The Best And Worst Information Technology Stocks In Q1 2019

Of the 44 technology companies on our watch list, 35 recorded gains in the price of their publicly traded shares during the first quarter of 2019 and only 9 recorded price declines – two by significant double-digit percentages. Take a look at who were the winners and who were the losers.

Riding A Stock Market Surge, Tech Companies See Price Gains In Q1

After a roller coaster end to 2018, stock markets in the first quarter of 2019 have generally been on the rise despite uncertainties about the global economy and trade tensions with China.

The Dow Jones closed the first quarter of trading (ended March 29) at 25,928.68, up 11.15 percent from the close of 2018. The tech-heavy Nasdaq fared even better, closing out the first quarter at 7,729.32, up 16.49 percent from its 2017 close.

Thirty-five of the 44 technology companies on our watch list recorded stock price increases in the first quarter – 29 of them by double-digit amounts. Only nine companies saw the value of their stock decline during the quarter.

Additions to our watch list for 2019 include ServiceNow and Dell Technologies, the latter of which went public on the New York Stock Exchange on Dec. 28 at $46.00 per share. Several companies previously on the list, including CA Technologies and Hortonworks, were acquired during the past year and have been removed from the list. And Quantum was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange in January because of problems in filing its annual and quarterly financial statements.

Here's a look at who was up and who was down in the first quarter of 2019, starting with companies with the biggest gains in share price, based on stock closing prices on Dec. 31, 2018 and March 29, 2019.

Xerox

CEO: John Visentin

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $19.76

March 29, 2019 Close: $31.98

Change: +61.84%

Xerox had a turbulent 2018 that included an abandoned deal for Fujifilm Holdings to acquire a majority stake in the printer and copier manufacturer, a battle involving activist investor Carl Icahn and major shareholder Darwin Deason for control of the company, and changes in the company's executive ranks and board of directors. The company's stock lost more than 32 percent of its value during the year.

But the company's shares rebounded in the first quarter of 2019, recording the biggest gain in price among the 44 companies on our watch list.

For all of 2018, Xerox reported revenue of $9.83 billion, down 4.2 percent from $10.27 billion in 2017. The company reported net income of $361 million, up 85.1 percent from $195 million in 2017.

BlackBerry

CEO: John Chen

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $7.11

March 29, 2019 Close: $10.09

Change: +41.91%

BlackBerry's stock declined nearly 40 percent in 2018. So the 42 percent increase in the communications company's shares in the first quarter is pretty remarkable.

In November BlackBerry struck a deal to acquire cybersecurity company Cylance for $1.4 billion in a move to add security and AI capabilities to its platform. The acquisition was completed Feb. 21.

For fiscal 2019 (ended Feb. 28) BlackBerry reported revenue of $904 million, down 3 percent from $932 million in fiscal 2018. The company reported net income of $93 million for the year compared to net income of $405 million one year earlier.

ServiceNow

CEO: John Donahoe

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $178.05

March 29, 2019 Close: $246.49

Change: +38.44%

For all of 2018 ServiceNow reported revenue of $2.61 billion, up 36 percent from $1.92 billion in 2017. The company reported a $26.7 million loss for the year, a significant improvement from the $116.8 million loss in 2017.

Advanced Micro Devices

CEO: Lisa Su

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $18.46

March 29, 2019 Close: $25.52

Change: +38.24%

A resurgent AMD has seen its stock price rise in the last year or so – it registered the biggest gain among all our tech vendor stocks in 2018 – and the chipmaker's stock price continued rising in the first quarter of 2019.

With its Ryzen CPU processors and Radeon graphics cards, AMD has been giving rival Intel a competitive run for its money. And AMD is readying its next-generation 7-nanometer chips for later this year.

For fiscal 2018 (ended Dec. 29) AMD reported revenue of $6.48 billion, up more than 23 percent from $5.25 billion in fiscal 2017. The company reported net income of $337 million for the year compared to a $33 million net loss one year earlier.

