What We're Watching At The Citi Tech Conference

The Citi Global Technology Conference this Wednesday and Thursday is timely. We're two months into the third quarter. Third quarters are important in tech because you have the build for the holiday season.

Investors will be looking for any hints from management how trends are progressing.

Here's some of the things we're looking for...

General Body Language

Frankly we want to make sure companies are still pumped about business. They should be. Tech's been strong and demand has been strong. We want strong language that tech and demand have not slowed. That's what the stocks need to move up. If we don't hear that there could be risk.

DRAM Price Weakness Not Because Of Demand

We've heard some analysts and companies concerned that DRAM prices peaking and coming down in the spot market could be an early sign of weak demand. We don't think so. We think supply has caught up with demand to some degree but, we'd guess demand has not slowed.

Capex Strong

Datacenter demand has been very strong at most semi players. Capex spending has been accelerating at the hyperscalers. We think that should obviously translate to continued strong trends at the datacenter. As long as capex remains very strong we have medium term visibility that this tech boom is very much in place.

Capex moving up also allays concerns of weaker DRAM pricing.

Trade Tensions

Any disruptions thanks to trade tensions?

Apple Food Chain

Apple's launching new products September 12. Some Apple suppliers appear to have bottomed and we want to hear that Apple is bullish about the Fall launch and that inventory is lean enough for suppliers to benefit.

Stock Action

You'll have the biggest funds meeting with the largest tech companies. Stock action matters on Wednesday and Thursday. What those huge funds hear can quickly get reflected in the stocks moving up or down. Ear to the train tracks.

Here's the list of companies we're watching more carefully.

Twitter Inc $TWTR

Applied Materials $AMAT

Arista Networks $ANET

Autodesk $ADSK

Checkpoint $CHKP

Cisco $CSCO

Intel $INTC

Juniper Networks $JNPR

KLA-Tencor $KLAC

Lam Research $LRCX

Maxim Integrated $MXIM

Micron $MU

Microsoft $MSFT

MKS Instruments $MKSI

NetApp $NTAP

NVIDIA $NVDA

Qualcomm $QCOM

Roku $ROKU

Skyworks Solutions $SWKS

STMicroelectronics $STM

Texas Instruments $TXN

Western Digital $WDC

Xilinx $XLNX

Conclusion

Septembers matter for the stock market and timely tech conferences like Citi this week are key. We want to hear strong trends and want to see good stock action. If we don't get either we probably need to do a little more digging and maybe watch out.

We also have a full slate of upcoming company calls.

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All investments have many risks and can lose principal in the short and long term. The information provided is for information purposes only and can be wrong. By reading this you agree, understand and accept that you take upon yourself all responsibility for all of your investment decisions and to do your own work and hold Elazar Advisors, LLC, and their related parties harmless.

We have no holdings in the stocks mentioned unless otherwise noted.

Updated September 2, 2018 11:17 AM EDT