Journal Transcript has been monitoring a number of sectors over the summer months and we are seeing nice trends forming up. Several leading tech and social media companies including Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), among others, have been gaining ground and turning in hefty earnings while everyone is still sun tanning and hitting the ballpark.
Google posted its second quarter 2015 results on July 16th, reporting 11% year-on-year growth in revenues to $17.72 billion. At the same time the company the hit a 2% year-over-year decline in costs and expenses, which is 66% of revenues.
The entire FANG group is looking pretty attractive. Facebook shares are up 22%, Google 27%, Amazon 55% and Netflix is up a whopping 125%.
And while many will knock social media and Internet stocks, the fact remains that Facebook is one of the top five tech holdings among hedge funds, according to the latest data available from Goldman Sachs. That should tell you something about the Street’s real view.
We at the Journal Transcript still like social media and tech sectors for the immediate future. There is a lot of room out there for growth and with the market through 5000, there’s a chance to cash in on some of these.
Alongside the known titans that seem to drive the industry, we’ve identified a couple that have some with impressive potential.
Tencent Holdings (NASDAQ Other:TCEHY) is known in the stateside as the company behind text and voice messaging system WeChat, or if you are in China “Weixin”. The company owns an online messenger service called QQ and a microblogging service (like Twitter), along with QQZone, a social network, for sharing photos, media and writing longer blog posts. Tencent shows impressive growth. It’s operating margin expanded from 34% to 42% last quarter, resulting in profits growing 45% and its QQ service now has 832 million monthly active users. Facebook take note.
In the microcap arena, we’re watching Snoogoo (OTCMKTS:SGOO). It’s a promising new platform that builds off the shoulders of giants like Google, Yahoo, Bing and YouTube by providing the ability to search those and other portals all at once. Snoogoo then adds options to save and share results with groups or publicly. Like other Common Information Networks (Pinterest, Behance, etc.), Snoogoo lets you post via its “clipboards” where registered users can share just about anything available online, including links, images, videos, research and data. We like the fact that it’s social, highly viral and a very useful tool.
Snoogoo trades in the pennies per share range and just announced its public beta site, but the stock has managed to triple since June. The company is preparing to start adding revenue with an advertising-based model – a breath of fresh air from a company looking to grow quickly in this sector.
As we head toward to the last stretch of the fun and sun, we’ll be keeping a close eye on the tech and social group. Expect their performance to be a likely barometer of what is really happening as the growth slows, ad dollars shrink and the competition tightens in a maturing, but still very lucrative marketplace.
