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Ask HN: What tech companies do you invest in?

by bvod on 6/25/17, 10:15 PM with 52 comments

  • by hamstercat on 6/26/17, 12:00 AM

    My boring answer: none directly, though an index fund I invest in has a small share of Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Facebook. I already work in tech, both at my main and side jobs, so not being too invested in tech seems wise even if I don't see it blowing up again.

  • by adventured on 6/25/17, 11:54 PM

    Editas (EDIT), Crispr Therapeautics (CRSP), occasionally Intellia (NTLA). I liked Shopify (SHOP) when they were cheaper and owned them from their IPO, now it's very expensive.

    Most of the public traditional tech companies are extremely boring and not doing anything interesting. Whether Netflix, Facebook or Salesforce.com, it's 15-20 year old technology, that has been pushed & evolved to hyper scale (which is impressive of course). The only thing interesting about most public tech companies of consequence now, is the scaling that they do. Apple & the iPhone? A 10 year old leap, pushed to hyper scale to go with regular improvement - about as exciting as the desktop computer circa 2003.

    Want to get at blockchain? AI? Robotics? Quantum computing? There aren't very many good, pure-play public companies for that. (I'm not buying Google at $670 billion to get at their quantum tech, which won't dent that market cap in the next decade).

    Amazon is one of the few tech companies making bold moves. I'm not paying 200x earnings for 20% sales growth, so that one day 15-20 years out they'll finally justify their present valuation. nVidia is another that is interesting and very expensive accordingly (at a 600%+ valuation increase in two years on the back of ~170% earnings growth, dangerous is an ideal word for their stock).

  • by kbos87 on 6/26/17, 10:26 AM

    I previously had a modest amount of stock in a handful of midsized and larger tech companies, but I'm in the process of selling it off.

    Something that was an eye opening experience for me was watching my own employer go public. All of the sudden the rest of the world is trying to understand and make sense of your business.

    From the individual investors talking about our business on twitter or seeking alpha to the analyst reports from the massive investment houses, other people's conjecture about our market and our strategy is often just way, way off base.

    This experience made it painfully clear that most investors, even "professionals", are operating in an extreme vacuum of information. They know almost nothing about our future prospects relative to what the employees living in the space every day know.

    It's half because they are spreading themselves too thin, and half because they aren't living in our space, talking to our customers every day.

    Long story short, I'm realistic that as an individual investor who isn't an insider, I'm at a huge disadvantage. So I hold a lot of employee stock, and I'm moving more and more toward boring old index funds.

  • by pcprincipal on 6/26/17, 2:17 AM

    Biggest tech holdings:

    - TSLA - same reasons mentioned below - NVDA - GPUs could eventually replace CPUs, machine learning / autonomous vehicles, data storage, great core business (gaming) - AMD - similar reasons to NVDA, Epyc is making waves and taking market share from INTC - AMZN - $1 of every $2 on the internet is spent here, AWS alone is probably a $100 BN+ business, they have their hands in every imaginable cookie jar - GOOGL - diversified play on ML, internet of things and more, search business is cash cow

    Surprised at the index fund answers here. If you had invested in FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google) stocks last 5 years, would have made a killing, and for people who regularly post on HN, all of these companies are regularly mentioned / cited as examples of superior engineering.

  • by gwintrob on 6/25/17, 11:52 PM

    Amazon. E-commerce is still < 10% of retail in the US, so the core business has tons of potential. Then start thinking about opportunities like AWS, etc...

  • by pg_bot on 6/25/17, 11:38 PM

    AAPL, they earn all of the profits for the most important device of the 21st century. I will own them until that is no longer the case.

  • by geori on 6/26/17, 2:08 AM

    I used to not pick tech stocks because of the diversification argument. However, I stopped that and now invest a good bit. Why? People in tech are going to be better at predicting the future than the equity research analysts at investment banks. Have confidence in yourself and make some picks.

  • by harigov on 6/26/17, 2:07 AM

    Tesla. It is clear that world is going towards renewables. It is also clear that electric vehicle is here to stay. Even if there is an alternative out there that meets the renewable energy needs, it will take more than a decade for it to fully commercialize so Tesla has its place. I think that the giga factories and solar city can be huge businesses. Tesla's truck with its auto-pilot (even if it is good enough to drive on freeways) can be a huge cost saver for transportation companies.

  • by scurvy on 6/26/17, 2:25 AM

    Datacenter REITs have been a great moneymaker for me: EQIX, DLR, DFT (being acquired by DLR), and a few others like COR, INXN, and CONE.

    Buy it, hold it, wait for it to double, sell half, then let the rest ride for free and reinvest the original stake. Great way to never worry about timing when to take gains in high flying stocks.

    REITs also throw off a lot of income and dividends which makes them nice to hold long term.

  • by haney on 6/26/17, 12:20 AM

    FB, They have access to great consumer information that will continue to make them a valuable advertising company for a long time AND they've continued to expand into other markets (VR) while making smart defensive acquisitions to protect their core.

  • by deepnotderp on 6/26/17, 12:31 AM

    AMD, lots of juicy server market share available.

  • by grondilu on 6/26/17, 12:39 AM

    Those are tech companies I have more than one share of: NVIDIA, AMD, IBM, Intel.

    And those are companies I just have one share of (because why not?): Tesla, Google (Alphabet A & C), Amazon, Texas Instruments

    I wish I had bought more of Amazon :(

  • by nodesocket on 6/26/17, 12:31 AM

    Well publically in the market... Apple, AMD, Google, index fund. I like me some tech. Yes I am well aware I not diversified, but I am somewhat young, and looking for growth.

  • by thebiglebrewski on 6/25/17, 11:35 PM

    Tesla, of course! But it might be too late now...

  • by uptown on 6/27/17, 2:03 PM

    Looking for some good names in the anti-malware / anti-ransomware / firewall / intrusion prevention industry. Anybody have any good ideas?

  • by rrrx3 on 6/26/17, 2:29 AM

    FAANG -> needs no explanation

    NVDA -> same

    RHT -> solid financials, great growth q over q and y over y

    MSFT -> Nadella has made some massive improvements that reap great benefits

    MU -> great value for money and great returns

  • by sketchthat on 6/26/17, 1:08 AM

    Indirectly through my super all the main players like Apple, Google, FB.

    Directly, Amazon & Tesla + a bunch of cryptos (Do they count?)

  • by reilly3000 on 6/26/17, 12:39 AM

    I am short on investment money, but if I was buying equities I would go long on ARM. I think they are Qualcomm of 2006 with IoT and massive parallelism driving big growth.

  • by wayn3 on 6/28/17, 3:48 AM

    I invest in real estate.

  • by Temasik on 6/25/17, 11:41 PM

    www.iota.org as it is trying to solve internet of things problem using mesh network