While it’s impossible to predict the future, there are ways to evaluate stocks and make an educated guess about where their share price might be headed in the near term. Financial results, moving averages and price-earnings ratios can all be assessed to get an idea of a company’s health, the valuation of its stock and the pattern in which its shares have been moving. Of course, past performance is not an indication of future results. But it’s not impossible to determine if a company is healthy and whether its stock has forward momentum. Several technology stocks appear to have wind in their sails heading into the new year. These are not the usual suspects, and the stocks that we’ve all heard about ad nauseam over the past year. Here are three tech stocks with huge potential to be 2024’s big winners.
GitLab (GTLB)
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Software development company GitLab (NASDAQ:GTLB) has come out of nowhere to suddenly look like a great investment for the year ahead. GTLB stock just jumped 15% higher after the company reported its first-ever adjusted operating profit. Specifically, GitLab announced fiscal third-quarter adjusted earnings of 9 cents per share. It also said that revenue in the quarter rose 32% to $149.7 million from a year earlier. Wall Street had expected an adjusted loss of 1 cent on revenue of $141.5 million.
In terms of guidance, GitLab said it expects revenue of $157 million to $158 million and an adjusted profit of 8 cents to 9 cents a share for the current fourth quarter. Company executives said its GitLab Duo suite of artificial intelligence (AI) products is popular with software engineers and selling well. The big earnings boost has GTLB stock up 37%, and the company’s shares now have momentum heading into 2024. This is definitely a tech stock worth considering.
Spotify Technology (SPOT)
For a redemption story look to audio streaming powerhouse Spotify Technology (NYSE:SPOT). The company behind the popular music streaming and podcast service has seen its stock rise 137% in 2023 as it recovers from a brutal selloff during last year’s bear market. While SPOT stock has run far this year, the share price is currently 46% below the all-time high reached in early 2021 as the pandemic rally began to sputter. As such, there is still likely room for Spotify stock to run in the year ahead.
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Analysts and investors are applauding Spotify right now for further cost controls. The company just announced it is laying off 17% of its workforce to reduce costs and adjust to slowing growth. The workforce reduction works out to roughly 1,500 jobs. It comes after Spotify reported a $70 million profit in Q3 of this year due largely to lower spending. Spotify also raised prices for its monthly subscriptions earlier this year and previously cut 8% of its workforce.
It all sets up SPOT stock for a continued run in 2024.
Datadog (DDOG)
Not to be outdone when it comes to a big post-earnings pop is Datadog (NASDAQ:DDOG). In November, the software company’s share price rose 28% in a single trading session after it announced much better-than-expected third-quarter financial results and raised its full-year guidance. The company, whose software is widely used in cloud computing, reported earnings of 45 cents a share, beating Wall Street expectations for 34 cents.
Datadog’s sales in the quarter totaled $547.5 million, up more than 20% from a year earlier and beating analyst estimates that called for revenue of $524.1 million. However, what really caught the attention of analysts and investors was the company’s upwardly revised guidance. The company now expects Q4 revenue of $564 million to $568 million and full-year revenue of $2.1 billion. Both figures are ahead of consensus forecasts.
Datadog, which has only been publicly traded since 2019, has seen its share price rise 59% in 2023. DDOG stock is now up over 320% since its initial public offering (IPO).
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On the date of publication, Joel Baglole did not hold (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.
Joel Baglole has been a business journalist for 20 years. He spent five years as a staff reporter at The Wall Street Journal, and has also written for The Washington Post and Toronto Star newspapers, as well as financial websites such as The Motley Fool and Investopedia.
