Tag Archives: technology

March Madness: ‘Final Four’ IBD 50 Stock Performers This Month

After college basketball teams duked it out all month long during “March Madness,” the four best performing teams will compete at the NCAA Final Four this weekend. Here’s a look at the IBD 50’s “Final Four” performers this month: Inphi ( IPHI ), Broadcom ( AVGO ),   Ulta Beauty ( ULTA ) and AMN Health ( AHS ). Inphi Leads IBD 50 Pack Inphi is up 33% in March. The chipmaker received bullish analyst commentary this month, including an upgrade to buy from Deutsche Bank, as Inphi announced new products. Shares cleared a double-bottom base buy point on March 17, and gapped up to clear a secondary entry just a few sessions later. The stock is now trading near all-time highs, down 1.4% Thursday. Apple Supplier Climbs On Earnings Apple ( AAPL ) supplier Broadcom has gained 17% this month, fueled by a first-quarter earnings beat and estimate-topping second-quarter guidance. Shares cleared a double-bottom base buy point on March 4 and climbed out of an 8-month-long consolidation less than two weeks later. The stock set another all-time high intraday, turning down 0.9% in the afternoon. Meanwhile, Apple fell fractionally Thursday. Ulta Gains Look Good Ulta Beauty also gained 17% for the month. Nearly all of those gains came on March 11, after the beauty products retailer issued a view-topping quarterly report the prior evening. The move helped the stock break out of a consolidation base with a 188.58 buy point. The stock has traded in a tight range since, and is still in buy range as it dipped 0.4% Thursday. Health Care Stock AMN Powers Higher AMN Healthcare jumped 19% in March, building on gains from the health care staffing firm’s better-than-expected earnings report in February. Shares reclaimed their 200-day line near the start of the month and have been able to find support above that level as they continued to climb higher. The stock hit a six-month high on Thursday, up 0.6% in afternoon trading, and is trading 9% below its high reached last September. Where Are Facebook, Alphabet? The IBD 50 list also sports names like Facebook ( FB ) and Google owner Alphabet ( GOOGL ), which have racked up modest gains this month. Facebook has risen 7% and Alphabet has also gained 7%. Both are working on the right side of consolidations, with Facebook particularly close to a buy point. Facebook and Alphabet shares fell fractionally Thursday afternoon. Image provided by Shutterstock .

Tesla Stock Lifts As Model 3 Lines Stretch: How Many Reservations?

Would-be buyers lined up at Tesla Motors ( TSLA ) stores around the world Thursday to grab the first reservations, a $1,000 proposition, for the electric Model 3 that will be unveiled Thursday night. And Tesla stock climbed 3.5% by early afternoon in the stock market today , near 235. Dozens of people lined up, and some camped out, at stores in Australia, where some of the first reservations were taken, according to reports. Tesla posted to Twitter clips of others waiting in Los Angeles and Bellevue, Wash. At $1,000, Model 3 reservations set a far lower bar than the $5,000 reservations that were required for the Model S sedan and Model X crossover. Are Tesla Model 3 deposits refundable? Tesla says yes. Analysts predict that reservations will amount to billions of dollars in short order, but they’re divided on just how quickly reservations could reach 100,000. The Model 3 is a crucial car for Tesla, which is expected to try to boost its annual sales pace by about 10 times to 500,000 vehicles by 2020. At $35,000 — half the price of the Model S and the Model X —  the Model 3 is seen competing with the BMW 3 Series and other gas-powered, entry-level luxury cars from the  Volkswagen ( VLKAY ) Audi brand and the Mercedes-Benz brand from  Daimler ( DDAIF ). It will also be competing against next-generation electric cars and hybrid cars from conventional automakers such as General Motors ( GM ) with its Chevrolet Bolt EV, and maybe eventually with a rumored Apple ( AAPL ) car, though the exact nature of Apple’s auto-related Project Titan  hasn’t been specified. Tesla Model 3 Reservations: Analyst Forecasts How many Model 3 reservations will Tesla get? Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry is a bull, predicting in a research note Wednesday that the “Tesla Model 3 will break all the records in Consumer Tech in dollar terms for pre-order bookings.” He says it is widely believed that bookings could reach 100,000 by the end of the weekend, amounting to “$3.5 billion worth of pre-orders.” Stifel analyst James Albertine has predicted a slower ramp-up. Wooooow! RT @BharathNA Not a small line in Bellevue. And it's only 7.30am #tesla #Model3 pic.twitter.com/2UiuwRRzQb — Tesla Motors (@TeslaMotors) March 31, 2016 “Though this is just a guess, we anticipate reservation figures in the days following the launch (if disclosed) would be in the range of 15,000-20,000,” he said in a research note in early March. He sees 50,000 to 100,000 worldwide Model 3 reservations in six to eight months after Thursday’s launch. He notes that at just $1,000 each, “some attrition is expected” after people make reservations. Can Tesla Shift From Luxury Electric Niche To Mass-Market Model 3? https://t.co/lOUKNj6gDt pic.twitter.com/pTF7vjQMGx — Investors.com (@IBDinvestors) March 29, 2016 Tesla is not highly rated by IBD at moment, with a Composite Rating of just 28 out of a possible 99, factoring in earnings growth, stock performance and a variety of other measures. Tesla stock has risen about 66% from a February low but is just back around where it began the year. RELATED: Tesla Motors’ $30 Billion Question: Can Model 3 Outdo Big Car Brands? .

