CNBC Stock Blog
- Avis on the Road to Strong Growth: Analyst
- LinkedIn’s Growth Is Already Priced In: Analyst
- The Real Reason Behind Bank of America’s Rally
- 5 Hedge Funds’ Top Stocks Soar After 2011 Rout
- Bulls Check In to Community Health
- Bank of America’s Worst-Case Scenario Gets More Real
- Mulling Buffett's Stock Advice? Get in With REITs: Fund Managers
- So Now You Can’t Give Microsoft Away?
ABOUT THE CNBC STOCK BLOG
RSS FEED
CNBC EXPLAINS
Why Tech Run May Continue (And How to Play It)
Text Size 
Editor, ETFTrends.com
This post is part of a regular series written by ETF Trends editor Tom Lydon, special for CNBC.com.
The Nasdaq is on pace for the biggest two-month gain since 2002. This technology laden index is also the only major index in positive territory year-to-date and was hugely responsible for leading the end 2000-2002 bear market.
Why is tech suddenly so exciting?
Cheap Valuations. Right now, many consider tech stocks to be relative bargains.
Pres. Barack Obama. The president has said he wants to be the “Technology President.” He is pushing for better and more affordable broadband access for all Americans; he wants to use technology to improve our schools, libraries and health care systems. He has already put his money where his mouth is: his stimulus package allocated $7.2 billion in broadband grants.
Cash-Rich. The tech industry has plenty of well-established leftovers from the dot-com boom, and many of them are handing out dividends. Oracle [ORCL
Loading...
()
] declared its first quarterly dividend at the end of March.
Mergers and Acquisitions. Oracle recently announced that it has agreed to plunk down $7.4 billion to acquire Sun Microsystems [JAVA
Loading...
()
]. Oracle has long been gobbling up companies, including PeopleSoft, Siebel and BEA Systems.
Strong Earnings. Apple [AAPL
Loading...
()
], AT&T [T
Loading...
()
], Google [GOOG
Loading...
()
] and IBM [IBM
Loading...
()
] all surpassed earnings expectations for the first quarter; Microsoft [MSFT
Loading...
()
] met expectations — in a tough economy.
Instead of trying to figure out who’s going to be top, consider an exchange traded fund (ETF) to get access to all of these stocks and more.
The SPDR S&P Technology [XLK
Loading...
()
] ETF holds 83 technology companies, including the ones mentioned above. The fund is up 11 percent year-to-date and, as of this writing, is within touching distance of climbing above its 200-day moving average.
_____________________________
_____________________________
Tom Lydon is the editor of ETF Trends and author of iMoney: Profitable ETF Strategies for Every Investor.
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes
