Splunk

Hardware of data: Arista, Cisco, Juniper and HPE in the infrastructure race

Company portraits

Arista Networks, founded in 2004, specializes in cloud networking solutions for large data centers and is a leading provider of high-performance switching.

Cisco Systems, on the market since 1984, is the long-standing industry leader in the networking sector and offers a comprehensive portfolio of network solutions.

Juniper Networks, founded in 1996, focuses primarily on network infrastructure for service providers and large companies.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) was created in 2015 through the split-up of HP and offers a broad spectrum of IT solutions ranging from network technologies to cloud and data center infrastructures.

Historical development

Since its foundation, Arista Networks has experienced an impressive rise and established itself in the field of high-performance Ethernet switches, resulting in steadily growing market shares.

Cisco has dominated the networking market for decades, but has faced increasing competition from more agile rivals such as Arista.

Juniper Networks has been particularly successful in the telecommunications infrastructure sector and in large corporate environments.

HPE has significantly expanded its portfolio in the networking sector, particularly in the area of wireless networks and edge computing, through strategic acquisitions such as that of Aruba Networks.

Business models and core competencies

Arista Networks specializes in high-performance Ethernet switches and the EOS operating system. Arista's strength lies in providing solutions that are optimized for cloud environments and data centers with high latency and scalability requirements.

Cisco Systems offers a wide range of networking hardware, software and services, ranging from small and medium-sized enterprises to global corporations. Cisco's strength lies in the diversity of its portfolio and its extensive distribution network, which gives it a dominant position in the market.

Juniper Networks is particularly known for its high-performance routers and security solutions. The company specializes in providing robust network infrastructures for large enterprises and telecommunications providers, with a focus on highly scalable, secure networks.

HPE offers a comprehensive range of IT solutions, from servers and storage systems to network technology. The acquisition of Aruba Networks has strengthened HPE's position in wireless LAN and edge computing, positioning the company as a leader in these areas.

Future prospects and strategic initiatives

All four companies are increasingly focusing on artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud solutions in their strategic initiatives to meet the growing demands of modern networks:

- Arista Networks is positioning itself as a leading provider of network infrastructures that are specifically geared towards AI applications and cloud environments.

- Cisco is investing more heavily in AI-supported network management tools and is expanding its range of cloud solutions.

- Juniper Networks is relying on its Mist AI platform, which enables automated network management and AIOps, to consolidate its position in network automation.

- HPE plans to significantly expand its AI and cloud expertise through the acquisition of Juniper Networks and to challenge Cisco's market leadership.

Market position and competition

Cisco remains the undisputed market leader, but is continuously losing market share to competitors such as Arista, particularly in the high-end segment. HPE hopes that the acquisition of Juniper Networks will significantly strengthen its position in the network market.

Total Addressable Market (TAM)

The global market for networking equipment is estimated to exceed USD 200 billion by 2027, driven by the increasing expansion of cloud infrastructures, 5G technologies and the Internet of Things (IoT). This growing market offers great opportunities for companies, particularly in the areas of cloud networking, automation and edge computing.

Share performance

- Arista Networks: TR over 5 years 534%

- Cisco Systems:TR over 5 years 26%

- Juniper Networks:TR on 5 years 83%

- HPE:TR on 5 years 59%

For the development (company figures), better view and more check out the free blog. https://topicswithhead.beehiiv.com/p/hardware-der-daten-arista-cisco-juniper-und-hpe-im-infrastruktur-wettrennen

Conclusion

It remains to be seen how HPE and Juniper will develop. But given the current situation, it seems to take a lot to remain internationally competitive or attractive as an investor. It is becoming increasingly difficult between Cisco and Arista. Although Cisco is losing market share, it is also increasingly losing revenue streams, for example through acquisitions such as Splunk. Although these are costly and the company manages them only halfway well, capital efficiency and profitability are high enough to remain attractive. So overall the situation is not that bad, but the cloud infrastructure market seems to be weakening more and more for them.