In December, AMD was added to the Nasdaq 100 index – the 100 largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq stock market.

Lenovo Group

CEO: Yang Yuanqing

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $13.40

March 29, 2019 Close: $18.01

Change: +34.40%

For the fiscal 2019 third quarter (ended Dec. 31, 2018) Lenovo reported revenue of $14.04 billion, up 8 percent from $12.94 billion in the same quarter one year earlier. The company reported net income of $233 million compared to a $289 million loss one year earlier.

On September 13, Lenovo announced a strategic alliance with storage system and service provider NetApp, co-developing all-flash arrays and hybrid flash systems to compete against Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Dell EMC in the data storage arena.

VMware

CEO: Pat Gelsinger

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $137.13

March 29, 2019 Close: $180.51

Change: +31.63%

VMware has been on a roll in the last year as it developed hybrid cloud services with Amazon Web Services and Microsoft and worked more closely with Dell to offer joint solutions such as the availability of VMware Cloud Foundation on Dell EMC's VxRail hyper-converged infrastructure.

For all of fiscal 2019 (ended Feb. 1) VMware reported revenue of $8.97 billion, up more than 14 percent from $7.86 billion in fiscal 2018. Net income for the year surged to $2.42 billion, a more than three-fold increase from $659 million in fiscal 2018.

Dell Technologies, which went public on Dec. 28, 2018, remains the majority shareholder in VMware.

Western Digital Corp.

CEO: Stephen Milligan

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $36.97

March 29, 2019 Close: $48.06

Change: +30.00%

After Western Digital's stock lost more than half of its value (nearly 54 percent) in 2018, the storage technology developer gained a big chunk of that back in the first quarter of 2019.

For the first six months (ended Dec. 28, 2018) of fiscal 2019 Western Digital reported revenue of $9.26 billion, down nearly 12 percent from the $10.52 billion reported for the first half of fiscal 2018. Net income for the first six months was $24 million compared to a $142 million net loss one year earlier.

Palo Alto Networks

CEO: Nikesh Arora

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $188.35

March 29, 2019 Close: $242.88

Change: +28.95%

Palo Alto Networks announced a deal on Feb. 19 to acquire cybersecurity startup Demisto for $560 million. The acquisition of Demisto, which develops security orchestration, automation and response technology, was completed March 28.

On Feb. 22, Palo Alto Networks' board approved a $1 billion share repurchase authorization.

For the first six months (ended Jan. 31) of fiscal 2019 Palo Alto Networks reported revenue of $1.37 billion, up 30.5 percent from $1.05 billion in the first half of fiscal 2018. The company reported a $40.9 million net loss for the six-month period, less than half the $88.8 million loss one year earlier.

Pivotal Software

CEO: Rob Mee

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $16.35

March 29, 2019 Close: $20.85

Change: +27.52%

Pivotal, provider of a cloud-native software and development tools platform, went public on April 20, 2018.

For its fiscal 2019 ended Feb. 1, Pivotal reported revenue of $657.5 million, up 29 percent from $509.4 million in fiscal 2018. The company reported a loss of $141.9 million for the year compared to the $163.5 million loss in fiscal 2018.

Cisco Systems

CEO: Chuck Robbins

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $43.33

March 29, 2019 Close: $53.99

Change: +24.60%

Cisco Systems has been transforming itself from a networking hardware manufacturer to a supplier of software for communications, security and other IT, and transitioning to a subscription-based revenue model.

On Feb. 6, Cisco completed its $660 million acquisition of Luxtera, a developer of semiconductors that use silicon photonics to build integrated optics capabilities for webscale applications, enterprise data centers and service providers. Cisco will incorporate the technology into its intent-based networking product portfolio.

For the first six months (ended Jan. 26) of fiscal 2019 Cisco reported revenue of $25.52 billion, up more than 6 percent from $24.02 billion in the first six months of fiscal 2018. Net income for the six months was $6.37 billion compared to a net loss of $6.38 billion one year earlier.

IBM

CEO: Virginia Rometty

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $113.67

March 29, 2019 Close: $141.10

Change: +24.13%

After losing nearly 26 percent of its value in 2018, IBM's stock rebounded in the first quarter of 2019, gaining back nearly all of that loss.

On Oct. 28, IBM announced a deal to acquire open-source software giant Red Hat for $34 billion. The companies expect to complete the acquisition later this year.

In December, IBM announced a deal to sell a big part of its software portfolio, including Unica and WebSphere Commerce, to India-based HCL for $1.8 billion. On April 4, IBM struck a similar deal to sell the remainder of its marketing automation software business to private equity firm Centerbridge Partners for an undisclosed sum.

After several years of steadily shrinking revenue, IBM's sales began growing again in late 2017, but quarterly growth results were uneven through 2018. For all of 2018 IBM reported revenue of $79.59 billion, up 0.6 percent from $79.14 billion in 2017. Net income for all of 2018 was $8.73 billion, up nearly 52 percent from $5.75 billion one year earlier.

Seagate Technology

CEO: Dave Mosley

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $38.59

March 29, 2019 Close: $47.89

Change: +24.10%

For the first six months (ended Dec. 28, 2018) of its fiscal 2019 Seagate Technology reported revenue of $5.71 billion, up 2.9 percent from $5.55 billion in the first six months of fiscal 2018. Net income for the six months was $834 million, up 145 percent from $340 million one year before.

On Nov. 2, 2018, Seagate announced that its board had authorized the company to repurchase up to $2.3 billion of its outstanding ordinary shares.

Check Point Software Technologies

CEO: Gil Shwed

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $102.65

March 29, 2019 Close: $126.49

Change: +23.22%

In October, Check Point acquired Tel Aviv-based Dome9, whose technology is used to secure IT operations across multiple public clouds.

For all of 2018, Check Point reported revenue of $1.92 billion, up 3 percent from $1.85 billion in 2017. Net income for the year was $821.3 million, up 2.3 percent from $802.9 million in 2017.

Extreme Networks

CEO: Ed Meyercord

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $6.10

March 29, 2019 Close: $7.49

Change: +22.79%

Extreme Network's stock recorded the biggest decline (more than 51 percent) in 2018 among all the vendors on our watch list. So the company wins kudos for gaining back a big chunk of that in this year's first quarter.

For the first six months (ended Dec. 31, 2018) of its fiscal 2019 Extreme Networks reported revenue of $492.6 million, up more than 11 percent from $442.8 million in the first half of fiscal 2018. The company reported a $1.9 million net loss for the six-month period compared to a $27.5 million net loss one year earlier.

Symantec

CEO: Greg Clark

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $18.90

March 29, 2019 Close: $22.99

Change: +21.64%

On Feb. 12, Symantec acquired Luminate Security, a developer of software-defined perimeter technology. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

For the first nine months (ended Dec. 28) of fiscal 2019 Symantec reported revenue of $3.54 billion, down 2.3 percent from $3.62 billion in the first nine months of fiscal 2018. For the nine-month period Symantec reported a net loss of $3 million compared to net income of $1.20 billion one year before.

Apple

CEO: Tim Cook

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $157.74

March 29, 2019 Close: $189.95

Change: +20.42%

On Jan. 2, CEO Tim Cook warned that revenue for the fiscal 2019 first quarter (ended Dec. 29) would be around $84 billion, far below the earlier guidance of revenue in the range of $89 billion to $93 billion. The company blamed slower than expected upgrades to its new generation of iPhones, especially in China. The warning sent the price of Apple shares plummeting.

Later in the month, Apple reported that first quarter sales were $84.31 billion, down 4.5 percent from $88.29 billion in the first quarter of fiscal 2018. Net income for the quarter was $19.97 billion, down 0.5 percent from $20.07 billion one year earlier.

