Positive news about vaccines and possible COVID-19 treatments coupled with an accelerating economic recovery are contributing to what appears to be one of the best months for stocks ever. November ends on the Monday of the next week
Since the close of this Friday, the increase for November has increased by almost 13%. If it holds its gains during Monday's trading, the 30-component megacap index will have had its best month since January 1987. It rose 11.3% this month, in line with its best performance since April.
] November turned out to be the month when investors decided to bet big on cyclical stocks, or companies whose growth is linked to the reopening of the economy. Financials, for example, gained more than 17% last month and industrials by nearly 15%, based on strong indications that vaccines will bring the recession-hit global economy to life next year.
Amid this broad-based optimism, here are three stocks we want to focus on next week:
1. Amazon
Now it's peak shopping weekend After Thanksgiving – which spans from Black Friday to Cyber ??Monday – starts early this week, investors will be eager for updated data from the world's largest online retailer, Amazon. com (NASDAQ :).
US shoppers are expected to spend $ 189 billion in November and December, 33% more than a year earlier and more than double the usual growth rate, according to Adobe Analytics. Amazon receives about $ 0.40 of every dollar spent online in the US, meaning this period is critical for the Seattle-based e-tailer to continue its robust growth path this year.
Early data suggests that this holiday season will generate strong sales for retailers with online capabilities able to handle the added burden of stay-at-home buyers caused by the pandemic. According to Adobe, "consumers spent $ 9 billion on the Internet the day after Thanksgiving, up 21.6% year over year."
Amazon has invested heavily to meet the rising demand since the pandemic by hiring 250,000 workers. and spend billions on new warehouses and delivery stations. Amazon stock closed at $ 3,195.34 on Friday, after an increase of about 80% this year.
2. Zoom Video
Zoom Video Communications (NASDAQ 🙂 will report third quarter earnings for fiscal year 2021 after market close on Monday 30 November. Analysts expect $ 0.759 per share on projected revenues of $ 693 million.
Zoom, one of the clear winners in the coronavirus and post-pandemic economy, is now used by millions of workers and students, who have flocked to digital communications providers after citizens were told to stay at home and businesses and schools were closed.
In August, Zoom said it had 370,200 corporate clients with more than 10 employees, an increase of more than fivefold from a year earlier. That kind of growth helped the San Jose, California-based company report that Zoom's share of its fiscal second quarter was more than four times that of a year earlier.
Zoom's stock traded at $ 471.61 at Friday's close and is up 600. % in 2020, just over a year after the IPO in April 2019, when the price was $ 36.
3. CrowdStrike
Cloud-based cybersecurity platform Crowdstrike Holdings (NASDAQ 🙂 reports its last quarterly results on Wednesday, December 2, after market close. Analysts expect nominal profit on sales of $ 213 million, up 70% from a year ago.
Shares of the cybersecurity company are up more than 200% this year as more companies seek to secure their networks amid increased use of online services and increasing cyber-attacks by rogue actors and states.
CrowdStrike shares closed Friday at $ 150.83, giving the company a valuation of $ 33 billion just 18 months after the Sunnyvale, California-based company began trading publicly.
Led by Co-Founder and Chief Executive George Kurtz, CrowdStrike aims to do for security what other cloud-based companies have done for human resources, customer relationship management, and other industries.