Arista, the newcomer with a German founder, is proving to be extremely innovative, both in terms of the company itself and in terms of its management style and further development. The key figures speak for themselves, and especially now Arista clearly stands out from the market. For me, Arista is a clear buy candidate, but one should wait for a more favorable valuation, ideally when the share returns to the mean.

With Cisco, it depends on how the data business is driven forward. Depending on this, Cisco could also be an interesting investment. Just because the name no longer stands for innovation does not mean that the company is not doing well internally. Wait and see.

HPE is a difficult topic. Margins are poor, as is growth. Maybe things will change after the takeover, but it doesn't seem to be a sensible investment in itself.

$HPE (+0.85%)
$CSCO (+0.2%)
$ANET
$SPLK
$JNPR

Datadog- The pitbull of data analysis or just 3rd class after all

Company presentation

Datadog and Dynatrace are two of the leading companies in the field of cloud monitoring and observability solutions.

$DDOG (-0.63%) Datadog, founded in 2010 and based in New York City, offers a SaaS-based data analytics platform that monitors a wide range of IT infrastructure components - from servers and databases to tools and services - across a cloud environment.

$DT (+0.7%) is also an American company that specializes in software intelligence platforms. It provides comprehensive solutions for monitoring application performance, infrastructure and user experience.

Historical development

Datadog has experienced impressive growth since its foundation:

- 2015: Completion of a Series C financing round that supported expansion into new markets and further development of the product range.

- Continuous expansion of the platform, especially log management and application performance monitoring

- 2020: Acquisition of Undefined Labs to strengthen testing and observability capabilities.

Dynatrace has also undergone a remarkable development, although concrete milestones are not specified in the available information.

Business model and core competencies

Datadog:

- Offers a cloud-based platform for comprehensive monitoring.

- Core competencies: Infrastructure monitoring, application performance monitoring, log management, user experience monitoring and security monitoring.

- Focuses on continuous innovation and customization.

Dynatrace:

- Provides a comprehensive end-to-end observability solution.

- Core competencies: Unified platform for observability, security and business data.

- Focuses on automated provisioning and AI-supported analyses.

Future prospects and strategic initiatives

Both companies focus on continuous innovation and the expansion of their product portfolios in order to meet rapidly changing technologies and customer requirements.

Datadog has accelerated the development of new products and doubled the number of its paid solutions within the last year.

Dynatrace is focused on further developing its AI-powered analytics tools and optimizing the automated deployment of its solutions.

Market position and competition

In a dynamic and highly competitive market in which companies such as $SPLK (in the $CSCO (+0.2%) acquisition), New Relic, Elastic and Hyperscaler are also active, both companies are competing for the leading position.

Datadog is recognized as the market leader for its integrated full-stack monitoring solutions.

Dynatrace is positioned as a leader in end-to-end observability with a particular focus on AI-powered solutions.

Market potential (Total Addressable Market, TAM)

Although exact TAM figures are not provided, it is clear that both companies are operating in a rapidly growing market for cloud monitoring and observability solutions, which is being driven by the increasing digital transformation in various industries.

Share performance

Datadog:

- 1-year performance: 5.7%

- TR since the IPO on 19.09.2019:186.83%

- Currently 19.90% below the 52-week high and 45.61% above the 52-week low.

- 84% of analysts recommend the share as a buy (60% "Strong Buy", 24% "Buy").

Dynatrace:

- 1-year performance: 5, %

- TR since the IPO on 01.08.2019 : 113.42%

- Currently 16.99% below the 52-week high and 28.76% above the 52-week low.

- 77 % of analysts recommend the share as a buy (57 % "Strong Buy", 20 % "Buy").

Despite short-term fluctuations, both companies are performing positively overall.

Development

Both companies are recording continuous sales growth, with Datadog showing significantly stronger growth momentum than Dynatrace. As a result, Datadog's turnover is currently around one billion US dollars higher than that of Dynatrace. Nevertheless, the growth rates of both companies are still impressive and are expected to remain at a high level in the coming years.

