This week, Zacks Chief Equity Strategist and Economist John Blank, PhD discusses:

• Top stocks in the Computers and Technology sector. In this second part of the analysis, John covers three industries: Miscellaneous Technology, Telecommunications Equipment, and Telecommunications Services. Before he dives into the equity analysis, John discusses critical supply chain issues in the industry before the 2022 CHIPS Act, progress made since the CHIPS Act, and key trends in the sector including AI, distributed computing, IoT based office stationery, and more.

• As John has done in previous analyses, he defines “top” stocks in three ways: by market capitalization, by number of analysts following the stock, and by largest percent change in F1 EPS estimate (the most important element used in assigning a Zacks Rank to stocks).

• With this framework, John then examines key metrics for stocks in these industries, including Return on Equity TTM %, Revenue F12M, Cash Flow Yield %, Enterprise Value/Sales F12M and many more. He also compares metrics for the three industries as groups, ranging from Cap Ex to Return on Capital to Quick Ratio and others. Stocks mentioned in today’s discussion include major players such as Verizon (VZ), Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM), and Qualcomm (QCOM) as well as less familiar but relevant companies such as Viasat (VSAT), Bandwidth (BAND), Altice (ATUS), and more.