Summary Zscaler shares fell sharply in the wake of a recent quarterly report that featured a noticeable deceleration in billings growth.The company did actually beat revenue and earnings metrics for the quarter, and raised its forecast for those categories for the balance of the fiscal year.Concerns that legacy vendors in the cyber-security space are encroaching…
We have made some changes in our Ticker Target High Growth portfolio today, March 6th. We sold our position in Elastic. The sales price for the position was $ 66.19. That netted $45,330. Elastic’s operational performance has simply been disappointing. The technology is great, but the company has had a difficult time in converting a…
Zscaler-It is time to bring a Buffet-like mentality to this beaten down leader The Sage of Omaha, Warren Buffet, has offered many nuggets of wisdom in a long and storied career. One of them is “be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.” Certainly most investors in Zscaler (ZS) are fearful. Fearful of all…
Okta-Can this sow’s ear ever return to silk purse status? Stocks have been cratering! IT stocks have been cratering more! Even shares of cyber-security companies have fallen with the HACK (HACK) ETF, which incorporates the major cyber-security vendors down by 30% on a year-to-date basis. But Okta, the leader in the identity management category, has…
Rediscovering a reasonably valued cyber-security leader The last 7 months has been an eternity for most investors in the high-growth IT space. At first the issue driving stocks lower was valuation in an environment in which the Fed committed to raising rates to curb inflation. And then, as inflation persisted, and comments from Fed governors…
The market spent a totally schizoid week. It initially fell, with what are thought to be high-risk stocks taking the brunt of the selling. And then it turned. I was asked recently by a subscriber to compare this overall risk-off period to the crashes in 2001 and 2008. I was around for both of them.…
While the headline averages such as Nasdaq traded with gains today, for the most part software shares were weak, and the IGV fell by about 1% and the Cloud Computing index fell by 1.25%. The IGV and the CLOU computing index have both been relatively weak so far this month, with the Cloud index down…
I am sure that subscribers will recognize that the last few days have seen a rather substantial pull-back in high growth tech names. Some losses have been greater than others. None of the valuation contraction has been based on some particular changes in the outlook for growth names, or their overall operational performance. We will…
As many subscribers will be aware, some of the cyber security names have appreciated very sharply this week. We currently have about 20% of our portfolio in holdings of CRWD and ZS. This week’s spike is most likely a function of investor interest in the space due to the Russian hack that has penetrated several…
The last few trading sessions have seen a rather significant reversal of investor preferences. Risk-off is ruling investment sentiment and has pulled down many high-growth IT names by as much as 20% in a few days. Losses, as is typical in a panic, have been fairly indiscriminate although the names with the highest EV/S valuation…