Many of the stocks are among the highest rated when it comes to strong fundamentals and the price performance reflects that.

Looking through a bunch of weekly charts recently, there were two software companies that really jumped out at me.The weekly stochastic indicators recently reached oversold territory for the first time in a number of years.

 This followed news of Zoom sold 1 million seats for its phone service – a business that was introduced two years ago.

The analysts at  Bernstein are sanguine that revenue from Zoom Phone will contribute substantial returns in a shorter period than many investors expect.The firm expects that Zoom Phone could surpass 8 million paid users by the end of calendar year 2022, and 13 million by the end of 2023. 

Zoom Phone would have a market value of $80 billion by 2023, considering a multiple of 20 times price to sales – according to Bernstein.

Bernstein analyst Zane Chrane said that with all Zoom Phone users on paid plans (i.e., no free tier like with videoconferencing), related revenue could grow much more rapidly relative to the user count than has been the case with Zoom VC.

Videoconferencing platform Zoom Video Communications  is reportedly considering developing its own corporate e-mail and calendar services.

According to a report in The Information, Zoom Video has already started working on the e-mail service and may begin testing it out early next year.But work might not have begun on the calendar service.

Bigger tech companies Microsoft   and Alphabet already incorporate  e-mail and calendar services into their respective videoconferencing platforms.

Human resource and payroll benefits manager Paychex  posted fiscal-second-quarter earnings that surpassed analysts’ expectations, thanks to  client retention and strengthening client base.

For the quarter ended Nov. 30, the company’s earnings came in at 75 cents a share, compared to  66 cents expected by analysts polled by FactSet.The figure is also higher than the year-ago quarter’s 72 cents a share.

Revenue fell 0.7% year-over-year to $983.7 million, exceeding analysts’ forecast of $954 million.

While the covid-19 pandemic affected the results, strong client retention and our sales performance has resulted in year-over-year growth in the number of clients sold and serviced, as suggested in a statement from President and Chief Executive Martin Mucci.

 

E-signature company DocuSign  reported its fiscal third quarter earnings that surpassed analysts’ expectations. The company’s quarterly earnings came in at   22 cents a share, beating the Street estimate of 13 cents a share. Revenue surged +53% year-over-year to $382.9 million, also exceeding analysts’ expectations of $361.2 million. The earnings results were followed by upgrades from several analysts. Citi analyst Walter Pritchard hiked his price target on DocuSign shares to $282 from $257, while maintaining  his buy rating on the shares citing "higher growth for longer" potential amid the COVID-19 pandemic’s role in propelling businesses to digital signing permanently. Needham analyst Scott Berg, who initiated coverage of DocuSign in mid-November with a buy rating and a $240 price target, lifted his one-year target to $275. Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives called DocuSign’s results “stellar” . JMP Securities analyst Patrick Walravens boosted his pri

Software company Splunk  reported a fiscal-third-quarter loss. For the quarter ended Oct. 31, Splunk’s loss widened to -$1.26 a share, from the year-ago quarter’s -38 cents a share. On an adjusted basis, Splunk had a loss of -7 cents a share, compared to analysts’ expectations of loss of -9 cents  share. Looking ahead, the company is expecting fiscal-fourth-quarter revenue in the range of $650 million to $700 million.Analysts polled by FactSet were expecting $777.9 million.

The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV) has gained over 80% in the last two years while the S&P 500 is up a far more modest 31%. There are three companies in the packaged software arena that are set to release earnings over the next week and two of those three have experienced extremely strong moves.The gains for the two, as impressive as they have been, highlight how the stocks have performed well despite the fundamentals not being as strong as the technical picture. Looking at the Tickeron Fundamental Screener, each of the three companies only has one area where it gets a positive reading.

Zoom Video Communications  reported its fiscal third quarter earnings that exceeded analysts’ expectations. The company’s quarterly earnings came in at 99 cents per share, handily beating analysts’ estimate of  76 cents per share.  Revenue of $777.2 million also surpassed the $693.95 million expected by analysts. "Strong demand and execution led to revenue growth of 367% year-over-year with solid growth in non-GAAP operating income and cash flow in our third fiscal quarter.", said founder and CEO Eric Yuan in a statement. Looking ahead, the company expects revenue in the range of $806 million to $811 million for the fiscal fourth quarter, with earnings between 77 cents and 79 cents per share. Analysts have predicted revenue of $730.11 million and earnings of 66 cents per share.     