On March 25, Apple made a bid to expand its services revenues with the announcement of the Apple TV+ video subscription service, an Apple credit card and the Apple News+ service.

Dell Technologies

CEO: Michael Dell

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $48.87

March 29, 2019 Close: $58.69

Change: +20.09%

Dell Technologies went public on the New York Stock Exchange on Dec. 28, 2018 at $46.00 per share and closed out the year at $48.87. The company's share price continued to climb through the first quarter, gaining another 20 percent in value.

For all of fiscal 2019 (ended Feb. 1) Dell reported revenue of $90.62 billion, up 15 percent from $79.04 billion in fiscal 2018. The company reported a net loss of $2.18 billion for fiscal 2019, down 25 percent from a $2.93 billion net loss one year earlier.

Fortinet

CEO: Ken Xie

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $70.43

March 29, 2019 Close: $83.97

Change: +19.22%

For all of 2018, security technology developer Fortinet reported revenue of $1.80 billion, up more than 20 percent from $1.49 billion in 2017. The company reported net income of $332.2 million for the year, a more than 10-fold increase over the $31.4 million in net income reported for 2017.

Oracle

CEOs: Safra Catz and Mark Hurd

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $45.15

March 29, 2019 Close: $53.71

Change: +18.96%

For the first nine months (ended Feb. 28) of its fiscal 2019 Oracle reported revenue of $28.37 billion, almost exactly the same revenue numbers reported for the first nine months of fiscal 2018. Net income for the most recent nine-month period was $7.34 billion compared to net income of just $311 million in the first nine months of fiscal 2018.

Splunk

CEO: Doug Merritt

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $104.85

March 29, 2019 Close: $124.60

Change: +18.84%

Splunk has enjoyed rapid sales growth for its software used to collect, process and analyze machine data. The company's growth has been most pronounced in software sales for IT operational analytics, IT operations management, and security and vulnerability management applications.

For all of fiscal 2019 (ended Jan. 31) Splunk reported revenue of $1.80 billion, up 38 percent from $1.31 billion in fiscal 2018. The company reported a $275.6 million loss for the year compared to a $190.2 million loss in fiscal 2018.

Amazon

CEO: Jeff Bezos

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $1,501.97

March 29, 2019 Close: $1,780.75

Change: +18.56%

For all of 2018, Amazon reported revenue of $232.89 billion, up 31 percent from $177.87 billion in 2017. Net income for the year was $10.07 billion, a more than three-fold increase from $3.03 billion in net income in 2017.

Amazon's results for the year included revenue of more than $25 billion generated by Amazon Web Services.

Eaton

CEO: Craig Arnold

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $68.66

March 29, 2019 Close: $80.56

Change: +17.33%

For all of 2018, Eaton reported sales of $21.61 billion, up nearly 6 percent from $20.40 billion in 2017. Net income for the year was $2.15 billion, down 28 percent from $2.99 billion in 2017.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

CEO: Antonio Neri

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $13.21

March 29, 2019 Close: $15.43

Change: +16.81%

For its fiscal 2019 first quarter (ended Jan. 31) Hewlett Packard Enterprise reported revenue of $7.55 billion, down 1.6 percent from $7.67 billion in the first quarter of fiscal 2018. The company's net earnings for the quarter were $177 million, down from $1.44 billion one year earlier.

NetApp

CEO: George Kurian

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $59.67

March 29, 2019 Close: $69.34

Change: +16.21%

For the first nine months (ended Jan. 25) of its fiscal 2019, NetApp reported revenue of $4.55 billion, up 6.5 percent from $4.28 billion in the first nine months of fiscal 2018. Net income for the nine-month period was $733 million compared to a loss of $174 million one year earlier.

Microsoft

CEO: Satya Nadella

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $101.57

March 29, 2019 Close: $117.94

Change: +16.12%

For the first six months (ended Dec. 31) of fiscal 2019 Microsoft reported revenue of $61.56 billion, up more than 15 percent from $53.46 billion in the first six months of fiscal 2018. Net income for the period was $17.24 billion compared to net income of just $274 million one year earlier.

