Tag Archives: amzn

Chipmaker Intel Floats On Amazon, Google, Facebook Cloud Sales

No. 1 chipmaker Intel ’s ( INTC ) “winning lottery tickets” — Super 7 and Next 50 clients — will push continued double-digit sales for its Data Center Group, Jefferies analyst Mark Lipacis said Friday. But Intel’s “Cloud Day” event on Thursday didn’t lift Intel stock much on Friday; it closed up only a fraction, at 32.45. Intel stock is down 6% year to date, but it’s been on a three-week run since hitting a seven-month low of 28.22 on Feb. 11. On Thursday, at its Data Center Group (DCG) conference, Intel unveiled a new Xeon processor and a 3D Nand chip — the tech was developed with Micron Technology ( MU ) — and reiterated its commitment to help install “the next 10,000 clouds.” Lipacis wrote in a research report, “Intel’s new products and ongoing initiatives are making it easier to deploy clouds.” Easier cloud deployment should drive incremental demand for Intel’s high-margin microprocessors, he noted. Lipacis has a buy rating and 39 price target on Intel stock. Intel refers to its big DCG customers as the Super 7. They are  Alibaba ( BABA ), Amazon.com ( AMZN ), Baidu ( BIDU ), Facebook ( FB ), Alphabet ( GOOGL ), Microsoft ( MSFT ) and Tencent ( TCEHY ). Intel’s Super 7 sales rose at a 30% compound annual growth rate between 2012 and 2015, RBC Capital analyst Amit Daryanani wrote in a research report. Its Next 50 customer base grew at 40% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over that span. Daryanani figures that the Super 7 comprised 75% of cloud sales in 2015, but Lipacis says that the Next 50 are growing twice as fast. Although PCs continue to represent 60% of Intel’s total sales, the chipmaker is making a smart grab for the cloud market, Daryanani wrote. “Intel is positioning itself at the center of cloud development,” Daryanani wrote, hiking his price target on Intel stock to 33 from 31 and maintaining his sector perform rating. DCG sales are slated for 20% growth through 2019, with a third stemming from the cloud business, Daryanani said. Assuming that DCG is 30% of sales in 2016, cloud revenue alone will account for 10% of Intel’s total revenue. On Thursday, Intel announced its builders program to accelerate adoption of network functions virtualization, and highlighted its nine-month-old Cloud for All initiative. Cloud for All aims to make it easier to deploy agile and scalable cloud platforms. It could be “a potentially positive driver for enterprise server spending (about 35% of DCG revenue),” Credit Suisse analyst John Pitzer wrote in a report. Pitzer rates Intel stock an outperform and has a 40 price target.

These 5 Leading Tech Stocks Have Major Hurdles To Clear

Loading the player… The market has been in a confirmed uptrend for weeks now, but leading tech stocks still have some hurdles to clear: Apple ( AAPL ) and Amazon ( AMZN ) are hitting resistance at psychological price levels, while Netflix ( NFLX ) has yet to clear its 200-day line. And Facebook ( FB ) and Google parent Alphabet ( GOOGL ) are in bases, but they’ve yet to break out of them. Apple shares are hitting resistance at the 110 price level for a third session in a row, rising 0.9% Friday. And the stock is still trading below its 200-day moving average, a critical level. But Apple has been able to climb about 19% from its late January low. It’s now trading 18% below its all-time high, set at the end of last April. Amazon is also hitting resistance, with shares struggling to break above the 600 price level. The stock’s 50-day and 200-day lines recently crossed but are moving nearly in sync as shares move higher. Amazon is trading 14% below its all-time high of 696.44 and a buy point that’s 10 cents above the high, rallying 0.8% Friday. Meanwhile, Netflix has yet to clear its 200-day line, though it has been trading near that level for the past few sessions. Shares are about 21% below their high, which they reached last December, but they’re 31% above their February low. The stock was up 3.4% Friday. Facebook is trading about 1% below a 117.69 buy point and rose 1.7% Friday. In Wednesday’s session, the stock came within 70 cents of the pivot. And Alphabet has been steadily moving higher for about two months, but it’s still 5% below an 810.45 buy point. Alphabet edged up 0.9% Friday.

Amazon, PayPal, Square Fight For Small-Business Payments

Amazon.com ( AMZN ), PayPal ( PYPL ) and Square ( SQ ) are locked in a battle to win business from small and midsize businesses, according to recent announcements and a Bloomberg report. PayPal subsidiary Braintree is adding a service, Braintree Auth, that will allow merchants using all-in-one Web store builders such as BigCommerce to integrate Braintree more easily, the company wrote in a blog post Thursday . “Braintree shares our vision of enabling great e-commerce experiences for retailers all over the world,” said Troy Cox, senior product director at BigCommerce, which offers an all-in-one e-commerce Web platform. “With the launch of Braintree Auth, merchants have greater flexibility and more options to efficiently and securely run their businesses.” PayPal stock was up nearly 2%, above 39, in afternoon trading on the stock market today . The company is an IBD Leaderboard stock and has an IBD Composite Rating of 92, where 99 is the highest. The stock is below a 40.03 entry, trading just above an earlier entry at 38.62. Square stock was down 5.5% Friday afternoon, near 14.50. The company has a 59 CR, which measures key metrics such as earnings and sales growth. Though Braintree has been collaborating with partners such as BigCommerce for about a year , the announcement comes a day after Square said it was , for the first time, enabling anyone with a website to use Square to process a payment. Both Auth and Square aim their new website technologies at small and midsize companies. Such companies are Square’s core market; the company has about 2 million merchants. PayPal has more than 13 million merchants. According to Bloomberg , e-commerce leader Amazon has been succeeding in attracting small and midsize businesses to Amazon Payments, the platform it re-launched in 2013. “There’s a market for selling your soul to the devil,” Wedbush analyst Gil Luria told Bloomberg. “When you accept Amazon Payments, you get access to the coveted Amazon customers. The trade-off is you are opening your kimono to your biggest competitor.” Bloomberg says large retailers are unlikely to sign on because they do not want to give Amazon any such access to their customers and data.