We recently compiled a list of the 10 Worst Affordable Tech Stocks to Buy According to Short Sellers. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Veeco Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ:VECO) stands against the other affordable tech stocks.
The rapid advancements in Al, computing, and human-machine interaction are the critical drivers for global companies’ strong adoption of technology. Garner believes that agentic Al is expected to emerge over the next 2-3 years – with capabilities going beyond tasks such as summarizing information to taking action. While Al is being used to provide options to the users, this technology will be able to choose the option that is optimal for the user. Therefore, the most important use cases for Al in 2025 will involve the relationships between humans and machines.
The technology domain involves substantial innovation, ranging from groundbreaking Al and Machine Learning advancements to the transformative potential of blockchain and loT. Industry veterans believe that next year should be a transitional one for the generative Al as technology companies will focus on experimenting and finding applications that can help drive efficiency and productivity.
Global Growth with the Help of Cloud, Al, and Cybersecurity
The elevated interest rate environment, concerns regarding recession, and geopolitical challenges led to the slight weakening of global technology spending in 2023. Now, experts are seeing a light on the horizon.
Economists have become more optimistic about the US economy, for the tech sector specifically. Due to strong adoption trends of Cloud and Al, global analysts are now optimistic about a potential return to modest growth in 2024, with stronger prospects for 2025.
Deloitte believes that global IT investments should be aided by double-digit growth in spending for software and IT services in 2024. There are expectations that public cloud spending might see an increase of more than 20%, with stronger demand for cybersecurity. Al investment (not specifically about generative Al) should also contribute to overall spending growth. Economists continue to project that Al-related investments might touch $200 billion globally by 2025, led by the US.
Market experts believe that cybersecurity should play an important role in the comeback. Deloitte recently highlighted that analysts continue to project low double-digit growth in global spending on security and risk management from 2023 to 2024. Adoption should be fueled by the persistent threat landscape, ongoing cloud adoption, the emergence of generative Al, and data privacy and governance regulations.
On the software front, Deloitte projected that nearly all the enterprise software companies will be embedding generative Al in at least some of their products in 2024 and that the revenue uplift (for such companies and cloud providers of gen-Al processing capacity) should approach a US$10 billion run rate by the year-end. On the hardware front, Deloitte believes that the uplift for chips and servers executing generative Al should exceed US$50 billion in 2024.
Technology Trends Defining the Future
The major technology trends are expected to create opportunities, result in innovation, and become imperative to gain a competitive edge in the business world. While AI and ML continue to top the list of tech trends likely to dominate the future, experts believe that Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Blockchain Technology, Industry Cloud Platforms, and Machine Customers are also on the list.
RPA helps organizations to transition to dynamic norms of automating organizational repetitive tasks with effectiveness and high precision. It revolves around employing software robots that perform tasks, like entering data and other related tasks, exactly like humans. Infosys believes that the global RPA market should touch ~$13.74 billion by 2028, reflecting a CAGR of 32.8%. With leading companies reaching the end of the learning curve, the full benefits of RPA are becoming visible. The exponential requirements for automation, a target of increased productivity, and lower operational costs should act as growth drivers.
Next, machine customers refer to AI systems that are empowered to make purchase decisions and have autonomous communication with a business. The technology leverages the options, data, and algorithms to think and transact. As per Gartner, CEOs expect that ~15% – 20% of their revenue should come from machine customers by 2030. The potential to convert billions of machines into customers offers opportunities worth trillions.
Our methodology
To list the 10 Worst Affordable Tech Stocks to Buy According to Short Sellers, we used a Finviz screener to filter out the stocks in the technology industry and we chose the ones having high short interest. Next, we narrowed our list and chose the stocks that are trading at less than the forward earnings multiple of ~22.53x (since the broader market is trading at ~22.53x, according to WSJ). Finally, these stocks were ranked in ascending order of their short interest.
Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).
A one of a kind semiconductor process equipment machine with various parts and components.
Veeco Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ:VECO)
Short % of Float (As of 30 August 2024): 14.53%
Forward P/E as of 23 September 2024: 14.93x
Veeco Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ:VECO) is engaged in developing, manufacturing, selling, and supporting semiconductor and thin film process equipment mainly to make electronic devices in the United States and other countries. The company has developed revolutionary technology products to enable thermal annealing solutions at the most advanced technology nodes.
Bears believe that Veeco Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ:VECO) is exposed to several challenges related to managing costs and maintaining profitability amidst fluctuations in market demand. During 2Q 2024 earnings, the company highlighted that there has been a decrease in customer deposits, mainly in the data storage sector. Also, the utilization rates in the data storage industry continue to be historically low, reducing service run rate business.
Moreover, short sellers highlighted that selectivity has been increasing in the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and components space and the sector appears to be in the later stages of its 2nd phase. Bears are cautious about the company’s market penetration potential with ion beam deposition (IBD) technology.
On the other hand, market experts believe that Veeco Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ: VECO) should be aided by strength in its semiconductor business. The company continues to make investments in laser annealing, ion beam deposition, and compound semiconductors, with 3Q 2024 revenue expected to be $170 million to $190 million. Moreover, Wall Street believes that there are growing opportunities in laser and nano anneal technologies, and Veeco Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ:VECO) appears to be well-placed to capture those.
Wall Street remains optimistic about the company’s expanding serviceable available market (SAM) and its gains in laser annealing and nanosecond annealing. They believe that such areas should benefit from industry trends like gate-all-around (GAA) transition, backside power, and high bandwidth memory (HBM).
Oppenheimer increased their target price on shares of Veeco Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ:VECO) from $45.00 to $55.00, giving an “Outperform” rating on 27th June.
Wasatch Global Investors, an asset management company, released its second-quarter 2024 investor letter. Here is what the fund said:
“Veeco Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ:VECO) was the top contributor to strategy performance during the second quarter. The company is a global capital-equipment supplier that designs and builds processing systems used to manufacture high-tech microelectronic devices including semiconductors, photonics, display technologies and power supplies. These devices are integral to applications like advanced computing, machine learning and AI. Veeco has exhibited solid fundamentals and a reasonable valuation for a few years. Going forward, we think the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act will create an additional tailwind for Veeco, which is one of relatively few U.S. micro-cap companies involved in semiconductor manufacturing and AI.”
Overall VECO ranks 8th on our list of the worst affordable tech stocks according to short sellers. While we acknowledge the potential of VECO as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some deeply undervalued AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for a deeply undervalued AI stock that is more promising than VECO but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
