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Cloud Service Providers

Microsoft (NASDAQ) Q2 Earnings Preview: AI Growth and Cloud Performance in Focus

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Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) is scheduled to report its second-quarter results on Tuesday, January 30th, after market close, kicking off tech earnings.
Analysts expect a year-over-year increase in both the top and bottom lines, with earnings per share of $2.77 on revenues of $61.13 billion.

The Redmond, Washington-based company recently became the second tech giant, after Apple (AAPL), to cross the $3 trillion mark, buoyed by its artificial intelligence products. Its shares have surged nearly 63% in the last 12-months.

Microsoft (MSFT) has poured billions of dollars into OpenAI, making it the startup’s largest investor. This has let it get ahead of rivals Alphabet (GOOG)(GOOGL), Amazon.com (AMZN), and Meta Platforms (META) in the AI race.

The technology underlying OpenAI’s ChatGPT has become entwined in Microsoft (MSFT) products.

The Windows maker recently expanded access to its generative AI offering Copilot. The subscription plan is now offered to individuals and small businesses.

Copilot, which Microsoft (MSFT) dubs as an “everyday AI companion,” is intended to assist writers, programmers, creators, and designers.

According to investment firm Citi, a 5% adoption rate by its 77M customers using Microsoft 365 could add $925 million in revenue by fiscal year 2025. An adoption rate of 15% could add $2.7 billion in sales.

Analysts at Wedbush believe Microsoft (MSFT) will be the most important earnings report and conference call in all of earnings season.

The company is expected to handily beat expectations for the December quarter. Investors will be focusing on the Azure growth metric and the performance of its cloud business.

While AI be a dominant theme in 2024, analysts are of the opinion that 2025 will be the true inflection year.

Last week, Microsoft (MSFT) announced it was laying off 1,900 employees at its gaming division, primarily impacting employees at Activision Blizzard and Xbox.

Over the last three months, the company’s estimates have seen substantial upgrades. Its earnings per share estimates have been revised upwards seven times vs. one downward move, while revenue estimates have seen seven upward moves, compared to two downward revisions.

Seeking Alpha analysts at large consider MSFT a Buy. This compares with average Wall Street rating of Strong Buy and SA Quant rating of Hold.

Categories
Finance/banking

HDFC Bank (HDB) $55 – Hold: Evaluating Post-Merger Impact and Future Prospects

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HDFC Bank (HDB) $55 – Hold

Its merger with HDFC decreases overall operating margins and valuation multiples a little bit; earlier it was one of India’s fastest growing banks mostly on consumer and retail strengths, now we have a giant which is less nimble and owns a lot of wholesale slower earning assets.

However, there are a lot of benefits such as cross selling and the combined entity gains from HDFC’s strong exposure to mortgages, which will continue to grow fast in India.

It’s expensive at 19x earnings, which is pretty high for a bank and for one with mid single digit growth. Overall HDB has returned 7-9% in the last 5 years, which is not bad, but given India’s great growth story it is much lower than even the Indian market (Sensex and Nifty)

I would take a second look below $50; let’s see another quarter of how the merger pans out.

I compared it with ICICI Bank (IBN), which has actually done a lot better as a return on Investment, however that too is expensive right now around $24.36, and could be worth buying if it came down about 10-15%.

Banks are cyclicals, don’t tend to outperform and are not usually fast growers, so entry prices are important.

Categories
Cloud Service Providers

Microsoft (MSFT) Hold at $407 – Impressive Earnings, Awaiting Guidance

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Microsoft (MSFT) Hold $407

Earnings: $2.93 per share, vs. $2.78 per share expected, 33% Higher YoY

Revenue: $62.02 billion, vs. $61.12 billion expected, 18% Higher YoY.

CLOUD DOES WELL – Intelligent Cloud revenue $25.88Bn V 25.29Bn expected, 20% Higher YoY contains Azure cloud infrastructure, SQL Server, Windows Server, Nuance, GitHub and enterprise services. Within that segment, revenue from Azure and other cloud services grew 30%. Analysts polled by CNBC had expected 27.7% growth, and the StreetAccount consensus was 27.5%. The metric for the previous quarter was 29%.

This is impressive growth – but most of it is already in the current price.

