Top 5 Tech Companies To Buy For 2015

In advance of Apple Inc.’s (AAPL) launch of the iPhone 5c and 5s in China, the technology giant has cut the price of the phones for the Chinese market.

Apple’s China website has prices listed at 4,938 yuan for the iPhone 5s and 4,138 yuan for the 5c, marking a 350 yuan price cut from both prices. In Hong Kong, Apple has cut the prices by HK$390 to HK$5,198 for the 5s and HK$4,298 for the the 5c.

Apple’s iPhones are expected to launch in China on January 17. Apple and China Mobile made a deal last month for the Chinese phone company to start carrying Apple’s phones.

Top 5 Tech Companies To Buy For 2015: In-Touch Survey Systems Ltd (INX)

In-Touch Survey Systems Ltd. is engaged in designing, developing and implementing of data capture technologies and services for business to consumer (B2C) companies. The Company does business as Service Intelligence, In-Touch Insight Systems and IMS division. In-Touch Insight Systems (EDC) develops managed mobile software technology and services for business to consumer (B2C), business to business (B2B), governments and regulators. In-Touch has developed a software platform, In- Touch Apps that provides for the development of data collection programs, mobile forms creations and real-time online reporting for its customers. Service Intelligence (MDC) provides onsite audit and Mystery Shopping services to B2C companies in Canada and the United States. The IMS division, which provides enterprise software engineering services to the Canadian Federal Government. Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Henry Lee]

  After hitting a fresh high of nearly 1900 on April 4, the S&P 500 (INX) closed last Friday at 1816 ��a 4.3% drop in just one week. We��e seen a bit of a rebound, but the worst week in two years rattled investors. Nasdaq (IXIC) got close to a 10% drop from its March high, which would make it an official ��orrection����a nice word that masks the pain many investors are feeling.

Top 5 Tech Companies To Buy For 2015: Vmware Inc.(VMW)

VMware, Inc. provides virtualization and virtualization-based cloud infrastructure solutions in the United States and internationally. The company?s products address planned and unplanned downtime management, system recoverability and reliability, backup and recovery, resource provisioning and management, capacity and performance management, and security issues. Its cloud infrastructure products and technologies include VMware vSphere, which is a data center platform that also enables live migration of actively running virtual machines across servers or storage locations without disruption or downtime; enables availability for all applications against hardware and operating system failures; and enables centralized point of control for cluster-level networking, as well as automatically manages the placement and balancing of a virtual machine across storage resources. The company also offers cloud application platform solutions that help organizations build, run, and manage enterprise applications in public, private, or hybrid clouds optimized for vSphere. In addition, it provides end-user computing solutions, which provide secure access to applications and data from various devices and location, as well as serves the corporate IT departments through managing and connecting end-user assets delivering them as a managed service. The company?s end-user computing solutions also provide the ability to manage software as a service, Windows, Mobile, or enterprise applications, as well as enhance communication and collaboration between end users. Further, it provides a range of professional services, such as consulting, education, and technical account manager services, as well as customer support services. The company sells its products through distributors, resellers, system vendors, and systems integrators. VMware, Inc. was incorporated in 1998 and is headquartered in Palo Alto, California. VMware, Inc. operates as a subsidiary of EMC Corporation.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Sue Chang]

  VMware Inc. (VMW) is expected to report earnings of 82 cents a share in the third quarter.

• [By Roberto Pedone]

   

  Another potential earnings short-squeeze candidate is VMware (VMW), which provides virtualization infrastructure solutions in the U.S. and internationally. VMware is set to release numbers on Tuesday after the market close. Wall Street analysts, on average, expect the company to report revenue of $1.35 billion on earnings of 79 cents per share.

   

   

  Just recently, CLSA upgraded shares of VMware to outperform on expectations the company is best positioned to capitalize on the software defined data center segment. The firm raised its price target on the stock to $115 a share from $99 a share.

   

  The current short interest as a percentage of the float for VMware is very high at 23%. That means that out of the 80.64 million shares in the tradable float, 18.46 million shares are sold short by the bears. The bears have also been increasing their bets from the last reporting period by 1.5%, or by about 272,000 shares. If the bears get caught pressing their bets into a strong quarter, then shares of VMW could easily surge sharply higher post-earnings as the shorts jump to cover some of their positions.