Looking at the distribution of sales by country, it is clear that Datadog concentrates its sales heavily on North America, while Dynatrace is much better diversified internationally.

Despite this difference in geographic focus, Datadog's focus on North America could be seen as a strategic advantage, as the data business in the US is generally more valuable than in many international markets. The strong foothold in North America provides Datadog with a solid foundation to capitalize on the high demand and lucrative business opportunities in the region.

Internationalization should not be difficult for Datadog due to its existing successful model. With its proven product range and high level of innovation, the company is well positioned to gain a foothold on a global level and grow in other markets.

As with sales, Datadog's gross profit is also higher than that of Dynatrace. The gross margins of both companies are almost the same, although Dynatrace had a higher margin at the beginning.

The Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) of Datadog is currently twice as high as that of Dynatrace, which underlines Datadog's strong growth momentum and market position.

A higher ARR means that Datadog is able to grow recurring revenue faster and effectively leverage long-term customer relationships. This growth may have been driven by successful expansion into new markets and the introduction of additional products and services. A high ARR is also a sign of strong demand and high customer satisfaction, which could be due to the broad offering and versatility of the Datadog platform.

Dynatrace, although also with solid growth rates and a stable ARR, remains smaller compared to Datadog. Nevertheless, it shows that both companies have strongly focused their business models on recurring revenues, which is an important indicator of sustainable growth and financial stability in a competitive market.

Despite the smaller revenues, it shows that Dynatrace has a better EPS than Datadog.

FCF is positive for both

Part 2: https://getqu.in/wuxnDJ/

Datadog- The pitbull of data analysis or just 3rd class after all

Part 1:https://getqu.in/YpHawB/

The stock-based compensation (stock-based compensation) has grown faster at $DT (+0.7%) has grown faster than at Datadog, but the absolute volume of stock-based compensation at Datadog is currently twice as high. This shows that $DDOG (-0.63%) Dynatrace is relying more heavily on granting share options to employees in order to attract and retain talent - a strategy that is particularly widespread in the technology sector.

At Dynatrace, share-based remuneration is also increasing, but the company has already started to buy back shares from time to time

The net debt / EBITDA is negative for both, but even better for datadog

According to the EV/EBITDA multiple (Enterprise Value to EBITDA), Dynatrace is currently more attractively valued than Datadog, but in this case the attractiveness of Dynatrace according to EV/EBITDA is less meaningful in the current comparison. This is due to the fact that both companies are in different growth phases and with different strategic priorities. Datadog is investing aggressively in growth and expansion, which leads to a higher EV/EBITDA multiple, while Dynatrace is pursuing a more profitability-oriented approach and thus appears more attractive in this ratio.

In terms of capital efficiency, Dynatrace has performed much better in the recent past. The company has apparently been able to utilize its resources more effectively and achieve a better return on capital employed. However, capital efficiency has not yet been the main focus for either company.

If both companies were to focus more on optimizing their capital efficiency, it is likely that Datadog would end up outperforming due to its faster growth momentum and market strategy to date. Datadog has shown that it is willing to invest in its future development to further extend its market leadership. If the company combines this growth strategy with a stronger focus on capital efficiency, it could further consolidate its position.

Therefore, one should not yet attach too much importance to current capital efficiency.

Conclusion

Looking at the remaining providers in the observability and cloud monitoring market, it is clear that apart from the large hyperscalers such as $AMZN (+1.56%) , $MSFT (+0.63%) and $GOOGL (+1.8%) which nevertheless need to be mentioned here, only a few specialized companies remain. $SPLK would be very interesting in this context, but is currently in the process of being acquired by Cisco, which is why it is not included in this comparison.

Of the remaining providers, Dynatrace and Datadog stand out in particular. Although the two companies do not offer exactly the same solutions, they have significant overlaps in their service offerings.

Both companies entered the market almost simultaneously and went public at around the same time. Nevertheless, Datadog has developed much more dynamically than Dynatrace since then. The founders of Datadog are still heavily involved in the company and still hold significant shares, which is a sign of long-term confidence in the company and its growth strategy.

