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Amid market (^GSPC, ^IXIC, ^DJI) uncertainty, tech companies might find an opportunity to reset their performance goals.
Jefferies senior analyst Brent Thill joins Market Domination to discuss how CFOs can use the current economic landscape to adopt more conservative outlooks, giving investors a chance to buy stocks at a dip and navigate future challenges in the sector.
To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Market Domination here.
According to our next guest, market rattling tariffs may be offer one upside, companies can use the shifting financial landscape to adjust their performance goals, calling the current macro economic uncertainty a free hall pass for the tech giants, joining us now is Brent Phil senior analyst at Jeffries. Brent, there's a lot of negative stuff to say so I thought I would start with something a little bit more silver lining-ish I guess a silver lining of a sword which is that maybe this whole situation is air cover for companies to say, okay, we're not going to give you a forecast or we're going to reset things. What do you expecting to hear from big tech as we get into earnings?
Brent you hearing us?
Yeah, CFOs keep guidance. Yeah, yeah if stocks, if companies keep guidance, we're going to effectively see stocks go lower. So what we're advocating is most tech companies just guide to more conservative outlook and investors want to buy that dip, right? We have many of these tech stocks off 20 to 40, 50% in some cases. So CFOs have a hall pass to lower the numbers institutional owners have seen multiple compression, the only other thing that can compress their numbers. So effectively just take a haircut to some of the numbers and you effectively will have a better uh better backdrop for for tech investors to want to buy stocks. So one of things we keep hearing back from institutional investors is I got to hear numbers going lower, maybe capex a little lower and I feel more confident that that I can buy this dip.
Brent I would assume, given the the very smart, grizzled financial analyst that you are Brent, that you are doing your checks on your own companies, you're out there doing your field work. Generally, what are you hearing Brent? Are you hearing, you know, is it caution, is it raw panic? How would you describe it?
Uh more drama than the ending of White Lotus. So, um, it is uh it is pretty gnarly. And what I'd say is like you hear things all over the board, some are not seeing it yet, some are saying it's coming. We had one advertiser say that he expects kind of everything kind of grind to a halt middle part of the year as advertising budgets can turn off. So, you know, he saw 15% growth at meta budgets last year, he's seen 0% growth this year. So I mean it's kind of all over and it's what you would expect which is we haven't seen it yet, it really didn't have a huge impact on Q1. It has a bigger impact in Q2 then the question is like what's the what's the range of of the tariff outcomes and I think that's the thing none of us know and so because we don't have any certainty, everyone's waiting to see and waiting to buy post April, May earnings and most of our clients are are are doing nothing right now. They're not buying, they're not selling, they're just they're just they're just waiting. Now, if you ask our tech desk, 50% of the pain has been felt and so we still feel like there's more downside. We cut numbers across the board Monday across 30 software names and then we ran trough multiples and that suggested at the midpoint another 15% downside um as of as of Monday at before the market. So I still, I still think right now we just don't have a lot of conviction, but I think, you know, again we're getting nearer, hopefully in the uh the the second half of this pain versus the the front half and again I think I think that's good.