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.
I've felt the same way over the years, though my belief in that maxim is fading for at least two reasons. One, is that if you're going to extend beyond index funds, it's probably best to invest in companies/industries you know best. And secondly, "tech" is a very broad industry, and there's no reason to think it couldn't come to be a larger and larger share of the whole economy. "Tech" is set to continue disrupting industrial, transportation, agricultural, and energy sectors. I think when you look at it that way, it's almost foolish to avoid tech. Oh, and I'll add a third: would you rather invest in something that is growing, or something that is stagnant/dying?
True - If you're working in tech, you're already invested in tech, even if you've never bought stock at all.
Heck - if you have spent any effort or time learning tech skills, you're already invested in tech. A penniless first-year comp sci student is heavily invested in tech.
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).
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.
- 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.
Sounds like a big if, and sounds like you missed that boat yourself. Not to mention over the last 5 years you'd have to avoid investing in Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe, VMWare, Intuit, etc.
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...
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.
I'd actually suggest that the typical software engineer and typical equity analyst are equally bad at forecasting the market. I wouldn't expect either of them to be more than one standard deviation from the broader population (and probably not even that much).
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.
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.
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.
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.
ALB: Lithium would be better, it just had a stock drop. But the numbers are good. They did grow 15% or more this year. Recently dropped from 116 to 105 or so. The future would bring a Lithium shortage, so I'm waiting till then :p bought at 92
AMD: it had a year to profit from their release. The bet just recently paid off. Still HLD though. Bought at 11,xx
For some stocks I have notifications when they drop 5%. Mostly when I think they are too high right now
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.
[+] [-] hamstercat|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SomewhatLikely|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zzalpha|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Banthum|8 years ago|reply
Heck - if you have spent any effort or time learning tech skills, you're already invested in tech. A penniless first-year comp sci student is heavily invested in tech.
[+] [-] adventured|8 years ago|reply
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).
[+] [-] payne92|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scurvy|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kbos87|8 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] pcprincipal|8 years ago|reply
- 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.
[+] [-] spoonie|8 years ago|reply
Sounds like a big if, and sounds like you missed that boat yourself. Not to mention over the last 5 years you'd have to avoid investing in Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe, VMWare, Intuit, etc.
[+] [-] gwintrob|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pen2l|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pg_bot|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asdf33323|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] geori|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dsacco|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] harigov|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scurvy|8 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] haney|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] deepnotderp|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kepler-295c|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grondilu|8 years ago|reply
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 :(
[+] [-] nodesocket|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thebiglebrewski|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NicoJuicy|8 years ago|reply
AMD: it had a year to profit from their release. The bet just recently paid off. Still HLD though. Bought at 11,xx
For some stocks I have notifications when they drop 5%. Mostly when I think they are too high right now
[+] [-] adventurer|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] uptown|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rrrx3|8 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] sketchthat|8 years ago|reply
Directly, Amazon & Tesla + a bunch of cryptos (Do they count?)
[+] [-] reilly3000|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] acomjean|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wayn3|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]