Another decisive argument is Datadog's strong focus on research and development. Datadog invests almost half of its turnover in R&D (Research & Development) in order to continuously improve its products, create more added value for customers and secure and expand its market position. This consistent approach to innovation has already borne fruit and is reflected in the company's impressive growth rate.

Although both companies are on a par in many metrics, I see Datadog as the "Dawg in the house". Another advantage of Datadog is its independence and flexibility, which allows it to focus specifically on its core business - unlike the large hyperscalers, which are less agile due to their extensive and often complex structures.

In addition, many customers value Datadog's independence from the large cloud providers. In a market where hyperscalers already dominate the infrastructure, Datadog's focus on monitoring in the cloud is a convincing differentiation. Customers prefer independent providers that are not dependent on their own strategy and have the expertise to focus on a specific area.

All in all, these factors suggest that Datadog is in a strong position to continue to grow and consolidate its place as market leader, despite the challenges posed by hyperscalers.

SPLUNK was finally swallowed by Cisco today for USD 28 billion. Free float was squeezed out of the securities accounts by means of a corporate action. If you want SPLUNK, you have to buy Cisco from today 🫡

Analysis August 2023 ✅

https://investorsapiens.de/splunk-aktie-prognose-ki-kaufen/

PS: a new stock analysis will be published soon 📈

$CSCO (+0.2%)
$SPLK

Annual review 2023 - +147% in the portfolio. Every stock analysis in 2023 a bull's eye?

Here you can find the complete article in a well-formatted web view: Jahresrückblick 2023

Happy Birthday: 1 year Investorsapiens

As the first full year draws to a close, the time has come for me to do my first annual review and celebrate the first birthday of investorsapiens.de.

I am also reviewing all previous stock analyses and articles.

With what goal was investorsapiens.de created?

With the start of the technology stock crash at the end of 2021 / beginning of 2022, the irrational behavior of many investors, which I already knew from my distant past during the financial crash (early 2000s), was repeated.

Solidly undervalued shares were sold at huge losses and the remaining money was invested in leveraged warrants in the hope of recouping the losses, just like in a casino. As in a casino, however, the bank usually wins with warrants and the gambler comes away empty-handed in the long term.

Even worse: some people sold everything in a panic and left the stock market for good.

In 2023, a new trend emerged: people sold all their individual shares at a loss and put the money into an ETF.

The first two options are not a solution. Leveraged warrants and KO certificates lead to a total loss for 99% of investors in the long term. An experience that I also had when I started with warrants 16 years ago.

Leaving the stock market is also not a rational solution. In times of historically high inflation, money loses purchasing power very quickly. In addition, it is relatively difficult to build up assets without the stock market.

What about the 1-2 ETFs investment strategy that is currently being hyped?

Is it really the best investment strategy that nothing can match?

Many investors do not seem to be aware of what the ETF actually consists of. After all, the shares that are exchanged for the ETF in a crash make up almost 1/3 of the ETF and have actually been the ETF's performance drivers over the last 10-15 years. The remaining 2/3 of the ETF are thousands of fractional shares of companies that 99% of investors don't even know and would never buy themselves.

There is no question that ETFs are good and important as a passive investment optionIn my investment strategy, I also recommend that absolute beginners who have no experience of the stock market (or no time / no interest) start with a FTSE All World / MSCI World. I also buy the FTSE All World, into which I gradually transfer profits from the shares.

However, the 1 ETF strategy is by far not the best performer. An ETF that consists of 5% Apple can never match the performance of Apple. We are talking about 10x to 20x performance differences in favor of quality stocks. Of course, a single stock has a higher default risk, but that is a matter of risk management and diversification. Before the ETF supporters go into white heat and gasp, please just finish reading.

In addition, with the development of artificial intelligence long before the release of ChatGPT, I saw a new technological disruptive upheaval coming, a so-called Kondratieff cycle with a unique opportunity for investors to profit from the new megatrend. The technology crash was a perfect fit, as it provided a historically favorable entry point (or opportunity to buy more) into existing quality companies such as NVIDIA, Microsoft, Google and others.