Ride-hailing company Uber   closed its acquisition of food-delivery service Postmates. According to Uber, Postmates would add $350 million to $400 million to gross bookings for delivery and increase adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization by $7 million to $12 million for the quarter ending Dec. 31. Uber said that next year it will also begin a regional listening process for merchants across the country, with Uber Eats and Postmates coming together. “I'm confident that alongside Uber Eats we will create even more opportunities for our customers, continue to drive growth for our merchants, and deliver unique earning opportunities" for its delivery workers, Postmates Co-Founder and CEO Bastian Lehmann said.    

On Tuesday, Salesforce.com, Inc. announced that  it is buying messaging platform Slack Technologies, Inc.   in a deal valued at $27.7 billion. The announcement follows last week’s reports of  talks between the companies .As part of the deal, Slack shareholders will receive $26.79 in cash and 0.0776 shares of Salesforce common stock for each Slack share. Calling the acquisition a “match made in heaven” Marc Benioff, Chair and CEO of Salesforce said, "Together, Salesforce and Slack will shape the future of enterprise software and transform the way everyone works in the all-digital, work-from-anywhere world.

Cloud software company Salesforce.com reported its third quarter earnings that surpassed analysts’ expectations.However, the company’s guidance was below expectations. Salesforce.com’s GAAP earnings of  $1.15 per share was a major improvement from the year-ago quarter’s loss of -12 cents per share a year ago.

Shopify   reported third-quarter earnings and sales that beat analysts' expectations. The e-commerce tech company’s adjusted earnings for the third quarter came in at $1.13 a share (vs. a loss of - 29 cents a share a year ago).Analysts polled by FactSet had expected 52 cents a share earnings. Revenue surged +96% year-over-year to $767.4 million in the quarter, exceeding analysts' forecasts of $657.8 million.  The company’s subscription solutions revenue increased +48% to $245.3 million, on the back of more merchants entering the platform.

Zoom Video Communications  got analyst target-price hikes, on  the launch of its new features.  Zoom launched several features including events platform OnZoom yesterday. AllianceBernstein almost tripled its share-price target on the audio-video communications company to a Wall Street high $611, from $228.RBC said it had increased conviction in the potential for durable hypergrowth, with a potential path to 60% growth next year. Both Rosenblatt Securities and Piper Sandler also hiked their share-price targets on Zoom, to $450 from $350 and to $501 from $411 respectively. According to Tickeron,  Technical Analysis (Indicators) Bearish Trend Analysis The 10-day RSI Indicator for ZM moved out of overbought territory on October 14, 2020.

Zoom Video Communications  introduced several new features Wednesday, including a events platform. The platform, called OnZoom, allows users “to create and host free, paid, and fundraising events,” Zoom Video said in a statement. According to Zoom, hosts can grow their businesses, and expand their reach into new audiences, and give back through native donation integration, via OnZoom.The odds of a continued upward trend are 90%. The Aroon Indicator entered an Uptrend today.

Cloud service company Snowflake  got  optimistic outlooks from analysts at Deutsche Bank and Piper Sandler. Deutsche Bank analyst Patrick Colville initiated coverage of Snowflake with a buy rating and a $305 price target.… Our estimates call for data warehouse (analytical processing) spending to grow to $45.2bn in 2024, a 13% CAGR from 2019.” Brent Bracelin of Piper Sandler began coverage of Snowflake with an overweight rating and a $264 price target, citing the company’s new cloud-native software layer, that Bracelin believes has the potential to redefine and modernize the enterprise data stack.

E-commerce  company Shopify shares got a price target hike to $1,250 from $1,150.from a KeyBanc Capital Markets analyst.  Referring to Shopify’s Fulfillment Network as "a full-fledged, tightly integrated fulfillment solution," analyst Josh Beck raised his price target.

The analysts also raised his price target to $1,300 from $998. "We continue to see strength in Shopify’s near-term ability to capture share in e-commerce," said analyst Arounian.According to the analyst, “pull-forward in e-commerce trends” would be sustainable over time, driven in large part by ongoing changes to consumer habits. According to the analyst, the coronavirus pandemic has increased the importance of fulfillment for small to midsized businesses and direct-to-consumer companies - which boosts the relevance of the Shopify Fulfillment Network, which the company launched last year.

On Friday, Unity Software's   initial public offering led to a more than $13 billion valuation for the company that specializes in software tools for videogame designers.Shares pulled back a bit later, but still ended the first trading session up +31.4% at $68.35.  

That gives it a market valuation of $2.17 billion, based on the shares outstanding listed in its filings.  The company reported a loss of -$1.93 a share for the six months ended July 31; that is narrower compared to the loss of -$2.13 a share in the year-earlier first half.Revenue surged +38% to $96.6 million from $70.2 million.      

Tickeron's A.I.dvisor detected that the AroonUp green line is above 70 while the AroonDown red line is below 30.A.I.dvisor looked at 448 similar instances where the Aroon Indicator showed a similar pattern.