Oracle (ORCL)

A better play them IBM (IBM-N). Much better balance sheet. Generating a lot more free cash flow. They are already in the Cloud. Buying back stock and making acquisitions. The multiple is quite attractive. 1.1% dividend yield.

The trend is up, but it pulled back to support again. This stock should be part of everyone’s portfolio. Enterprise systems, the cloud, etc. Buy at $35-$37, or at least below $40 would be a great buy and there should be tremendous long term support.

(Top Pick Jul 08/13, Up 34.93%) Sold because it got a little rich. 14-15 times earnings. He should have hung on longer. PE is not bad and they have a good buyback program in place and it is a great way to play IT spending. If you still own it hang on to it.

Concern is if their business model is sustainable going forward. They had acceleration in software sales the past quarter. They have new product initiatives for the near future. A decent entry point here.

Switch from Oracle (ORCL-N) to Microsoft (MSFT-Q)? He likes Oracle. If you had to choose he would back Microsoft over Oracle. This company has some issues with Cloud in terms of inevitably being a threat to their business model, but doesn’t think there is any sort of issue over the near-term. Also, likes the fact that Microsoft had been a basket case for so long and Oracle has had its act together for the last 6 or 7 years. This is a fine company.

(A Top Pick June 19/13. Up 12.9%.) He is confident that they can continue making inroads into cloud computing. They have a lot of corporate clients. Their hardware business is in decline but have a great number of new cloud offerings.

(A Top Pick Feb 5/13. Up 8.56%.) In this one for the long haul. Likes the Cloud Computing component of it. Good strong balance sheet. Dividend is growing. Valuations are very, very reasonable. Still a Buy.

After their quarterly release, they did pretty well. Reorganized their sales force as they had pretty soft sales. In the big cap tech space, you wonder how much competition is out there and what people are missing. Over the last little bit there is more optimism. Not one of the cheapest at this point but they have great market position.

Just bought it. Very large software company that has underperformed. Reasonably valued and very cash generative. Hopefully they can transition to cloud computing. They generate organic growth but acquisition is definitely part of their growth strategy.

Owns and likes it. There is social media, analytics of data and the cloud. This is where these guys operate. They will do well with the cloud.

This company has got a multitude of fairly large diverse companies. Their Cloud offering is doing well but still a small part of their business. Feels that Sun Microsystems, an acquisition they made, is holding them back. Sales growth is quite muted.

Trades at 10X earnings and has massive free cash flow. Buying back $12 billion worth of stock every year. Raising its dividend. They will be reducing shares outstanding and earnings don’t have to grow by very much as long as they shrink the float and it could trade at a 13-15 valuation which gets you to $45-$50.

Great company, strong position in databases. Companies find it hard to move away from them. The problem is that the DB business is fairly mature. Oracle is slow to adapt to the cloud, however they are also unsure how to deal with ‘Big Data’. Others are finding that the world is changing very rapidly. A solid company but the transition is going to start to eat into their growth. This does not qualify according to his growth criteria.

Ten times free cash flow and ten times earnings. Massive share buyback. Doubled dividend recently. It is a utility. If you run a fortune 500 company you have to use their database. Thinks it will get a bigger multiple.

(A Top Pick September 10/12. Up 0.84%.) Has been struggling as all technology companies have been struggling with a slow global economy. Businesses do not have a lot of confidence in investing in technology and this company has to develop to stay competitive. Doing a good job and have a strong balance sheet. Increased their dividend. Still a Buy.