"Taxi drivers have signaled": the main "technobabble" collected the top 10 stocks for the time of crisis

There has been a rule on Wall Street since the Great Depression: if even a shoeshine boy starts discussing stock trends, the market is close to collapse. Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives says that this principle is now working the other way around.

He said this week that even "a cab driver in Miami is now bearish on software". In the opinion of Wall Street's chief technology bull, such broad pessimism means that the sell-off in software companies has gone too far and has opened up an opportunity for investments that could yield returns this year.

Amid ongoing geopolitical tensions and conflict in the Middle East, Ives selected the top 10 stocks to buy after the "software apocalypse" with the Iranian crisis led to a sag in tech sector favorites, Business Insider reports. The Wedbush analyst said that his top 10 are defensive and well-positioned stocks of companies with solid business models that are unaffected by the current volatility.

Ives described device protection software solutions provider Crowdstrike and the cybersecurity sector as a whole as a "safe haven" protected from market shocks caused by the adoption of artificial intelligence-based tools. "Crowdstrike's innovative, best-in-class Falcon platform is becoming increasingly effective in today's threat landscape as AI attackers pose a growing threat," the analyst states.

Firewall developer Palo Alto Networks' bet on platform solutions and artificial intelligence integration has Wedbush looking positively at the company's prospects. "Palo Alto Networks' AI-powered platform approach continues to gain momentum, with AI further adding value to the company's solutions for customers," Ives pointed out.

Check Point Software Technologies is another cybersecurity sector paper that Ives likes. According to him, the company is actively developing state-of-the-art services to protect corporate networks and e-mail from hacks. The introduction of artificial intelligence into these products will be a major magnet for new customers and provide the company with sales growth in the future, the analyst predicted.

Ives traditionally maintains his status as a staunch "bull" on shares of technology giant Microsoft, calling the corporation's securities "a defensive asset in the current tech trade." "Microsoft is accelerating monetization of cloud computing and AI with a $625 billion order book to be realized in the coming quarters," the analyst stated.

Analytics software developer Palantir Technologies is exceptionally well positioned among Ives' tech favorites due to its extensive presence in the defense sector. "Palantir remains in a strong position to pursue U.S. government contracts, while [the company's] AIP (Artificial Intelligence Platform) is becoming a baseline for the [U.S.] Department of Defense," the expert wrote.

Planet Labs, a provider of satellite imagery of the Earth, is recording strong demand for its technology and also has the potential to expand its work with government agencies in defense and intelligence, Ives said.

As in the case of Microsoft, Wedbush analyst called Apple shares a defensive investment in the technology sector. According to him, the company's position in the consumer market remains strong, which is confirmed by the active transition of users to the new iPhone 17 and "tremendous" cash flow.

Defense contractor Voyager Technologies is focused on developing technologies for space. "Voyager's advanced capabilities in guidance, navigation and control, digital systems, secure communications, and AI-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance provide the company with a strong foothold," the analyst believes.

Ives counted cloud software provider Salesforce among the pool of companies that will be long-term beneficiaries of the artificial intelligence boom. "Salesforce can still monetize its vast base of more than 150,000 customers who have spent decades building their business processes and structuring data in its ecosystem," Ives summarized.

Enterprise software developer ServiceNow has been hit hard by the "software apocalypse," but Ives remains bullish. "The current valuation [of the stock] is divorced from reality, as the development of AI will eventually become a powerful tailwind for ServiceNow's existing ServiceNow-level solutions, which store trillions of records and are so deeply integrated into corporations' IT infrastructure that they will be difficult to replace," the expert said.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor