Top Tech Stocks for April 2023

Daqo New Energy Corp., a maker of silicon and polysilicon products used primarily in solar energy applications, tops the list of stocks offering the best value in the tech sector heading into April. In the growth category, 3D printing firm Nano Dimension Ltd. leads the way, while chip testing provider Aehr Test Systems is the tech stock with the most momentum.

In March, the U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the ninth time in a year. The latest increase comes in the midst of a banking crisis triggered by the collapse of tech-friendly Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. Since tech companies are sensitive to higher interest rates, stocks in the sector have struggled throughout the Fed’s anti-inflation campaign.

Tech stocks, represented by the Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLK), lost a tenth of their value in the past year, compared with a 14% drop in the Russell 1000 Index. Despite the challenging environment, the companies listed here are leading the tech sector in terms of the best value, fastest growth, and most momentum. All company data are as of March 21 and benchmark data are as of March 28, 2023.

Best Value Tech Stocks

Value investing is a factor-based investing strategy that involves picking stocks that you believe are trading for less than what they are intrinsically worth, usually by measuring the ratio of the stock’s price to one or more fundamental business metrics. A widely accepted value metric is the price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio.

Value investors believe that if a business is cheap compared with its intrinsic value (as measured by its P/E ratio, in this case), then its stock price may rise faster than that of others as the price comes back in line with the worth of the company. These are the tech stocks with the lowest 12-month trailing P/E ratio.

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Fastest Growing Tech Stocks

These are the top tech stocks as ranked by a growth model that scores companies based on a 50/50 weighting of their most recent quarterly year-over-year (YOY) percentage revenue growth and most recent quarterly YOY earnings-per-share (EPS) growth.

Both sales and earnings are critical factors in a company’s success. Therefore, ranking companies by only one growth metric makes a ranking susceptible to the accounting anomalies of that quarter (such as changes in tax law or restructuring costs) that may make one figure or the other unrepresentative of the business in general. Companies with a quarterly EPS or revenue growth of more than 1,000% were excluded as outliers.

^{Source: YCharts}

Momentum investing is a factor-based investing strategy that involves investing in a stock whose price has risen faster than the market as a whole. Momentum investors believe that stocks that have outperformed the market will often continue to do so because the factors that caused them to outperform will not suddenly disappear. In addition, other investors, seeking to benefit from the stock’s outperformance, will often purchase the stock, further bidding its price higher and pushing the stock up further. These are the tech stocks that had the highest total return over the past 12 months.

^{Source: YCharts}

The Impact of Inflation on Technology Stocks

Technology stocks historically have underperformed other sectors during periods of rising inflation. Conversely, the group typically outpaces the broader market during times of falling inflation. For example, the technology bull market between 2009 and 2021 coincided with an annualized historically low inflation rate of 1.7%. However, the tech sector led broad market declines in 2022 amid rising inflation, which reached a 40-year high of 9.1% in June.

Why are technology stocks so sensitive to inflation? It all relates to interest rates. Rising inflation indicates that the Federal Reserve will likely increase its federal funds rate to taper demand. Higher rates affect technology companies in two ways. First, consumers and businesses will have less income to buy products and services, which has an effect of slowing corporate earnings. Second, technology companies borrow heavily to fund startup costs, patents, and innovation expenses, and the cost of servicing that debt increases when interest rates rise. 

The opposite happens when inflation declines. The Fed will likely lower interest rates then, which spurs consumer demand and reduces technology companies’ borrowing costs.

See also

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Advantages of Technology Stocks

Investing in Innovation: Investing in technology stocks allows investors to back revolutionary ideas that have the potential to improve people’s lives. Technology companies of all sizes continually push boundaries to be first to market with game-changing technology, whether it be Apple Inc. (AAPL) with a new health feature for its iWatch or a startup developing a game-changing semiconductor for the automotive industry.  

Growth Potential: Technology stocks offer the potential for sizable gains, with investors usually prepared to pay a premium for future growth. For instance, as of March 28, 2023, the technology sector traded at 29 times earnings. By comparison, the energy and financial sectors had price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios of 6.4 and 14, respectively. Although the biggest gains can be found in small-cap technology stocks, even mega-cap tech titans such as the original FANG members—Meta Platforms Inc. (META), Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), Netflix Inc. (NFLX), and Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL)—had an annualized return of 22% over the past decade as of March 25, 2023.

The comments, opinions, and analyses expressed herein are for informational purposes only and should not be considered individual investment advice or recommendations to invest in any security or adopt any investment strategy. Though we believe the information provided herein is reliable, we do not warrant its accuracy or completeness. The views and strategies described in our content may not be suitable for all investors. Because market and economic conditions are subject to rapid change, all comments, opinions, and analyses contained within our content are rendered as of the date of the posting and may change without notice. The material is not intended as a complete analysis of every material fact regarding any country, region, market, industry, investment, or strategy.

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