The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights Hello Group, Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri, Spark Networks, Alphabet and Amazon
For Immediate Release
Chicago, IL – April 10, 2023 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Hello Group Inc. MOMO, Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri TKC, Spark Networks LOV, Alphabet GOOGL and Amazon AMZN.
Here are highlights from Thursday’s Analyst Blog:
3 Tech Stocks Under $10 to Add to Your Portfolio Right Now
The U.S. equity markets continue to be plagued by severe volatility. Despite a strong performance by major indices in March, the fact remains that we are by no means out of the woods, especially with respect to inflation-related woes. Year to date, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 have returned 1.01%, 14.62% and 6.53%, respectively.
Tech-focused exchange-traded fund, Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLK) has jumped 20.76% year to date, giving way to a sharp rebound in 2023 as companies work to protect profitability and the Federal Reserve winds down its rate-hike campaign after an uncharacteristically sluggish performance in 2022.
The sector's expected rebound is likely to be driven by the impressive long-term growth prospects of tech companies, including Hello Group Inc., Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri and Spark Networks, owing to continuous digital transformations. The rapid adoption of cloud computing and the ongoing integration of AI and machine learning have been major growth drivers.
Moreover, growing demand for e-commerce, contactless delivery through drones and digital payment highlights the urgency for accelerated 5G network development.
Meanwhile, blockchain, IoT, smartphones, autonomous vehicles, storage solutions, AR/VR and wearables, networking and connectivity solutions — including Wi-Fi as well as Wi-Fi/Bluetooth integrated SOCs — and the need for high-speed data in both communications networks and data centers offer significant growth opportunities.
Despite the challenges presented by the current economic downturn, there are still plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the tech sector's future. Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta have started work to keep margins intact by cutting costs and curbing non-strategic areas of spending to withstand what major banks and economists see as an oncoming recession. Among the cost cuts, thousands of tech workers have been terminated in recent weeks, with reductions at Google and Amazon among them.
Though a workforce-trimming strategy might hurt employer brand and employee morale, it is often a necessary evil that companies consider adopting to stay afloat during turbulent time
Our Picks
With the help of the Zacks Stock Screener, we have picked three technology stocks that have strong fundamentals and are well-poised for growth in 2023. These stocks carry a VGM Score of A or B and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
Per the Zacks proprietary methodology, stocks with such a perfect mix of elements offer solid investment opportunities.
While these stocks trade under $10 and can be more volatile than their costlier peers, strong bottom-line projections and positive estimate revisions in recent times point toward momentum in the near term.
Hello Group provides a mobile social and entertainment platform, often used as an online dating site, primarily in the People's Republic of China. Its platform includes mobile applications and related features, functionalities, tools and services. Additionally, it offers exclusive and non-exclusive mobile game services and other services like paid emoticons and mobile marketing. It also offers a membership subscription.
The company is benefiting from an increase in mobile marketing revenues, driven by improved demand from brand marketers. The company is making efforts to decrease sales and marketing expenses and optimize Tantan's channel marketing strategy.
The stock is currently priced at $8.61 and has a VGM Score of A. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the company's 2023 earnings has moved north by 36.2% to $1.58 per share in the past 30 days, indicating growth of 18.8% year over year.
Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri provides mobile telecommunication services for consumer, corporate, and wholesale customers. In 2022, the company reached 887K homes with end-to-end fiber. Total fiber home passes reached 5.4 million. For the year, the company had record net fiber additions of 234K subscribers, driven by increased penetration of complementary, content-rich TV+ service and superior customer experience.
Digital TV platform TV+ continues to differentiate itself from peers attributable to its extensive sales network, strong brand recognition and rich content. The company targets revenue growth between 55% and 57% in 2023 by focusing on enlarging the mobile postpaid base, which provides a higher revenue contribution.
The stock is currently priced at $4.58 and has a VGM Score of A. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the company's 2023 earnings has moved north by 23.3% to $1.11 per share in the past 30 days, indicating growth of 42.3% year over year.
Spark Networksis a leader in social dating platforms for meaningful relationships, focusing on the 40+ demographic and faith-based affiliations. It functions in the United States and internationally. The company's comprehensive, user-friendly websites offer convenient and safe places for like-minded singles to connect.
While Zoosk holds strategic value as a large mass market dating site, Spark also holds a base of quality affinity brands (including EliteSingles, SilverSingles, eDarling, Christian Mingle and Jdate) to invest in other than just Zoosk, which are in demand by a large global paying subscriber base.
The company continues to focus on expanding its presence in North America. For the year ended Dec 31, 2022, subscription revenues accounted for over 94% of total revenues. Spark had an average of over 811K paying members across all platforms.
The stock is currently priced at $0.879 and has a VGM Score of A. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the company's 2023 earnings has moved north by 62.5% to 78 cents per share in the past 30 days, indicating growth of 114.6% year over year.
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Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.
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Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) : Free Stock Analysis Report
Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri AS (TKC) : Free Stock Analysis Report
Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL) : Free Stock Analysis Report
Spark Networks, Inc. (LOV) : Free Stock Analysis Report
Hello Group Inc. Sponsored ADR (MOMO) : Free Stock Analysis Report
