Tech stocks are surging again. These three could keep rallying.
After a brief slide in April, tech stocks are soaring again.
The Nasdaq Composite just touched another all-time high, and big tech stocks like Nvidia are still putting up blockbuster results.
Even as concerns about elevated interest rates and a possible recession remain, the tech sector has been unflappable, and the emerging generative artificial intelligence (AI) boom offers yet another reason to bet on tech stocks.
On that note, let’s take a look at three tech stocks worth buying today.
By now, chip stocks like Nvidia have become household names among retail investors, but ASML (ASML 0.53%) is still relatively unheard of.
ASML arguably has a stronger competitive position than even Nvidia does. It makes the lithography equipment that manufacturers like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing use to make chips, and ASML is currently the only company that makes cutting-edge extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machines that are used to make the world’s most advanced chips.
That affords ASML significant pricing power and gives it a wide economic moat, making it an attractive stock.
In the first quarter, ASML reported an operating margin of 26%, and the stock is up more than 400% over the last five years, riding the broader boom in the semiconductor sector.
ASML’s business is highly cyclical as it sells only about 100 of its expensive machines each quarter, and revenue was down in its most recent quarter as its customers transitioned to newer equipment. Its revenue is expected to return to growth in the second half of the year and into 2025, making now a good time to buy shares of ASML.
With generative AI demand likely to spur sales of advanced chips and therefore ASML’s equipment, ASML could be a big winner over the coming years.
Staying in the semiconductor sector, Arm Holdings (ARM 5.48%) presents another intriguing option for investors.
Arm went public last September, and the company has delivered increasingly impressive results in its quarterly earnings reports. Like ASML, Arm also has a unique business model in the chip sector. Rather than sell its chips to an end user like most of its peers, the company licenses its designs to partners like Nvidia and Apple, who then use it in a range of products, including edge devices like smartphones and in data centers to run AI models.
Because of that model, Arm has two distinct revenue streams: licensing and revenue. Licensing tends to lead royalty revenue by about two years, so the recent spike in licensing revenue, which jumped 60%, should pay off down the road in royalty revenue.
Arm also has a valuable edge in the AI race. It’s known for power-efficient CPU architecture, which is an advantage in the AI era as running AI models demands a lot of power. That’s helped drive the company’s revenue growth in recent quarters and that should continue as demand for AI infrastructure grows.
The Arm growth story still seems under-appreciated.
Digital advertising has been a huge growth market over the last decade with much of the spoils going to leading platforms like Alphabet and Meta Platforms. However, adtech stocks have also emerged as winners, and one smaller adtech stock that looks poised to deliver big results is Magnite (MGNI 3.00%).
Unlike most of the adtech sector, Magnite operates on a supply-side platform (SSP), meaning it helps web publishers monetize their ad inventory, and it’s the world’s largest independent sell-side platform. It just scored a blockbuster deal with Netflix as the market for connected TV (CTV), or ad-based streaming, is surging.
Netflix plans to launch its own ad platform by the end of 2025, leaning on Magnite’s technology to do it, and that could push its peers who are also counting on growth from ad-based streaming to do the same as industry players tend to move in unison when adopting new technology.
Magnite stock also looks surprisingly affordable at a forward P/E of 15, and if it can attract more CTV customers, the stock could move significantly higher.
