EMC Corp (EMC-N)

Dell is buying the hardware division. They spun out their software division, VM Ware. EMC is one of the dominant players in storage. You may have to pay taxes on the full value of the spin-off gains. Everything is in the price of the stock currently.

(Market Call Minute.) He really likes the storage and software space. This has been performing well, and should grow over the next 2 years.

Long-term hasn’t been a bad trend as the lows are getting higher. He would pay attention to current trends. You don’t want to see it break much below $25. Chart shows a consolidation with the highs gradually getting lower, while the lows basically stay in place. This is a descending triangle, which is actually a consolidation. You can’t tell ahead of time which way it is going to break out, but if it breaks to the upside above $28, it could be a great stock, but if it breaks below $25, it could be a terrible story. This is in limbo right now. He would probably hold it a little while longer to see what happens.

All US big caps are having trouble. It is a slow growth environment. This is a best of breed in storage technology. Storage is becoming a commoditized market.

This is not unlike a lot of the large cap tech stocks. They made so much money and were so good at what they did, but technology always changes, and there is always the question about if the company is still relevant. Because of that, she has seen very compelling valuations across the board on the large cap technology space. Seeing some positive momentum and thinks this is a good thing to own.

(Top Pick Oct 30/13, 24.51%) The crown jewel for the business is VM ware. An active investor wants to break them up. There might be choppiness.

The big kicker here is that there are some activists shareholders involved. VMware is the crown jewel that is growing at 20%. Management is arguing that it is a strategic fit, but the other side is saying they are better off being split up.

Storage in Cloud is the future, and this is a great name. PEG ratio is at 1.2, so you are not paying social media type of valuations. This should do well.

A lot of the technology names are starting to come back. There are positive long term trends. A good name and there is growing demand for the Cloud and they own VM ware.

They have that chunk in VM wear which is a great spot to be in. If you take that value out you see the legacy side of the business has gone down. You are fine owning the stock, but nothing has made her pull the trigger on it.

This has been a frustrating stock. You wonder what it is that people don’t like about it. Has a really great suite of products at all price points. Very solid balance sheet. Owns 86% of the #1 virtualization company in VM that is out there. There is capacity to grow in the storage and security businesses. Earnings projections are relatively conservative. He would buy this now and hold it for a 2 to-3 year period.

She may or may not go in to this. They seem to be in a good position with their stake in VM ware. Valuation is attractive. Solid balance sheet. You probably won’t get hurt.

Frustrating stock on a year to date basis. Still a negative return here. Looking at the quarter, the thesis really hasn’t changed. You have a large company, playing in the storage space and building out a data analytics business, securities business. Likes the stock. Valuation is okay at about 12X earnings. The problem is that there is relatively little IT spending on an enterprise level. With the pullback in the US government, that is a big vertical for them. If you have a longer term outlook, more than a year, this would be a good name to own. In the medium-term, the stock is fairly negative.

Data transfer but mainly data storage. Had a couple of overhangs in their latest quarters, particularly when earnings were less than expected. Part of that was the 16 day shutdown of US federal governments. Expects better results in the next quarter, where most of the gains will be temporal with moving their high-end servers and switching to newer products, their newer platform VNX. Yield of 1.67%.

As one of the leading storage providers, it is very well-positioned, especially in the cloud. Extremely well managed. Well ahead of the stock market as a whole.