Intel (INTC)

Just acquired Mobileye, which is all about autonomous vehicles. It’s a big gulp, but it is the only way they are going to survive. They can’t sell chips into laptops and standalone computers any more. This is really the direction they want to go. There is lots of competition. He doesn’t want to own this, because free cash flow has been falling. There is nothing wrong with the quality, it’s just way down on his list.

This is in a very awkward situation. They missed the boat on smart phones and those areas. ARM is a company that has done incredibly well. Even Microsoft recently announced that they may be using ARM in some of their products. Thinks this will continue. You are not going to see the growth that they had many, many years ago.

Cisco Systems (CSCO-Q) or Intel (INTC-Q)? Both are old economy tech stocks, and both are excellent companies. If he had to choose, he would choose this one, which has done more to turn the corner.

Earnings keep ratcheting upwards. Also, they have a superb balance sheet. FMV is about 50% higher than what it currently is. High-tech stocks, which were the winners in the Obama market, have been sloping off. He would love to buy this at about $29-$30, which is where you get really, really solid support.

Some parts of technology are cyclical, and others have become ubiquitous, just part of our lives. This is a major chipmaker and looking at the explosion of opportunities for chips, whether in smart cars, computers, etc., many areas of our lives are driven by chips. The difficulty of the producers is commoditization. Basically, they are fighting a trend of lower and lower price trends that have to be offset with new initiatives of bigger and better that no one else has, or on volume. This company spends $12-$15 billion in capital expenditures each year. There are many areas in the Tech space that he would probably gravitate to, before this one.

This has new chips coming out that should do fairly well. They relied too heavily on the PC business in the past, which caused them issues. It also caused their free cash flow to decline. He likes companies that have pricing power where they can raise prices. There are better places to allocate capital.

(Market Call Minute.)

Old tech, largely linked towards the PC. PCs are really declining. A decent company and well-managed, but doesn’t see a lot of growth in it.

There has been a lot of consolidation in this sector and they have been the go-to name for some time. There is a risk that they may acquire someone that the market won’t like.

This powers a lot of computers, and the data for PCs has not been good as they have been going down. Every year there are less and less PCs being shipped. What has been powering them lately is their data centre business and the server business. People are concerned that this is also slowing down and peaking now. The multiple has crept up for a company that has one side of the business coming down and the other side growing. If you believe that video is going to grow exponentially, versus broadcast TV, this company should still do well on their data centre side. He would rather play the video growth with companies that are much more focused on streaming, such as Mellonix Technologies (MLNX-Q).

Struggling with competitive threats from ARM Holdings (ARMH-Q). He would rather see you buy this at around $30. If you want to look at another good consistent dividend payer, he would look at McDonald’s (MCD-N).

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD-Q) or Intel (INTC-Q)? Neither of these would be his pick for a US stock. This one is probably the better of the 2. AMD is a little more challenged because it is such a small player in that market. This one is not bad, but in the last couple of years have made a big investment into mobile and has had a struggle. Cisco (CSCO-Q) looks better. It is a CapX company, and there has been a CapX starvation globally. It is positioned at about 12.5X earnings and the earnings growth over the next 2-3 years looks to be about 13%-15%.

(Market call minute.) He likes semiconductors, but would prefer Avago (AVGO-Q) or Nvidia (NVDA-Q). This one is going to have some difficulty because of their desktop exposure.

(Market Call Minute.) There is a decline in desktop PC demand, and they have not successfully navigated over to the mobile chip set. Until he sees the mobile work or a slowing secular decline in desktop, this still has a bit of a headwind.

He uses departure analysis when the 50 crosses the 200. When that happens you are too far. The trend is clearly upward. Technology should do well this year so stick with it.