Today’s stock pitch is for Akamai, the leading global service provider for accelerating content and applications online (such as streaming video). After growing their profits by a stunning 73% in the third-quarter earnings report, you may wondering whether Akamai (NYSE: AKAM) is going to continue their unbelievable growth or fall to their main competitor Limelight Networks (NYSE: LLNW). Answer? They are both of good value. Limelight is undervalued right now at $12.80 a share, while Akamai certainly is better poised to control the content-delivery industry with its superior client base (YouTube, MTV, Apple, XM, etc.).

Why own Akamai you ask? In a press release today (October 30th, 2007), Akamai introduced the industry’s first and only PCI-compliant site acceleration service. “PCI-compliant site and transaction acceleration will provide companies conducting ecommerce online with the assurance that sensitive credit card information is transmitted over a platform that is PCI-compliant (Source: Akamai Technologies, Inc.).” This is just icing on the cake, as I would have recommended the stock with the same authority before this news. It just goes to show how well this company is adapting to change, staying ahead of the curve. Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s stock pitch is for NVidia, a tech stock that has totally taken off in the past year. Nvidia (NYSE: NVDA) is a GPU (graphics processing unit) company that has been producing high-end graphics cards for years. They also offer solutions for media and communications processors (MCPs), handheld GPUs, and consumer electronics. After being in constant competition with AMD, 3dFX and STMicroelectronics, NVidia has effectively beaten its competitors and is beginning to see most of the workload in the graphics industry. Recent trends in increasing processing capabilities has decreased the demand for so-called “onboard” graphics cards, typically made by Intel, while increasing the demand for chips that can handle more. This is where NVidia comes in.

NVidia is currently seen as overvalued in the market, yet their share price continues to trend upwards. Regardless, we are going to go ahead and consider this company for our stock watch list instead of investing immediately, we want to wait for a more attractive margin of safety. So why is NVidia so attractive to me? Primarily, it has been their outstanding ability to grow capital increasingly year after year. According to market research firm, Jon Peddie Research, “NVDA’s share of the graphics market climbed to 32.6% in the second calendar quarter of 2007.” This is up from a 19.7% gain just one year earlier. Read the rest of this entry »