   

  From a technical perspective, VMware is currently trending above both its 50-day and 200-day moving averages, which is bullish. This stock has been uptrending for the last three months, with shares moving higher from its low of $86.88 to its recent high of $112.89 a share. During that move, shares of VMW have been making mostly higher lows and higher highs, which is bullish technical price action.

   

  If you're bullish on VMW, then I would wait until after its report and look for long-biased trades if this stock manages to break out above some near-term overhead resistance levels at $104.50 to $107.50 a share with high volume. Look for volume on that move that hits near or above its three-month average action of 2.43 million shares. If that breakout kicks off post-earni

Hot European Companies To Invest In Right Now: Vonage Holdings Corp.(VG)

Vonage Holdings Corp. provides broadband communication services in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The company offers voice and messaging services through session initiation protocol (SIP) based voice over Internet protocol network. The company?s primary product offering is Vonage World, a residential plan with unlimited calling domestically and to approximately 60 countries, including India, Mexico, and China for a flat monthly rate. It also provides broadband telephone replacement services to residential, small office, and home office customers through various service plans with a range of basic features, including call waiting, caller ID with name, call forwarding, and voicemail. In addition, the company offers mobile services through mobile applications that can be downloaded for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Android OS devices. Further, the company provides Vonage Mobile, a free downloadable mobile application that provides free calling and messagi ng between users who have the application, as well as traditional paid international calling to any other phone. It markets its services through in-bound telemarketing and online direct sales, as well as through regional and national retailers. As of December 31, 2011, the company had approximately 2.4 million subscriber lines. Vonage Holdings Corp. was incorporated in 2000 and is headquartered in Holmdel, New Jersey.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Rich Smith]

  Holmdel, N.J.-based Vonage (NYSE: VG  ) has a new Chief Financial Officer.

  On Friday, Vonage closed out the trading week with an announcement that it's hired away David T. Pearson from Deutsche Bank�to become its new Treasurer and CFO. At Deutsche, Pearson spent nine years working as a managing director and head of the bank's Global Media & Telecom Group. Before that, he worked in Goldman Sachs' Technology, Media & Telecommunications�group.

• [By Alex Planes]

  Investors love stocks that consistently beat the Street without getting ahead of their fundamentals and risking a meltdown. The best stocks offer sustainable market-beating gains, with robust and improving financial metrics that support strong price growth. Does Vonage Holdings (NYSE: VG  ) fit the bill? Let's take a look at what its recent results tell us about its potential for future gains.

• [By Tim Beyers]

  If Vonage (NYSE: VG  ) has its way, the days of AT&T (NYSE: T  ) , Verizon (NYSE: VZ  ) , and their big-carrier peers controlling the way area codes are assigned are coming to an end.

Top 5 Tech Companies To Buy For 2015: Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (ASX)

Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, Inc. is principally engaged in the manufacture, assembly, processing, testing and distribution of integrated circuits (ICs). The Company provides semiconductor packaging and testing services, including plastic leaded chip carriers (PLCCs), quad flat packages (QFPs) and flip chip packaging technology, among others, which are applied in the manufacture of household electrical appliances, communication devices, automobile components, personal computers, set top boxes, servers, memory integrated circuits (ICs), mobile phones, digital cameras, game consoles, projectors, high definition (HD) televisions, wireless communication network products and power management ICs, among others. The Company operates its businesses primarily in Taiwan, Europe and the Americas. In August 2010, the Company acquired a 100% interest in EEMS Test Singapore.

The Company is focused on packaging and testing logic semiconductors. The Company offers its customers turnkey services, which consist of packaging, testing and direct shipment of semiconductors to end users designated by its customers. The Company�� global base of over 200 customers includes semiconductor companies across a range of end use applications, including Altera Corporation, ATI Technologies, Inc., Broadcom Corporation, Cambridge Silicon Radio Limited and Microsoft Corporation. During the year ended December 31, 2008, the Company�� packaging revenues accounted for 77.7% of its net revenues and its testing revenues accounted for 20.1% of its net revenues.

