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The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: CrowdStrike, Workday, Sapiens International and Twilio

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – February 16, 2021 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. (CRWD - Free Report) , Workday, Inc. (WDAY - Free Report) , Sapiens International Corporation N.V. (SPNS - Free Report) and Twilio Inc. (TWLO - Free Report) .

Here are highlights from Friday’s Analyst Blog:

4 Software Stocks Set to Beat Estimates This Earnings Season

Software stocks’ quarterly performance is expected to have significantly benefited from an uptick in the demand for software-based services and products as a result of the coronavirus-led growing work-from-home and learn-from-home trends.

Increased spending by enterprises on software procurement, the growing proliferation of Software-as-a-Service or SaaS-based services, the rapid migration to cloud platforms, solid adoption of video-conferencing software and rising user penetration of online payment solutions are likely to have remained major tailwinds for software companies in the fourth-quarter 2020.

Solid performance delivered by Microsoft indicates resiliency in the software industry amid the ongoing pandemic. Its recently reported quarterly results were driven by strong momentum in Azure and impressive Teams user growth, triggered by ongoing digital transformation, and remote working and learning trend.

Further, PayPal’s strong fourth-quarter 2020 results, which were driven by solid momentum across Venmo and strong customer engagement that led to a spike in its new active accounts, testifies to the same.

In addition to this, Aspen Technology, which reported second-quarter fiscal 2021 results, benefited from solid growth in its bookings.

Blackbaud also benefited from the rapid migration of enterprises to cloud amid the pandemic-induced digitization in fourth-quarter 2020.

Prospects for Software Stocks

The spike in the adoption of cloud-based services, the increasing proliferation of IoT and AR/VR devices, and the accelerated deployment of 5G are expected to have aided the performances of software stocks this earnings season.

Strong momentum across enterprise collaboration software, remote desktop tools, natural language processing tool, time tracking tools and cyber security software is expected to have hugely favored the software industry in fourth-quarter 2020.

Additionally, the growing proliferation of AI-powered voice recognition, telemedicine, learning management, infrastructure monitoring and business spend management software is expected to have benefited the industry players in the quarter under review.

Further, enterprise workspace solutions, enterprise communication platforms, and online education portals, which have been high in demand throughout 2020, are likely to have contributed well.

How to Make the Right Choice?

With the presence of several industry participants, finding the right software stocks with the potential to beat on earnings can be daunting. Our proprietary methodology, however, makes this task fairly simple.

You could narrow down your choices by looking at the stocks that have the perfect combination of the two key elements — a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) and a positive Earnings ESP. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they’re reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.

Earnings ESP is our proprietary methodology for determining the stocks that have the maximum chances of beating estimates at their next earnings announcement. It is the percentage difference between the Most Accurate Estimate and the Zacks Consensus Estimate.

Our research shows that for stocks with the apt mix of ingredients, the odds of a positive earnings surprise are as high as 70%.

Best Bets

Sunnyvale, CA-based CrowdStrike is slated to report fourth-quarter fiscal 2021 results on Mar 16. The company presently has an Earnings ESP of +57.75% and a Zacks Rank #2. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings has been revised upward by 12.5% to 9 cents per share over the past 30 days. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Pleasanton, CA-based Workday is scheduled to report fourth-quarter fiscal 2021 results on Feb 25.The company currently has an Earnings ESP of +0.90% and a Zacks Rank #2. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings has been stable at 56 cents per share in the past 30 days.

Holon, Israel-based, Sapiens International is scheduled to report fourth-quarter 2020 numbers on Feb 25. The company currently has an Earnings ESP of +1.96% and a Zacks Rank #3. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings has been revised upward by 4% to 26 cents per share in the past 30 days.

San Francisco, CA-based Twilio is set to report fourth-quarter 2020 results on Feb 17. The company has an Earnings ESP of +34.78% and a Zacks Rank #3 at present. The consensus estimate for loss has been stable at 8 cents per share in the past 30 days.

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Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.

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