In January the Pentagon announced that Microsoft had been awarded a $1.76 billion IT support and services contract. Microsoft, along with Amazon Web Services, is in the running for the massive $10 billion JEDI cloud services contract for the military.

SAP

CEO: Bill McDermott

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $99.55

March 29, 2019 Close: $115.46

Change: +15.98%

SAP has been transitioning itself and its customers to cloud software. The company has set itself the goal of having revenue from cloud subscriptions and software support account for 70 to 75 percent of its sales in 2020.

On Jan. 23, SAP completed its $8 billion acquisition of Qualtrics, a developer of experience management or "XM" applications. SAP and Qualtrics announced the acquisition deal back in November.

For all of 2018 SAP reported total revenue of 24.71 billion euro, (U.S. $27.94 billion), up 5 percent from 23.46 billion euro (U.S. $26.53 billion) in 2017. After-tax profit for the year was 4.09 billion euro (U.S. $4.62 billion), up 1 percent from 4.05 billion euro (U.S. $4.57 billion) one year ago.

Salesforce.com

CEOs: Marc Benioff and Keith Block

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $136.97

March 29, 2019 Close: $158.37

Change: +15.62%

After cracking the $10 billion revenue threshold in fiscal 2018, Salesforce reported that revenue in fiscal 2019 (ending Jan. 31, 2019) reached $13.28 billion, up 26 percent from $10.54 billion in fiscal 2018. Net income for the year was $1.11 billion, up more than three-fold from $360 million one year earlier.

The company is forecasting that revenue for fiscal 2020 (ending Jan. 31, 2020) will be between $15.95 billion and $16.05 billion, up 20 to 21 percent over fiscal 2019.

Intel

CEO: Robert Swan

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $46.93

March 29, 2019 Close: $53.70

Change: +14.43%

On Jan. 31, Intel named Robert Swan, the company's chief financial officer who had been serving as the chipmaker's interim CEO, to be the company's permanent chief executive.

Swan had been interim CEO since Brian Krzanich resigned in June 2018 after the company learned that he had a consensual relationship with an employee in violation of company policy.

On April 2, just after the period covered by this analysis, Intel named George Davis as executive vice president and chief financial officer.

For fiscal 2018 (ended Dec. 29, 2018) Intel reported revenue of $70.85 billion, up nearly 13 percent from $62.76 billion in fiscal 2017. Net income for fiscal 2018 was $21.05 billion, more than double the $$9.60 billion net income in fiscal 2017.

Alphabet

CEO: Larry Page

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $1,035.61

March 29, 2019 Close: $1,173.31

Change: +13.30%

On March 20, the European Commission hit Alphabet, Google's parent company, with an antitrust fine of $1.69 billion for what the commission determined was Google's anti-competitive advertising practices.

For all of 2018, Alphabet reported revenue of $136.82 billion, up more than 23 percent from $110.86 billion in 2017. Net income for the year was $30.74 billion, up 143 percent from $12.66 billion one year ago.

AT&T

CEO: Randall Stephenson

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $28.54

March 29, 2019 Close: $31.36

Change: +9.88%

In February, a federal appeals court judge ruled that AT&T's $85.4 billion acquisition of global entertainment and media powerhouse Time Warner did not violate antitrust laws, allowing the acquisition to stand and rejecting a U.S. Justice Department appeal of an earlier ruling allowing the acquisition to proceed.

For all of 2018, AT&T reported operating revenue of $170.76 billion, up 6.4 percent from $160.55 billion in 2017. Net income for the year was $19.37 billion, down 34 percent from $29.45 billion in 2017.

Commvault Systems

CEO: Sanjay Mirchandani

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $59.09

March 29, 2019 Close: $64.74

Change: +9.56%

On Feb. 5, Commvault named Sanjay Mirchandani as the company's new president and CEO and member of the board. Mirchandani was previously CEO of IT automation company Puppet. He replaced Robert Hammer, who retired under a succession plan announced in May of 2018.

