Adobe Systems (ADBE)

Big data recommendation? On the hardware side, you have the chip manufactures and communication companies. On the processing side, he recommends XLNX-Q. On the software side you have cloud and data analytics. He recommends EQIX-Q. He thinks there will be more consolidation. He also likes ADBE-Q.

It's in the digital media/creative space. It's reasonably priced now. His price target is the current $250, so he'd buy at $210-220.

Would selling be a good idea? He views this as a disciplined way to buy into a stock. This is a quality business, but it comes at a high valuation right now. He is already long his full allotment. Over the next 3-4 years, this stock will continue to strengthen.

Software service company. The sector has been one of the best performing in the market. Great company. They own other companies in the space like Microsoft (MSFT-O). Valuation is a little stretched. He would wait for a pullback to put new money on it. Well run company.

It is old tech. Some of these companies have taken out 2000 highs and ADBE-Q has continued to move higher. He would not trim it if it is no more than 5% and would let it run.

He thinks Adobe is like a rocket and wishes he owned some. He likes their business model and would buy near $150. He would buy-half today and wait for pullback to buy more.

(A Top Pick April 19/17 Up 65%). He sees this as a company that has continued to capture market share and the dominate leading in digital media. He would continue to buy at this level as growth will continue for years.

(A Top Pick March 21/17. Up 59.71%.) This company really benefited from a shift in its business model to subscription. Once people are subscribing, it’s very easy for them to put the price up, which he thinks they’ve done 3 times in the last year. They're growing their revenue, their profitability and their market share. It is still a Buy.

This has been a wonderful performer on a stock basis. One thing that has always been a bit of a pause for him is its valuation. It has high expectations of future earnings, cash flow and revenue growth, and has satisfied those expectations, but at the very minute it doesn’t, there is a freefall waiting to happen before it moves back into a normalized valuation. Because of this, he has not participated.

(A Top Pick April 27/16. Up 39.46%.) Every quarter has been better than the previous quarter for 8 straight quarters. Earnings rose 370% when they reported last month. 26% growth in their Cloud business. It is very, very heavily used in corporate America.

The leader in creating digital media. There is enormous growth in the creation of Digital media. They used to sell their software as a package, with an upgrade every couple of years. There was an enormous number of people pirating their software. They then started selling by subscription. They caught a bunch of pirates that needed their software and had to wind up subscribing. This is a quickly growing pie. As their subscriptions go up, their margins go up. They now have 10 million subscribers. There are 7 million users that continue to use old versions, and will have to upgrade. (Analysts’ price target is $145.)

The two most important themes and most resilient in this market are technology and financials. Semiconductors look great. Software looks great. This company fits in a couple of key themes. They were the original big software company to go to the Cloud, selling their software by subscription. Today, 82% of revenue comes as a subscription. That is really attractive, because it is pretty predictable. Not only that, but revenues are growing very, very nicely. Revenues were up 22% in this most recent quarter. They should be able to grow revenue at 20% for quite some time, but because they make it and sell it a lot of times, as they grow their revenue, the margins go up. Their margins went to 36% from 31%, and the earnings went up 42%. Not an inexpensive stock, but the leader in software for Digital media, and we are all consuming quite a lot of Digital media. (Analysts’ price target is $143.50.)