We decided to take some profits on our Zscaler position which has risen by more than 80% so far this year and has reached a rather substantial valuation above average based on my estimates. The sale of 250 shares at $325.39 raised $81,340. We still have a position of 350 shares and that has a…
We made some changes in our cyber-security holdings in the high growth portfolio. We eliminated the starter positions we had in both Palo Alto and Cloudflare. We also eliminated the position we had in Arista Networks. The positions were too small to be meaningful. The shares of Palo Alto and Cloudflare had appreciated modestly since…
On Wednesday evening, the President took revenge on the former Director of what is called the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Chris Krebs for not supporting the allegations regarding the integrity of the 2020 presidential elections. The order included allegations against Krebs for allegedly “blinding” the American public about the controversy over Hunter Biden’s laptop,…
Ticker Target Invest Philosophy In the wake of the excruciating fall of high growth IT shares I have been asked frequently about the Ticker Target investment philosophy and how it works in these difficult times. Obviously in looking at a drawdown of 34% in just over 6 weeks provides plenty of motivation for introspection and…
As mentioned in the weekly commentary, this week is a busy one for earnings. The two most salient releases for subscribers were those of Zscaler and SentinelOne. Other earnings reports of interest included Salesforce, a modest sized holding in the income/stability portfolio as well as Okta. Of course Pure Storage, the largest position in the…
Shift4 Earlier today we sold a bit more than half our position Shift4. We have had a sizable position-1100 shares-and we were able to sell 600 shares before the price declined below our limit. The average price of our sale was $105.77, and the low price was $103.99. Today, the CEO of the company, Jared Isaacman, accepted…
a) Zscaler: The business is growing but one metric is misleading investors As I write this Tuesday evening, Zscaler shares are down 15% to around $164. That puts the year to date loss of the shares to around 13%. I point that out simply because the question to consider is whether or not the company is…
Just as a point of interest, today is AI Appreciation Day. I have no immediate plans to celebrate, other than to note that marketers can find reason to celebrate something every day of the year, and today is for AI. One lady wrote on one of the AI sites that I read that she has opted…
Summary Zscaler and Crowdstrike are leaders in two different segments of the cyber security space. Both companies have achieved rapid growth, with the advantage slightly to Crowdstrike recently. Both companies are achieving significant free cash flow margins. Zscaler shares have seen a material valuation compression, both on a relative and absolute basis. At this point…
This has not been the easiest of weeks to be an investor in tech stocks. Sentiment, as I have mentioned, is woeful, and analysts are looking under every bush and rock for negatives. Technical analysis that I have seen, is decidedly negative which is, of course, the outcome of negative sentiment. The cyber security software…