I own Microsoft but haven’t had a chance to add Microsoft during this rally, and it’s already up 9% this year.

The guidance will be out during the earnings call starting at 5:30 and will update after the call.

Categories
Stocks

AMD’s Resurgence in the AI Market: Is It Time to Invest?

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AMD has been mostly relegated to second tier status because of Nvidia’s massive leap in AI related data center revenue, which catapulted it from $27Bn in sales the previous  year to $57Bn in 2023, this year and an estimated $90Bn in 2024.

However, AMD is a scrappy competitor and I have a lot of respect for Dr Lisa Su, who’s transformed this company from a commodity CPU/GPU semis supplier to game consoles and PC’s to a solid competitor in the data center segment. Most of Intel’s market share losses can be traced to AMD’s strengths!.

While Nvidia is likely to continue getting a lion’s share of AI GPU revenue for at least the next 2-3 years and in fact when AMD guided to about only $2Bn in AI/GPU revenue for 2024, during their last earnings call in Oct,  I felt it was too little to buy AMD at that time. Besides the hardware, Nvidia’s moat is CUDA, its operating system, which really makes its GPU’s so much more powerful. I didn’t see AMD getting much traction on that account.

However, that was a mistake as it turned out to be a conservative estimate.

This is from UBS analysts:

Recent channel and customer checks confirmed their view that AMD has a firm demand commitment for more than 400,000 MI300A/X units for 2024, the analysts said. This is a number that is fairly consistent with where the analysts have seen demand since last summer but they have been wary of double ordering and unsure of supply.

The analysts added that after having gone back to several customers and suppliers, they are more confident that these units are real and AMD now has sufficient Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate capacity to do over 10% the volumes of Nvidia (NVDA).

*Even assuming a very conservative average selling price (which could be as high as $20,000 or more for some customers), this suggests $5B for data center GPU revenue is a pedestrian target for this year. Even this implies AMD exits the year at a *run-rate which could be close to $10B per year* with AMD still likely to grow GPU units quarter-over-quarter through much of 2025, the analysts added.

AMD has already moved up from $135 this month to $177 and it lost a little bit after Intel’s poor guidance. I’m going to start buying this slowly – knowing fully well that I’m late but I do believe in its long term story and the $10Bn run rate is an excellent number – If we believe in the AI story and the resulting surge in its building blocks, there there is no way only one company, Nvidia can supply to the entire market – AMD will get a decent foothold. I’m anticipating +$8 in earnings two years out, that should be priced at 30x or $240, which is still 36% higher than today’s price, nothing to be sneezed at.

Citigroup (NYSE:C) stock rose 1.8% in Friday premarket trading after the bank said it expects 2024 revenue to increase to about $80B-$81B from $78.5B in 2023, driven by gains in treasury and trade solutions, securities services, a rebound in investment banking and wealth, and lower partner payments in retail services. The revenue outlook excludes markets and divestitures.

Net interest income, excluding markets, is expected to decline modestly as global interest rates fall. Citi (C) expects mid-single-digit loan growth, driven by its card business and modest operating deposit growth, it said in its earnings slides.

Citibank’s adjusted earnings also beat expectations, but they expect only 2% revenue growth for 2024 and a modest decline in NII. Their allowance for losses was $397 Mn so no dire warnings there either.

Wells Fargo also beat adjusted earnings and revenue expectations but is more pessimistic for 2024. It expects net interest income to be about 7%-9% lower than 2023’s $52.4B level on lower interest rates, an expected decline in average loans, and further attrition in Consumer Banking and Lending deposits. Their provision for credit losses was $1.28B, higher than the other two but below expectations. *Q4 net loan charge-off, as a percentage of average total loans, of 0.53% vs. 0.36% in the prior quarter and 0.23% a year ago.*

Percentage of loans charged-off is a key measure to monitor; in Wells Fargo’s case it was double of the previous year’s – will need to keep a strict watch on this.

Categories
Semiconductors

Super Micro Computer (SMCI) Earnings Report: Key Indicator for AMD and Nvidia’s Performance

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Super Micro Computer (SMCI) reports this evening, after market close. If you recall, Super Micro had shot up from $300 just two weeks back to the $490 it is now, because of its revised guidance  – it too had its Nvidia moment!