Amazon Grows Push-Button E-Commerce Empire

Push a button, get some toilet paper. That’s the idea behind Amazon.com ( AMZN ) Dash buttons , which for Amazon Prime members will ship a range of products to the doorstep of American households with the push of a button — free two-day shipping and all. Thursday, Amazon announced that it’s adding a bevy of new products to its line of Dash buttons, bringing the total to “more than 100,” according to a press release. The new merchandise includes things like coffee, beauty products, and yes, condoms. “The consumer packaged-goods companies are interested in anything that they can do to grow,” Scot Wingo, executive chairman of ChannelAdvisor, told IBD in a telephone interview Thursday morning. ChannelAdvisor works with third-party sellers on a range of e-commerce websites such as Amazon.com and eBay ( EBAY ). Wingo says the consumer packaged-goods firms aren’t getting more sales in brick-and-mortar stores and have looked to e-commerce to boost stagnant revenue. And Amazon — the ever-innovating Seattle-based firm — is trying to capture more dollars that households spend. Though Amazon did not disclose the exact number of Dash buttons sold, or the revenue said buttons generated (which is typical of the tight-lipped company), it did say that Dash orders have grown by more than 75% in the last three months and now take place about once every minute. Wingo called those numbers “interesting.” “Peak Dash button will be in the mid-hundreds — the 200 to 300 range. From there, we’re likely to see Dash functionality integrated into more and more products, like the Brita filter Amazon has already announced.” Amazon’s new additions to the Dash line include Energizer, Arm & Hammer cat litter and Peet’s Coffee, among others. When asked about rivals such as eBay and Wal-Mart ( WMT ) tackling a similar program, Wingo said that it wasn’t likely anytime soon. “Amazon is on version-nine-thinking, and the other guys are on version two,” he said. There are already rumors swirling about the second generation of Dash buttons following Dave Zatz’s discovery , through regulatory filings, that it may rely on Bluetooth. The current version connects to the web via Wi-Fi. Wingo says that the Bluetooth implementation could mean it would connect to Amazon Echo , the firm’s line of “smart” speakers that include Amazon’s virtual assistant Alexa. “It may mean the intersection between Dash and Echo, with more verbal commands to use Dash buttons,” Wingo said. ITG Investment Research analyst Steve Weinstein released a research note Thursday which said that Amazon is on track to a “modest” revenue beat in Q1. The company has also been criticized for the amount of cardboard it generates, along with other e-commerce rivals. Amazon stock was down a fraction to 597 in early afternoon trading on the stock market today . The company has an IBD Composite Rating of 78, where 99 is the highest.