While the tech sector has bounced back somewhat to start 2023, many of the best technology stocks are still far below their highs. Not only that, but many tech companies that overhired or spent too much during the pandemic are also in the process of streamlining their operations, with a focus on efficiency and profitability.
That bodes well for these three innovators as we come out of this interest rate-raising cycle. But while the economic slowdown may persist for a while, these tech stocks could take off well before business picks back up, making these three stocks prime buys for the month of April.
Amazon
Perhaps the poster child for pandemic-era excesses, Amazon (AMZN 1.49%) is now pivoting to efficiency in a big way, which should pay dividends for shareholders. With the stock still 46% below all-time highs, investors would be wise to pick up shares of this undisputed leader in both e-commerce and cloud computing this month.
When the pandemic was in full swing, Amazon decided to hire workers and expand its distribution and logistics platform as much as needed. Because a lot of these decisions on construction are made with a multiyear lag, that spending continued into early 2022, even as growth decelerated following the COVID boom in e-commerce sales.
But Amazon now seems deadly serious about pivoting to efficiency. After announcing 10,000 layoffs late last year, the company upped that figure to 18,000 layoffs in January, before adding another 9,000 layoffs on March 20. That's obviously not great for workers, but it's probably needed, as Amazon had added more than 800,000 workers between 2019 and 2021, more doubling its workforce.
There are also some hints that Amazon's efficiency drive, which began about a year ago, is already bearing fruit. One particular metric I look at is Amazon's growth in shipping costs versus the growth in paid units delivered, which Amazon discloses in its filings. During the pandemic, Amazon's units shipped skyrocketed, but shipping costs actually increased by an even greater amount every quarter through the first two quarters of 2022. However, beginning in the third quarter of 2022, shipping cost growth fell beneath paid units growth.
That bodes well for improving profitability in the core e-commerce segment in 2023. In addition, Amazon's percentage of sales from third-party sellers is steadily increasing, making up 59% of sales last quarter, and should also help profits as those sales tend to be higher-profit than sales Amazon makes from its own inventory. And Amazon's advertising services continue to roll along, achieving a very respectable 23% growth rate in constant currency last quarter, even as the larger advertising world is in a downturn.
There are also some concerns about a slowdown in Amazon Web Services (AWS), which is understandable given the current deceleration in that unit. However, AWS is helping a broad cross-section of its customers look to cut costs all at once, as interest rate increases affect a broader proportion of customers than the pandemic did. However, Amazon's long-term customer commitments grew 37.3% last year, well exceeding revenue growth of 20%, as revenue is recorded based on current usage. So with solid growth in long-term contracts, AWS appears to still have a lot of growth ahead.
Moreover, the advent of generative artificial intelligence will only increase demand for computing power, which should benefit not just Amazon's rivals but also AWS, which provides access to supercomputing tools developers and start-ups need to make AI work. It's early stages in the AI wars, and one can be sure that AWS, with its cloud computing market share lead, won't be left on the sidelines.
E-commerce names have been beaten-down, but some look cheap today. Image source: Getty Images.
PayPal
The fintech sector broadly, and PayPal (PYPL 1.41%) specifically, had a very bad year in 2022, and the stock still sits more than 76% below its all-time highs of late 2021. Moreover, PayPal's forward P/E ratio has fallen to just over 15 times this year's expected earnings.
PYPL Percent Off All-Time High data by YCharts
Yet the growth and profitability headwinds that PayPal faced last year has recently shown signs of bottoming out. Last quarter, revenue grew 7% and 9% on a constant-currency basis. Adjusted for the loss of the eBay contract that has been rolling off over the past four years, growth was 8% and 10% on a constant currency basis. The last of the eBay roll-off occurred in the third quarter of 2022; therefore, PayPal's headline revenue growth could get a boost starting in the fourth quarter, as it will no longer be comping against that headwind.
The Q4 growth rate is no doubt a deceleration from PayPal's heady growth of 2020 and 2021, but at this current valuation, it's not that bad, especially if PayPal can remain highly profitable.
The good news on that front is that PayPal seems to be turning its declining margins around. After margins declined significantly from late 2021 through the second quarter of 2022, PayPal has shown two consecutive quarters of sequential improvements in non-GAAP operating margins, increasing from 19.1% in the second quarter 2022 to 22.9% in the fourth quarter. Yes, that's still below peak operating margins of 25.1% back in 2020, but it's still headed in the right direction. Earnings per share also accelerated to 11% growth in Q4, reversing three straight quarters of EPS declines.
Unlike some other high-growth tech peers, PayPal also generates significant free cash flow, and it has a solid balance sheet, with $15.9 billion in cash against just $10.8 billion in debt. Despite 2022 being an off year in which growth decelerated and earnings came down, PayPal still generated $5.1 billion in free cash flow, returning $4.2 billion of that to shareholders in the form of share repurchases.
That's a positive use of cash when the stock is this cheap, and it's likely to benefit shareholders when PayPal emerges from the downturn. PayPal has a relatively diverse business across branded checkout, merchant payment processing, the Venmo P2P platform, working capital loans, and buy-now-pay-later services. That diversity should generate consistent cash flow through a cycle, allowing PayPal to both repurchase stock and invest in new growth drivers, either organically or through acquisitions.
Image source: Getty Images.
Dell Technologies
PC and server leader Dell Technologies (DELL 0.97%) is currently feeling the fallout of the worst PC downturn in modern history -- a bitter hangover from the booming PC sales during the pandemic. But the good news is, Dell is handling this downturn rather well. Its client solutions group plunged 23% last quarter, but the unit, which sells PCs to both consumers and businesses, was still profitable, with segment operating income of $671 million.
While Dell might be clouded with the reputation of the difficult PC business, Dell now currently makes the majority of operating profits from its server segment. While that unit is also slowing, it did post 7% growth last quarter, but an even more encouraging 40% growth in operating income, as Dell is able to grow revenue without a meaningful increase in costs.
Dell actually has the leading market share in the server industry today. And while businesses may slow down their data center purchases in the near term, the emerging artificial intelligence wars should propel demand for high-performance servers over the long run and be a longer-term tailwind.
In addition, there could be a brewing turnaround in PCs. A recent note from Trendforce research projects an 11% quarter-over-quarter improvement in notebook shipments. While that is off an extremely low base in the first quarter and would still leave shipments far below last year's levels, it could at least indicate that the PC market may be bottoming out here.
Anticipating a downturn, investors have sold off Dell to just 5.3 times its 2022 adjusted earnings per share. That's absurdly cheap. But even if Dell does see some additional profit declines in the near term, the company should remain profitable overall and continue paying out its growing 3.6% dividend regardless. Once the economy and rate environment normalizes, this bargain-priced stock should take off again.