We are all currently witnessing the emergence of a new disruptive innovation and, as investors, can be there from the start. The last time investors had a similar opportunity was in the early 2000s with the spread of the internet and Web 2.0.

With the publication of the stock analyses, I wanted to show for the reasons mentioned above that the stock market has much more to offer than the "1-2 ETF strategies". Because with an ETF you cannot invest "smart/targeted" and participate in the developments of the economy and the world in a targeted manner. (But you can certainly profit from general economic growth with a world ETF without having to actively engage with the stock market).

Stock analyses 2023

14 stock analyses 14 direct hits

Since January 2023, I have been publishing detailed stock analyses consisting of four parts here and on my website:

• Research on the company and the business segment
• current news and figures
• current overview of analysts' opinions
• Detailed chart analysis

100% hit rate with an average performance of 83%

At this point, I would like to explicitly point out once again that my stock analyses only represent my personal view and, despite the high hit rate and positive performance, do not constitute investment advice. no investment advice and not a recommendation to buy constitute investment advice or a buy recommendation. I make no claim to the accuracy or completeness of the information provided. Many shares are in my portfolio.

Supplementary information to the table below:

The stocks with the negative performance (BASF, ETSY and MPT) were community wish analyses in which I pointed out risks and negative developments. The performance of the shares is not included in the performance because I advise against trading in warrants and leverage certificates. However, if this were added as "capital preservation", the performance would be even higher.

As of today, PAYPAL has only developed very weakly and, with a performance of + 4 percent, is minimally on the positive side. However, as I continue to assume a positive trend and expect prices to rise further, I still count this analysis as a hit and expect prices to rise further. PAYPAL is still in my portfolio.

At the end of the list I have the position "BITCOIN" without a date. In the sections "Investment strategy" and "Bitcoin", I explain why I think a crypto share of 5 to 10 percent in the portfolio makes sense. Since the end of 2022 / beginning of 2023, Bitcoin has also performed positively with a gain of around +150%.

I could not insert a proper table here, so here as a screenshot or as a table on my site.

Share
Share Date
Outlook
Hit
Performance

$TSLA (-3.07%) 21.01.2023 positive yes 150%

$AMZN (+1.56%) 23.01.2023 positive yes 75%

$BAS (-0.06%) 29.01.2023 negative yes -25%

$AAPL (+1.23%) 29.01.2023 neutral - 25%

$META (+0.46%) 03.02.2023 positive yes 145%

$MSFT (+0.63%) 08.02.2023 positive yes 52%

$GOOGL (+1.8%) 09.02.2023 positive yes 61%

$NVDA (+2.31%) 14.02.2023 positive yes 200%

$ETSY (+0.17%) 17.02.2023 negative yes -56%

$ALV (+0.33%) 25.02.2023 positive yes 15%

$MPW (+1.49%) 05.03.2023 negative yes -60

$PYPL (+0.12%) 18.05.2023 positive yes 4%

$TUI1 (+0.27%) 21.08.2023 positive yes 20%

$SPLK 24.08.2023 positive yes 36%

$BTC (+0.5%) - positive yes 150%

Individual shares Performance 83 percent

If you put together a portfolio from the 11 shares analyzed above + Bitcoin and weight everything notionally with, for example, 1000 euros. At the end of the year, 11,000 euros invested would have become 20,080 euros. A performance of + 83 percent. I have not included Apple (neutral), BASF (negative), ETSY (negative) and MPT (negative) in the performance. Theoretically, you could add the stocks that I warned about and which then fell sharply as a positive return as "capital preservation", but I have not done this, I have only included the positive outlooks in the analysis.

The two ETFs: FTSE All World and MSCI World will achieve a performance of around 20 percent in 2023. Here, too, the performance is largely attributable to the same stocks. The top 10 of MSCI consists of: Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, NVIDIA, Alphabet, Meta and Tesla.