Second-quarter anticipated sales now expected to be between $3.60 billion and $3.65 billion, which was a significant increase from the previous forecast of $2.70 billion to $2.90 billion. The company anticipates an improvement in adjusted earnings to the range of $5.40 to $5.55, up from the initial estimate of $4.40 to $4.48. 

This new guidance handily surpasses analysts’ expectations for the second quarter, set at $2.84 billion in revenue and earnings per share of $4.55. At midpoints, these revised projections indicate a 29% rise in revenue and a 24% increase in non-GAAP net income compared to Super Micro Computer’s earlier guidance.

I’m more interested in SMCI’s results as a good indicator for AMD and Nvidia (Nvidia), since they are the largest supplier for scalable rack systems for the data center GPU’s. If they overshoot even this revised estimate, I would look at AMD more closely.

Categories
Stocks

Palantir and TSMC: Strong Long-Term Investment Opportunities in Data Analytics and Semiconductor Industry

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*Palantir: (PLTR) Buy, $16.50  One year target $20.* 

*Invest 5 Years, 18-20% annual return.*

EPS Growth P/E PEG Sales Sales Growth P/S PS/G

0.30 29% 55 1.9 2.2 24% 16 67%

Palantir is a solid performer in the Data Analytics and AI space.

Their government business segment is a massive cash cow and a moat, because of long duration and sticky contracts and switching costs. 

The commercial segment is growing much faster at 50%, and will be its growth engine, with the help of its Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP), which  tripled the number of users in the past quarter, with over 300 organizations using the new product in the last 5 months.

The stock is expensive especially after doubling last year but can be bought in installments and declines. I own some with an average cost of $15.

CPI Report: Inflation was slightly higher than expected.

Taiwan Semiconductor  Manufacturing(TSM) Buy, $100  One year target $120. 

Invest 5 Years, 15 % annual return. P/E 20, 3-5 year EPS growth 18-20%.

The Semiconductor foundry (manufacturing) leader by far with about 50% market share has large and deep moats in new processes, scale and costs. The semiconductor industry would collapse without it – it would take years for Global Foundries, Intel, Samsung, et al to even come close to catching up. Consider that TSM is spending up to $40Bn to set up a new foundry in Arizona,  and it’s having trouble finding enough qualified people for its plant. 

Revenue growth of 12-14% and earnings growth of 18-20% for the next three years augur well for the company. Normally TSM would be priced at over 40X earnings and closer to 10x sales, about twice the current price. Unfortunately, it being located in Taiwan and with China’s open design on it – multiples will always stay lower because of these geopolitical tensions. Still, the stock has rewarded investors well in the past with steady appreciation in the mid teens. It’s a must have for the portfolio specially for long term steady growth.

Palantir: (PLTR) Buy, $16.50  One year target $280. 

Invest 5 Years, 16-20% annual return. P/E 34, 3-5 year EPS growth 14-16%.

CPI Report: Inflation was slightly higher than expected.

December Consumer Price Index: +0.3% M/M vs. +0.2% expected and +0.1% prior.

+3.4% Year on Year  vs. 3.2% expected and +3.1% prior month

Core CPI, which excludes food and energy: +0.3% M/M vs. +0.2% expected and +0.3% prior. +3.9% Year on Year vs. 3.8% expected and +4.0% prior.

Stock Futures are flat as is the 10 year Treasury yield at 4.02% 

Categories
Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity Sector Outlook for 2024: Strong Buy Recommendations for Key Players

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Morgan too recommends cybersecurity as an important sector for 2024. 

I had made buy recommendations for FTNT and PANW in the last few days and Morgan’s price targets of $77 and $375 are very similar to mine, indicating there is still considerable upside left. 

https://seekingalpha.com/news/4053959-palo-alto-on-top-at-morgan-stanley-world-preps-for-cyberattacks

Of the others in the article. I like these stories.

Crowdstrike – CRWD $280 – The best player in endpoint security, first recommended in Sep 2023 at a price of $165. Given the run up, I was hesitant to add more or recommend at this price. 

