While most of Wall Street focuses on large and mega-cap stocks, as they provide a degree of safety and liquidity, many investors are limited in the number of shares they can buy. Many of the biggest public companies, especially the technology giants, trade in the hundreds, all the way up to over $1,000 per share or more. At those steep prices, it’s pretty hard to get any decent share count leverage.
Many investors, especially more aggressive traders, look at lower-priced stocks as a way to not only make some good money but to get a higher share count. That can really help the decision-making process, especially when you are on to a winner, as you can always sell half and keep half.
We screened our 24/7 Wall St. research database looking for smaller cap technology companies that could very well offer patient investors some huge returns in 2021 and beyond. Investors that did that in 2008 and 2009 absolutely killed it over the next few years.
While all five of these stocks are rated Buy, it is important to remember that no single analyst report should be used as a sole basis for any buying or selling decision.
A10 Networks
On a solid upside roll since early October, this is an incredible idea for aggressive investors. A10 Networks Inc. (NASDAQ: ATEN) offers the Thunder application delivery controller, which provides advanced server load balancing. The Lightning application delivery controller is a cloud-native software-as-a-service platform to boost the delivery and security of applications and micro services. Plus, its Thunder carrier-grade networking product offers standards-compliant address and protocol translation services for service provider networks.
A10 Networks also provides Thunder threat protection system for the protection of networks and server resources against massive distributed denial of service attacks. Its Thunder secure sockets layer (SSL) insight solution decrypts SSL-encrypted traffic and forwards it to a third-party security device for deep packet inspection. And the Thunder convergent firewall addresses various critical security capabilities in one package by consolidating various security and networking functions in a single appliance.
In addition, the company offers intelligent management and automation tools including a harmony controller that provides intelligent management, automation and analytics for secure application delivery in a multi-cloud environment, and its aGalaxy TPS is a multi-device network management solution.
Sidoti has a huge $15 price objective, though the consensus target price across Wall Street is $14.25. Shares have traded near $8 for the past month.
AXT
This off-the-radar stock has had a big run recently, but any backup is a solid buy level. AXT Inc. (NASDAQ: AXTI) researches, develops and produces compound and single element semiconductor substrates. It produces semiconductor substrates using its proprietary vertical gradient freeze technology.
The company offers indium phosphide for use in fiber optic lasers and detectors, passive optical networks, data center connectivity, silicon photonics, photonic integrated circuits, terrestrial solar cells, radio frequency amplifier and switching, infrared light-emitting diode (LED) motion control, and infrared thermal imaging, as well as for 5G.
AXT also provides semi-insulating gallium arsenide (GaAs) substrates for applications in power amplifiers, direct broadcast television, transistors, satellite communications and solar cells. Its semi-conducting GaAs substrates are used in 3-D sensing, data center communication, high brightness LEDs, lasers, near-infrared sensors, printer head lasers and LEDs, optical couplers, solar cells and night-vision goggles, as well as laser machining, cutting and drilling.
The Craig Hallum price target is $12, above the $10.65 consensus target. Shares have been trading near $10.