Portfolio performance 2023

A plus of 147 percent

The performance of the investorsapiens.de portfolio in 2023 (01.01.2023 to 26.12.2023) was +147 percent in total, based on the absolute portfolio value on 31.12.2022.

The overall performance is made up of the performance of the investment and the monthly payments (savings installments) together. For the sake of completeness, I must of course mention that 2023 was a particularly good year. How much we will achieve in 2024 is completely open.

Investments in AI and technology stocks in particular have performed very well. By way of comparison, the portfolio performance in 2022 was +78% (performance + savings rate).

investorsapiens.de - The website

Finally, I would also like to highlight the development of the investorsapiens.de website/project itself in 2023. Because this is directly related to the content that I will make available here in the future.

The attentive reader has probably noticed. In January 2023, I launched an interactive "Stock analysis of the week" format. I gave the community a choice of around 10 stocks. I then analyzed the stock with the most votes for you. In February, I sometimes even published 2 analyses per week:

• 4 stock analyses in January
• 6 stock analyses in February

But then the "stock analysis of the week" format disappeared and the stock analyses were published only rarely

• In the months from March to December, there were only 3 stock analyses in 10 months in total

Why is that?

Even though stock analyses are exactly the kind of content that I enjoy very much, the effort involved in preparing the analyses, both in terms of content and appearance, is disproportionate to the feedback that I received. In fact, none at all. Despite high four-digit access figures, there were hardly any social media follows or social media shares and hardly any newsletter subscriptions.

A stock analysis alone takes me half an hour: I skim the latest news, look at the key figures and quickly run a chart analysis on Tradingview and I have everything I need to make an informed decision. After 16 years on the stock market, this is an automatic process that hardly requires any time or effort.

A proper article/post, on the other hand, takes me many hours. If there are also graphics that have to be created or selected in a decent quality in compliance with copyright law, an analysis can easily take 1-2-3 days. As I work a lot in my main job, after two months I had to ask myself whether I was still prepared to sacrifice 100% of my free time for stock analyses that ultimately bring me nothing. At the latest after the "worried" call from the tax office asking whether it was true that the website had actually generated a four-figure loss and no income at all, I realized that I would have to think about something in the long term. Never before had the tax office been so touchingly concerned about me :D

So I invested more time in informative articles and organic reach. In the period from March to December 2023, I published 12 articles / posts aimed at organic reach. The feedback was immediately noticeable. Growing organic visitor numbers, cooperation requests from companies, universities and other financial blogs and organizations were a welcome change. The long-term minimum goal must be to cover the ongoing fixed costs, as I am currently financing this project from my own deposit, which is definitely not healthy and is a very expensive hobby.

To put the above into figures as an example: The stock analysis for NVIDIA, with over 200 percent performance was shared a whole 0 times. Neither on Facebook, nor on Twitter, nor on any other social media networks. The response was a whopping 0, despite four-digit read accesses.

But as I'm not a person who gives up quickly, I'll give it some more time. Perhaps the share analyses will be more popular after all, or the feedback will at least come close to the number of hits. If so, I will of course be prepared to devote more time and energy to the analysis. So please let me know if you would like to see more stock analyses in 2024:

Subscribe to the newsletter, follow me on social media and on Getquin. For you it's just a click, for me it's a sure sign that the work wasn't in vain.

Until then, Happy New Year 2024, have a good start to a no less successful and profitable 2024 🙂 🥂

Opportunity suitable for $SPLK Take over

Hello all,

📢 small update to my SPLUNK analysis from August 25.

https://getqu.in/uw6i49/

Almost 3 weeks ago I reported about the little known AI stock SPLUNK, pointed out the potential, the positive development and the earlier acquisition interest of Cisco and the close partnership between SPLUNK and Cisco.

Today Cisco has confirmed the acquisition.

Cisco Systems is buying SPLUNK for 28 billion.

Splunk rises today by another 21% and thus has a performance of almost 50% 🚀 within 3 weeks.

$SPLK
$CSCO (+0.2%)
$NVDA (+2.31%)
#ki
#megatrend

Feel the $SPLK Acquisition, position expanded