For the first nine months (ended Dec. 31) of fiscal 2019 Commvault reported revenue of $529.5 million, up 3 percent from $514.5 million in the first nine months of fiscal 2018. The company reported net income of $5.7 million for the nine months compared to a $60.2 million loss one year earlier.

Commvault is scheduled to report its fiscal 2019 fourth quarter and full year results on April 30.

Tableau Software

CEO: Adam Selipsky

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $120.00

March 29, 2019 Close: $127.28

Change: +6.07%

Tableau Software has become one of the clear leaders in the crowded market for business analytics and data visualization software.

For all of 2018, Tableau reported revenue of $1.16 billion, up nearly 32 percent from $877.1 million in 2017. The company also greatly reduced its annual loss, reporting a $77.0 million loss for all of 2018 compared to a $185.6 million loss one year earlier. (For the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31 Tableau reported a $2.8 million net profit.)

Verizon Communications

CEO: Hans Vestberg

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $56.22

March 29, 2019 Close: $59.13

Change: +5.18%

Verizon began the new year just weeks after the company's Dec. 13, 2018 announcement of a $4.6 billion goodwill impairment charge for the diminished value of its Oath media subsidiary, renamed Verizon Media. In January the company confirmed that Verizon Media planned to cut about 800 jobs or 7 percent of its global workforce.

For all of 2018, Verizon reported operating revenue of $130.86 billion, up 3.8 percent from $126.03 billion in 2017. Net income for 2018 was $16.04 billion, down 47.5 percent from $30.55 billion in 2017.

Red Hat

CEO: James Whitehurst

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $175.64

March 29, 2019 Close: $182.70

Change: +4.02%

On Oct. 28, 2018, open-source software developer Red Hat struck a deal to be acquired by IBM for $34 billion, an acquisition the two companies expect to complete sometime in the second half of 2019.

IBM is buying Red Hat at $190 per share, a significant premium above the $116.68 closing price of Red Hat's shares the Friday before the deal was announced. The price of Red Hat shares soared to $170 following the announcement, fluctuated between $170 and $180 per share through the rest of the year, and grew past $180 per share in the first quarter.

For all of its fiscal 2019 (ended Feb. 28) Red Hat reported revenue of $3.36 billion, up more than 15 percent from $2.92 billion in fiscal 2018. For the fiscal year Red Hat reported net income of $434.0 million, up nearly 66 percent from $261.9 million in fiscal 2018.

FireEye

CEO: Kevin Mandia

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $16.21

March 29, 2019 Close: $16.79

Change: +3.58%

For all of 2018, FireEye reported revenue just under $831.0 million, up 6.6 percent from $779.6 million in 2017. The company reported a net loss of $243.1 million for the year compared to a $285.2 million loss in 2017.

Cloudera

CEO: Tom Reilly

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $11.06

March 29, 2019 Close: $10.94

Change: -1.08%

On Jan. 3, Cloudera completed its merger with rival Hortonworks, announced in October, creating a big data platform giant under the Cloudera name. The company now faces the challenge of integrating the two companies' operations and rationalizing their combined product portfolios.

Cloudera's shares rose to $19.05 immediately following the announcement of the acquisition, but steadily declined through the rest of the year and have remained relatively steady since the acquisition was completed.

For all of fiscal 2019 (ended Jan. 31), Cloudera reported revenue of $479.9 million, up nearly 29 percent from $372.3 million in fiscal 2018. The company reported a net loss of $192.6 million for fiscal 2019 compared to a $369.7 million net loss in fiscal 2018.

Juniper Networks

CEO: Rami Rahim

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $26.91

March 29, 2019 Close: $26.47

Change: -1.64%

On March 4, Juniper Networks announced a deal to acquire Mist Systems, a developer of cloud-managed wireless networks, for $405 million. The acquisition was completed on April 3.

