Investing in Stocks is Like Picking Rides in An Amusement Park
Some rides will be exciting and exhilarating, some will be bleh and boring, and others will be downright disappointing.
Investing in stocks is like choosing what rides to get on in an amusement park. Some rides will be exciting and exhilarating, some will be bleh and boring, and others will be downright disappointing.
It is a mixed bag, you’ll have a bunch of top performers, average performers, and disappointing picks. The good thing is that you’ll learn from the disappointing picks and further improve your ability to pick average and high=performing stocks.
Now to some companies that might interest you
I have added the following stocks;
Fastly Inc (FSLY)
Crowdstrike Holdings Inc (CRWD)
Zynga Inc (ZYNG)
to my portfolio in the week that started June 15. You can see how they’ve performed so far in the chart below.
Why Fastly
Fastly is a flexible Edge Computing company that provides the infrastructure that powers some of the biggest tech companies in the world such as Airbnb, Spotify, and our dear Twitter. Edge Computing (also Edge Cloud) platforms help tech companies bring their processes closer to their users to enable fast, secure, low-latency processes for time-sensitive data such as video and audio streams or platforms with high-density usage.
I bought Fastly earlier last month after it revealed that its edge cloud platform has reached 100 terabits per second of connected edge capacity and is now capable of handling more than 800 billion requests per day.
Inasmuch as tech companies are in business and they don’t want their apps or services to be laggy, Fastly should continue to have a solid value proposition and I am ready to hold this stock for a very long time.
Why Crowdstrike
Crowdstrike is a cybersecurity company that provides threat intelligence, cyberattack response services, and the first cloud-native endpoint security platform powered by artificial intelligence. Fortune 100 companies including many major financial institutions and global organizations use Crowdstrike’s solutions to protect their businesses.
As more businesses embrace a digital-first approach in 2020, Crowdstrike’s revenue last quarter surged 85%. By segments, its subscription revenues surged 90% and the number of its subscription clients more than doubled at 105%.
Cybersecurity deals with everything relating to protecting sensitive data, personally identifiable information, intellectual property, protected health information, and governmental and industry information systems from the theft and unauthorized access. There’s a huge opportunity for Crowdstrike holdings.
Why Zynga
People were stuck at home last month and they spent a lot of time playing games. The main driver behind Zynga’s success in the last quarter and its confidence for the rest of the year includes its #PlayApartTogether initiative as the world continues social distancing in response to COVID-19.
In Zynga’s last earnings report for Q1 2020, the company reported a 52% YoY increase in revenue to $404M and its bookings were up 18% YoY to $425M. By segments, revenue from its online games or user-pay games climbed 72%.
You should do your own research, but with the shares trading under $10 apiece, its interesting lineup of games, and an increase in paying players, there’s significant upside potential in this stock.
Now to my watchlist
I’ll be adding some more stocks to my portfolio over the next few weeks and the first stock on my radar is Slack Technologies Inc, (WORK).
I’ve had my eyes on Slack for a while but I didn’t quite get around to digging deeper. I use Slack at work, and it is an amazing messaging platform that has sent work emails to the backseat.
Digging through its last earnings report from June 4 shows decent growth with 12,000 net Paid Customers and 90,000 net new free and paid organizations added as clients. Now, it’s Active users spend an average of 120 minutes per day actively interacting on Slack, and many users are connected for more than 10 hours per day.
Final thoughts,
If you are thinking about what new stocks to add your portfolio, I think Fastly, Crowdstrike Holdings, Zynga, and Slack are good candidates worthy of your research.
Fastly has delivered a fast-paced growth and I think it is only just getting started.
Cybersecurity will continue to be important and that’s why we have stock such as Crowdstrike holdings.
On the surface, Zynga doesn’t sound like a serious contender, but, gaming can be a big business if you deliver a viral game.
And for Slack, remote work is the new normal and the company’s CEO Stewart Butterfield seems to know exactly how to make it work.
And finally, I hope you go beyond reading, to actively researching these picks, and adding the promising ones to your portfolio.