With economies slowing and bloom off commodity rose, it may be t

With economies slowing and bloom off commodity rose, it may be time to look at techs

15:06:42 EDT Oct 5, 2006

Canadian Press: MALCOLM MORRISON

TORONTO (CP) - For long-time tech sector observers, it must have been like old times.

Last week, Canadian tech heavyweight Research In Motion Ltd. (TSX:RIM) delivered a blowout quarterly earnings report that sent its stock up about 20 per cent in one session.

The results from the BlackBerry maker likely got some investors to thinking that maybe it's about time to stash some money in the tech sector again, about six years after a spectacular flameout.

Some analysts are saying that wouldn't be a bad idea, since they believe that the much beaten-down sector is due for a resurgence.

"We believe very strongly that we are approaching a multi-year up cycle for tech," said Ben Rogoff of U.K.-based Polar Capital LLP, which manages Mackenzie Universal World Science and Technology fund.

"We think it starts in the fourth quarter and we think we're talking a three-to five-year investment horizon where tech stocks significantly outperform the market."

You wouldn't know this from a quick glance at the Toronto stock market's information technology sector or the tech intensive Nasdaq in the U.S. Both indexes are pretty much flat for the year to date.

But both indexes have been in the ascendancy lately after hitting lows for the year during the summer.

And Rogoff said an examination of past booms - in 1969, 1983, the late 1990s - shows that when the tech sector starts to outperform, it does so "in a very stealthy way."

"If you look at (U.S. brokerage) Piper Jaffray, they had an unweighted tech index. And they follow it for like 20 years. If you had bought tech six-and-a-half years after the two previous tops, you outperformed the broader market by 30 per cent over the next two years, 50 per cent over the next four years," he said.

Another sign that tech could be in for a serious rebound is the fact that earnings have improved.

"The reality is that the earnings picture is improving and you're seeing earnings estimates finally going up," said Robert Carey, chief investment officer for First Trust Advisors in Lisle, Ill.

"And I think if you take a look at where the earnings from the technology sector are today, versus even a couple of years ago, they have recovered - in fact, we're looking at a chart right now of earnings from continued operations in the S&P 500 tech companies and they're higher today than they were in 2000."

He also noted that valuations look attractive and that it's not difficult to find companies selling at a price/earnings ratio of 20 times earnings with earnings going up in the 20 per cent range.

The tech sector involves a wide variety of companies, ranging from the telecom equipment sector to computer manufacturers and lots in between. So where does the investor start?

"Nothing in tech is possible without semiconductors doing what they do," said Carey.

"And that is really the foundation of things and that sector has been out of favour for a while - but we are starting to see evidence that semis are ramping up and business conditions are improving."

As an example, he cited KLA-Tencor Corp (NASDAQ:KLAC), which makes automated testing equipment for the chip companies.

"They had a very strong second-quarter backlog that's building and as long as they can get the machines out the door, they should have a very substantial increase in earnings in the next 12 months," said Carey.

"Earnings are expected to jump around 50 per cent next year and it's selling at 17 times earnings. It's a mid-cap name and it's a company that does business with all the major chip companies around the world."

Rogoff on the other hand believes the driver for the resurgence in tech is broadband.

"We see broadband as something more than just your internet connection," he said.

"We think about broadband as being the ability to access info from any device anytime and what this is doing is fundamentally changing the software industry, because we're now delivering software via the Internet, the browser."

He said some of their favourite names are companies like Salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM), which manages customer information for approximately 24,800 customers and approximately 501,000 paying subscribers including Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) and America Online (NASDAQ:AOL).

Rogoff also pointed to WebEx (NASDAQ:WEBX), which is delivering software via web browsers and "turning the software industry on its head."

This isn't to say there aren't Canadian tech success stories - there are. But the trouble is the Canadian tech sector is so limited.

"With Research in Motion, if you bought it in 2000, everything they said they were going to do, they delivered on and actually beat it and you haven't lost money," said Gavin Graham, director of investments at Guardian Group of Funds.

"And that's as good as it gets for an overwhelming success story in the tech sector over the last half-decade."

Nortel Networks Corp. (TSX:NT) is still talked of in wistful terms - mainly by investors who bought way too high and can't get used to it stuck way below $3.

"For Nortel, they're a telecom equipment manufacturer, it's cyclical, it's late stage cyclical. . . are people likely to be buying a lot more telecom equipment? Probably not, because if we do have an economic slowdown, we're going to cut back."