Packaging Services

The Company offers a range of package types to meet the requirements of its customers, with a focus on packaging solutions. Within its portfolio of package types, the Company focuses on the packaging of semiconductors. These include advanced leadframe-based package types, such as quad flat package, thin quad flat package, bump chip carrier and quad flat no-lead package, and package types based on substrates, such a! s flip-chip ball grid array (BGA) and other BGA types, as well as other packages, such as wafer-bumping products. Leadframe-based packages are packaged by connecting the die, using wire bonders, to the leadframe with gold wire. The Company�� leadframe-based packages include quad flat package (QFP)/ thin quad flat package (TQFP), quad flat no-lead package (QFN)/microchip carrier (MCC), advanced quad flat no-lead package (AQFN), bump chip carrier (BCC), small outline plastic package (SOP)/thin small outline plastic package (TSOP), small outline plastic j-bend package (SOJ), plastic leaded chip carrier (PLCC) and plastic dual in-line package (PDIP). Substrate-based packages employ the BGA design, which utilizes a substrate rather than a leadframe. It also assembles system-in-a-package products, which involve the integration of more than one chip into the same package. The Company�� substrate-based packages include Plastic BGA, Cavity Down BGA, Stacked-Die BGA, Flip-Chip BGA and land grid array (LGA).

The Company�� wafer-level packaging products include wafer level chip scale package (aCSP) and advanced wafer level package (aWLP). The Company offers module assembly services, which combine one or more packaged semiconductors with other components in an integrated module to enable functionality, typically using surface mount technology (SMT) machines and other machinery and equipment for system-level assembly. End use applications for modules include cellular phones, personal digital assistant (PDAs), wireless local area network (LAN) applications, bluetooth applications, camera modules, automotive applications and toys.

The Company provides module assembly services primarily at its facilities in Korea for radio frequency and power amplifier modules used in wireless communications and automotive applications. Interconnect materials connect the input/output on the semiconductor dies to the printed circuit board. Interconnect materials include substrate, which is a multi-layer m! iniature ! printed circuit board. The Company produces substrates for use in its packaging operations.

Testing Services

The Company provides a range of semiconductor testing services, including front-end engineering testing, wafer probing, final testing of logic/mixed-signal/radio frequency (RF) and memory semiconductors and other test-related services. The Company provides front-end engineering testing services, including customized software development, electrical design validation, and reliability and failure analysis. The Company provides final testing services for a variety of memory products, such as static random access memory (SRAM), dynamic random access memory (DRAM), single-bit erasable programmable read-only memory semiconductors and flash memory semiconductors.

The Company provides a range of additional test-related services, including burn-in testing, module sip testing, dry pack, tape and reel, and electric interface board and mechanical test tool design. The Company offers drop shipment services for shipment of semiconductors directly to end users designated by its customers.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Jeff Reeves]

  Advanced Semiconductor Engineering�(ASX) builds and distributes integrated circuits and other electronics. It�� not as sexy as some mobile chipmakers, but thankfully it doesn�� have to be — ASX is simply capitalizing on the general demand for microchips in everything from cars to computers to TVs.

• [By Alexis Xydias]

  The FTSE 100 Index (UKX) gained 53.93 points, or 0.8 percent, to 6,683.93 at 8:58 a.m. in London, rebounding from a 1.4 percent loss yesterday. The benchmark has rallied 13 percent this year as central banks around the world commit to maintain monetary stimulus to nurture economic growth. The broader FTSE All-Share Index (ASX) increased 0.8 percent today, while Ireland�� ISEQ Index advanced 0.5 percent.

Top 5 Tech Companies To Buy For 2015: Veeco Instruments Inc.(VECO)

Veeco Instruments Inc., together with its subsidiaries, designs, manufactures, and markets various equipments to make light emitting diodes (LEDs) and hard-disk drives worldwide. The company?s LED and Solar segment designs and manufactures metal organic chemical vapor deposition and molecular beam epitaxy systems and components for the manufacturers of LEDs, wireless devices, power semiconductors, and concentrator photovoltaics, as well as to research and development applications. Its Data Storage segment designs and manufactures various technologies, including ion beam etch, ion beam deposition, diamond-like carbon, physical vapor deposition, chemical vapor deposition, and slicing, dicing, and lapping systems to create thin film magnetic heads that read and write data on hard disk drives. The company was founded in 1945 and is headquartered in Plainview, New York.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Victor Selva]

  On Nov. 21, Robert Karr bought Veeco Instruments Inc. (VECO), a company that designs, manufactures and markets equipment to make light emitting diodes (LEDs), solar panels, hard-disk drives and other devices.

• [By Rick Munarriz]

  1. Veeco Industries will post a larger loss than analysts are expecting
  Veeco Industries (NASDAQ: VECO  ) is a provider of process equipment solutions that assist the making of LEDs, flexible OLEDs, power electronics, hard drives, MEMS, and wireless chips. Unfortunately for investors it also has been posting a lot of red ink lately.