It’s growing at 33%, as fast as Sentinel One, (S) which is 1/4 its size, so clearly the growth momentum is still there. Wells Fargo has a $315 Price Target, and longer term the TAM (Total Addressable Market) is massive and growing over 25% per year.

It has gone up around $40 (16%)  from the beginning of the year, Buy on Declines.

Sentinel One (S) Cyber Security, $24, BUY Price Target – $30. 

Long term Over 20%. Small Company, Volatile

Sentinel is one the fastest growers in cyber security with 100% growth last year,  and expected growth of 35  to 40 % for the next three years. Sentinel’s valuation should grow on its transition to profitability and free cash flow generation – there have significant improvements in margins. For now, one needs to be prepared for the volatility that comes with just $800Mn revenue and a $7Bn market cap. Given the depth of its products and scope for improvements this is worth investing in.

Categories
Networking

Arista Networks: A Strong Buy for Long-Term Growth in Network Infrastructure

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Arista Networks: (ANET) Buy, $$245  One year target $280. 

Invest 5 Years, 16-20% annual return. P/E 34, 3-5 year EPS growth 14-16%. 

Best large-scale network provider for hyperscalers like Meta and Microsoft. Unlike Cisco (CSCO), Arista didn’t focus on selling gear, instead, it partnered with hyperscalers to build their networks and platforms from scratch. This is a unique competitive advantage and very profitable too; Arista boasts the best margins (32% operating profit) and cash flow in the industry. It is a bit expensive with much of the Earnings growth of 44% in 2023 already priced in, with the stock doubling from $120 last year. Still, an excellent long-term play as the pick and shovels play for AI and high-speed data networks; it tends to surprise so the EPS growth could likely be higher.

I’ve owned it since May 2023 and I add on declines, my last purchase was around $231.

Categories
Consumer Discretionary Industry Stocks

Make My Trip – Plenty to Like And Some Risks As Well. 

Make My Trip (MMYT) $88 

What’s to like:  

Secular growth in Indian tourism. That’s likely to last several years, less cyclical. 

Market leader with 54% share 

High awareness of brands. 

20% Three Year Forward Rev Growth consensus estimates 

Turned the corner – first year of Operating Profits of $56Mn on $782Mn in revenue or 7% operating profit margins and $125Mn operating cash or 16% cash flow margin. 

Management emphasized profitability from the entire industry, which should curtail some of the undercutting…Online travel booking can be a commodity, so this will help. 

Risks and challenges. 

Cyclicality – From 2015 to to 2018 (March Y/E) Make My Trip grew revenue from $295Mn to $658Mn, then drop 2 years in a row to $475Mn by March 2020 – Pre covid there was a slowdown in travel. Post Covid it has recovered strongly to $792Mn in revenue last year.  

Market returns were commensurate with this performance – the stocks best performance was in the past 12 months returning 183%, the vast majority of the 219% of the last 10 years. Simply, the market has discounted some the 20% growth of the next 3 years. 

Overall revenue growth from 2015-2024 was 10%, more like the industry average, and 20% forward growth will put it in a different league. 

Valuation: 10X sales with 20% growth, it’s not a profit story yet. That’s a P/S growth ratio of 0.5, ideally, I like to get in below 0.3 for a better margin of safety, unless the cash flow or operating profit is growing very strongly. 

It’s a good story, well managed, strong branding, market leadership and lots of growth ahead – valuation is a bit stretched because of secular growth Indian travel story 2X its normal multiple. Buying on declines and averaging it would be better. 

Categories
Cybersecurity

Fortinet: A Strong Buy in the Cybersecurity Sector

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Fortinet: (FTNT) Cybersecurity $61-$61.50 BUY, One year target $75. Long Term 20% return 3-4 years. 

Market leader in the growing cybersecurity industry, increasing revenues at 19% and earnings at 22%, which makes it a good bargain at 34x forward earnings and 7x forward sales. Besides, it is GAAP profitable with terrific operating margins, which always carries a premium.

Cybersecurity is a growing industry due to increasing AI advancements and vulnerability to threats, with several tailwinds. Fortinet has already recovered its 25% second-quarter, post-earnings price drop due to lower revenue growth guidance, which was mostly due to indigestion from heady pandemic growth. It should resume high growth after a few quarters.