On Jan. 29, the company announced a $300 million accelerated share repurchase program.

For all of 2018, Juniper Networks reported revenue of $4.65 billion, down 8 percent from $5.03 billion in 2017. Net income for 2018 was $566.9 million, up 85 percent from $306.2 million in 2017.

Carbonite

CEO: Mohamad Ali

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $25.26

March 29, 2019 Close: $24.81

Change: -1.78%

On Feb. 7, Carbonite struck a deal to acquire endpoint security technology developer Webroot for $618.5 million. The acquisition closed March 26.

For all of 2018, Carbonite reported revenue of $296.4 million, up nearly 24 percent from $239.5 million in 2017. The company reported net income of $7.6 million for 2018, compared to a $4.0 million net loss in 2017.

Citrix Systems

CEO: David Henshall

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $102.46

March 29, 2019 Close: $99.66

Change: -2.73%

For all of 2018, Citrix reported revenue of $2.97 billion, up more than 5 percent from $2.82 billion in 2017. Net income for 2018 was $575.7 million compared to a $20.7 million net loss in 2017.

F5 Networks

CEO: Francois Locoh-Donou

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $162.03

March 29, 2019 Close: $156.93

Change: -3.15%

On March 11, F5 Networks announced an agreement to acquire NGINX, a provider of application delivery and security software, for $670 million in a move F5 described as creating a bridge between DevOps and NetOps.

For its fiscal 2019 first quarter (ended Dec. 31, 2018), F5 Networks reported revenue of $543.8 million, up 4 percent from $523.2 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2018. Net income for the quarter was $130.9 million, up 48 percent from $88.4 million one year earlier.

HP Inc.

CEO: Dion Weisler

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $20.46

March 29, 2019 Close: $19.43

Change: -5.03%

HP Inc., like other PC manufacturers, was hard hit by a shortage of microprocessors that resulted in a 6.3 percent drop in PC shipments in the U.S. in the first quarter of 2019. HP Inc.'s U.S. PC shipments fell 4.7 percent in the quarter, a smaller decline than those recorded by rivals Lenovo and Dell.

For its fiscal 2019 first quarter (ended Jan. 31) HP reported revenue of $14.71 billion, up 1.3 percent from $14.52 billion in the first quarter of fiscal 2018. Net earnings for the first quarter were $803 million, down 58 percent from $1.94 billion one year before.

Nutanix

CEO: Dheeraj Pandey

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $41.59

March 29, 2019 Close: $37.74

Change: -9.26%

Nutanix is a pivotal player in the market for hyper-converged infrastructure systems, competing with Dell EMC, Cisco, Pivot3 and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

For the first six months (ended Jan. 31, 2019) of fiscal 2019 Nutanix reported revenue of $648.6 million, up more than 15 percent from $562.3 million in the first half of fiscal 2018. The company reported a net loss of $217.0 million for the six-month period compared to a $124.1 million net loss one year earlier.

CenturyLink

CEO: Jeff Storey

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $15.15

March 29, 2019 Close: $11.99

Change: -20.86%

CenturyLink came into the new year on a low note, having wrestled with a nationwide system outage in December that took out the company's phone and internet services for consumers and business customers.

CenturyLink was focused in 2018 on integrating its operations with those of Level 3 Communications, the global network services company CenturyLink acquired Nov. 1, 2017, for about $34 billion in cash and stock.

For all of 2018, CenturyLink reported operating revenue of $23.44 billion, up 33 percent from $17.66 billion in 2017. But the communications service provider reported a net loss of $1.73 billion for 2018 compared to net income of $1.39 billion in 2017.

Netgear

CEO: Patrick Lo

Dec. 31, 2018 Close: $52.03

March 29, 2019 Close: $33.12

Change: -36.34%

For all of 2018, Netgear reported revenue of $1.06 billion, up less than 2 percent from $1.04 billion in 2017. The company reported a net loss of $2.6 million for 2018 compared to net income of $19.4 million in 2017.