYBR).
Of those names, Palo Alto Networks is the largest component in QQQ and QQQM, followed by Fortinet. Zscaler is also a member firm in the ETFs. That cybersecurity exposure could be a point in favor of the Invesco ETFs because the long-term demand outlook for cybersecurity products and services remains compelling, and valuations in the group are currently more attractive than they have been in some time.
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