A popular analyst says a new tech-stock bull market is gaining momentum as other companies are now joining the party.
“We believe a short covering for the ages for the tech sector into year-end is well underway as the fundamental picture for growth tech stocks is rock solid based on our recent checks in the field,” said Dan Ives, the lead tech stock analyst at Wedbush Securities, in a note to clients on Friday.
He said the rest of the tech sector is set to join the Magnificent Seven — Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Nvidia, Alphabet, Meta Platforms and Tesla — as artificial intelligence tailwinds abound.
Showing the difference between the biggest companies and the rest of the space, the Invesco QQQ Trust Series 1
QQQ,
which tracks the Nasdaq-100, has gained 51% this year, while the equal-weight version
QQQE
is up 31%.
The Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF
MAGS,
which has only been in existence since April, has already gained 33% since inception, though the equal-weight Nasdaq 100 has outperformed it in December.
“A key theme from our recent checks in the field has been that AI monetization has begun to positively impact the tech sector with Nvidia, Microsoft, Google, Datadog, and Palantir all showing that AI use cases are multiplying across the enterprise and consumer landscape,” said Ives, noting announcements as recently as Thursday when Intel
INTC,
announced a new AI chip.
“To this point, we view AI as the most transformative technology trend since the start of the Internet in 1995 and believe many on the Street are still underestimating the $1 trillion of AI spend set to happen over the next decade in a bonanza for the chip and software sectors looking forward with Nvidia and Redmond leading the way.” Redmond is where Microsoft is headquartered.
The firm’s favorite tech names remain Apple
AAPL,
Microsoft
MSFT,
Alphabet
GOOGL,
Palo Alto Networks
PANW,
Palantir Technologies
PLTR,
Zscaler
ZS,
CrowdStrike
CRWD,
and MongoDB
MDB,
“Apple remains our top tech pick with a strong iPhone 15 upgrade cycle playing out into a strong holiday season which appears humming into Christmas week. We also believe the services business is now back to steady double digit growth and is worth between $1.5 trillion to $1.6 trillion on a standalone basis,” he added.