Yahoo Finance 3 Cloud Stocks to Buy after Dow Falls 13% on Growing Coronavirus Fears
The historic bull market came to end last week and the selling continued Monday, after the Dow, the S&P 500, and the Nasdaq all fell over 12% on the day. Monday’s decline, which marked the Dow’s second-worst day in history, comes as the coronavirus continues to spread in the U.S. and beyond.
On Sunday, the Fed slashed its benchmark interest rate to near zero to try to help curb the economic fallout from the coronavirus. Meanwhile, the CDC now recommends that gatherings of over 50 people should be canceled for eight weeks. Plus, nearly all events have been postponed or canceled, while restaurants and stores close. Apple AAPL, Nike NKE, and other giants announced they would close their stores and more people are starting to stay home.
Last week, Broadcom AVGO pulled its full-year guidance due to coronavirus uncertainty and Wall Street is clearly nervous about the growing unknown. All of this helped push stocks down. In fact, the Dow closed at its lowest level since May 2017.
With this in mind, some investors might want to start buying stocks, or at least adding some to their watchlists. Today, we found three cloud computing stocks that investors might want to consider.
Microsoft MSFT
Microsoft already warned Wall Street in late February that it is likely to fall short of its revenue guidance for its More Personal Computing segment, due to setbacks in China. Luckily for investors, MSFT said that its Q3 guidance “remain unchanged” for its other units. This is a good sign since Microsoft’s cloud computing segment has driven its growth and price performance for the last several years—with Intelligent Cloud revenue up 27% last quarter.
Microsoft’s expanding cloud segment is poised to carry the firm going forward, as it adapts within the quickly changing and expanding tech world. Looking ahead, Microsoft’s adjusted earnings are projected to surge over 18% and 12.5%, respectively in fiscal 2020 and 2021. MSFT’s sales are set jump to 12.8% and 11.7% during this same stretch, which is solid for a company of its size and age.
Despite a few downward earnings estimate revisions, MSFT’s overall earnings revisions picture remains heavily positive. This helps Microsoft hold a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) at the moment. The stock is also part of a highly-ranked Zacks industry and its dividend yield rests at 1.51%, which easily top the 10-year U.S. Treasury’s 0.73%.
Plus, MSFT executives consistently raise their dividend and they approved a new share repurchase program last fall. Microsoft stock fell 15% Monday to close at roughly $135 a share, down roughly 30% from its 52-week highs and trading where it was in October 2019. Some investors might want to wait for it to fall further before they buy. But MSFT appears to be a strong long-term buy amid all of the uncertainty for its ability to grow and remain diversified.
Zuora, Inc. ZUO
Zuora sells cloud-based software on a subscription basis that aims to help firms transition to their own subscription-focused models. ZUO hopes to capitalize on the rise of everything from Netflix NFLX to Adobe ADBE. Zuora’s tagline is “The World Subscribed” and it sees the global economy transitioning toward a subscription model. Plus, the company has worked with everyone from cybersecurity firm Carbonite CARB to Caterpillar CAT.
Last week, Zuora posted a narrower than expected fourth quarter fiscal 2020 loss. But the stock has been hurt as part of the broader selloff. The last month has seen ZOU stock fall from $16 a share to its current price of around $7.20 per share. Overall, shares of the Redwood City, California-headquartered firm sit 70% below their 52-week highs of over $24 a share, which could give it plenty of room to run.
ZUO is currently a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) that sports an “A” grade for Growth and a “B” for Momentum in our Style Scores system. Looking ahead, our Zacks estimates call for the company’s fiscal 2021 sales to surge over 20%, with 2022 expected to jump over 22% higher to $406.4 million. Meanwhile, its adjusted loss is expected to come in lower in 2021, at -$0.26 a share against its recently reported -$0.34. Then its adjusted loss in 2022 is projected to shrink to -$0.08 a share.
Amazon AMZN
Amazon, unlike Apple, MSFT, and other tech giants failed to gain much momentum in 2019, but it did climb late in the year into February. But AMZN shares have fallen over 22% since the market began to tumble and hit a new 52-week low Monday, closing regular trading at $1,689.15 a share. This alone might make some want to take a deeper look at Amazon, which is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) and is trading at 3.1X sales—well below Alibaba’s BABA 7.1 and Apple’s 4.5X.
Wall Street and investors had been down on AMZN, in part, because it had seen its earnings take a hit. But the e-commerce giant was investing heavily in one-day Prime shipping to fight off the likes of Target TGT and Walmart WMT. On top of e-commerce growth and Prime memberships, Amazon aims to better challenge Netflix and Disney DIS in the streaming TV era, as it continues to expand into everything from logistics to brick-and-mortar.
Amazon also remains a cloud-computing powerhouse. The company’s fiscal 2020 revenue is projected to jump over 19% to reach $334.20 billion. Then its 2021 sales are expected to climb 17%, or nearly $60 billion higher to touch $391.38 billion. And its adjusted FY20 EPS figure is projected to surge 20%, with 2021 set to soar 50% above our current-year estimate.
We are reissuing this article to correct a mistake. The original article, issued March 16, 2020, said that Zuora was headquartered in Mountain View, California. The company is now based in Redwood City, CA.
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Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) : Free Stock Analysis Report
NIKE, Inc. (NKE) : Free Stock Analysis Report
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Apple Inc. (AAPL) : Free Stock Analysis Report
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