The Best And The Worst Tech Stocks In Q3 2020

Of the 40 technology companies on our watch list, 24 recorded gains in the price of their publicly traded shares in the third quarter of 2020 while 16 recorded price declines. Take a look at who were the winners and who were the losers.

Tech Stocks Muddle Through Ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic, Recession

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Stock markets were riding high for the first couple of months of 2020 before plunging in March as the COVID-19 pandemic hit and many segments of the U.S. economy shut down. (The U.S. economy went into recession in February, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.) While stock markets recovered somewhat in the second quarter, it has been a very bumpy ride since with stocks returning very mixed results in the third quarter.

The Dow Jones ended trading on Sept. 30 at 27,781.70, up 7.63 percent from the 25,812.88 close on Jun 30. The tech-heavy Nasdaq has fared a bit better, closing at 11,167.51 on Sept. 30, up 11.02 percent from the 10,058.77 closing on June 30.

Of the 40 technology companies on our watch list, 24 recorded stock price increases in the first half of 2020 – a dozen of them by double-digit amounts and one by more than 50 percent. Sixteen companies saw the value of their stock decline during the first six months of 2020.

Here’s a look at who was up and who was down in the third quarter of 2020, starting with companies with the biggest gains in share price, based on stock closing prices on June 30, 2020 and Sept. 30, 2020.

Also included are each company’s market capitalizations and change during the quarter.

Advanced Micro Devices

CEO: Lisa Su

June 30, 2020 Close: $52.61

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $81.99

Change: +55.84%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $96.26 Billion (+56.23%)

Resurgent chipmaker AMD saw the value of its stock price more than double in 2019 and that rapid growth has resumed in the third quarter of 2020. Recently AMD debuted new Ryzen and new Athlon processors as the company keeps up its competitive assault on rival Intel.

For the first six months (ended June 27) of 2020 AMD reported revenue of $3.72 billion, up nearly 33 percent from $2.80 billion in the first six months of 2019. Net income for the six-month period was $319 million, up more than six-fold from $51 million one year earlier.

Salesforce

CEO: Marc Benioff

June 30, 2020 Close: $187.33

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $251.32

Change: +34.16%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $228.70 Billion (+35.50%)

On Aug. 26, Salesforce began making cuts to its workforce – the same day the cloud software company reported record earnings and added some $60 billion to its market capitalization. The layoffs, which were reported to impact about 1,000 of the company’s 54,000 employees worldwide, were described by a company spokesperson as a reallocation of resources to focus on strategic areas for growth and eliminate positions that no longer fit with the company’s business priorities.

For the first six months (ended July 31, 2020) of its fiscal 2021 Salesforce reported revenue of $10.02 billion, up 29.5 percent from $7.73 billion in the first six months of fiscal 2020. Net income for the six-month period was $2.72 billion, up more than five-fold from $483 million one year before.

Apple

CEO: Tim Cook

June 30, 2020 Close: $91.20

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $115.81

Change: +26.98%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $1.98 Billion (+25.30%)

While Apple’s stock closed at $364.80 on June 30, Apple executed a four-for-one stock split on Aug. 31 in a move to make its shares more affordable to a wider range of investors. The June 30 closing price has been re-calculated at $91.20.

On June 22, Apple provided details of its long-reported plans to develop its own Arm-based processors for its Mac computers, displacing the Intel chips that now power the devices. The first Macs based on the processors are expected to debut by the end of this year.

On Aug. 19 Apple’s market capitalization hit $2 trillion as the company continued to see strong sales growth in its major businesses. But about two weeks later the value of Apple shares plunged 6.4 percent and cut the market cap by nearly $180 billion – a record market cap loss. As of Sept. 30, the market cap was back to $1.98 billion.

For the first nine months (ended June 27) of its fiscal 2020 Apple reported revenue of $209.82 billion, up 7 percent from $196.13 billion in the first nine months of fiscal 2019. Net income for the nine-month period was $44.74 billion, up 7.6 percent from $$41.57 billion one year earlier.

Dell Technologies

CEO: Michael Dell

June 30, 2020 Close: $54.94

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $67.69

Change: +23.21%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $50.55 Billion (+24.19%)

In July, Dell Technologies confirmed that the company was in the early stages of considering whether to spin off its 81 percent equity stake in virtualization leader VMware.

For the first six months (ended July 31) of the company’s fiscal 2021 Dell reported revenue of $44.63 billion, down 1 percent from $45.28 billion reported in the first six months of fiscal 2020. Net income for the six-month period was $1.28 billion, down 72 percent from $4.56 billion one year before.

Xerox

CEO: John Visentin

June 30, 2020 Close: $15.29

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $18.77

Change: +22.76%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $4.08 Billion (+25.28%)

In November 2019, Xerox launched an unsolicited bid to take over HP Inc., its leading competitor in the printer market. HP rejected the Xerox proposal and on Nov. 26 Xerox launched a direct appeal to HP stockholders, asking them to sell their shares to Xerox. But Xerox’s efforts were ultimately stymied by the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting recession: Xerox dropped its buyout effort on March 31 citing the pandemic and the “resulting macroeconomic and market turmoil.”

On Sept. 11, William Osbourn, Xerox’s CFO for three years, announced that he was leaving the company for personal reasons, effective Sept. 30. Xavier Heiss, a 32-year Xerox veteran, was named interim CFO.

For the first six months (ended June 30) of 2020 Xerox reported revenue of $3.33 billion, down nearly 34 percent from $4.44 billion in the first six months of 2019. The company reported net income of $25 million for the six-month period compared to net income of $320 million in the first half of 2019.

ServiceNow

CEO: Bill McDermott

June 30, 2020 Close: $405.06

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $485.00

Change: +19.74%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $93.02 Billion (+20.42%)

On June 22, ServiceNow struck a deal to acquire configuration data management pioneer Sweagle.

For the first six months (ended June 30) of 2020, ServiceNow reported revenue of $2.18 billion, up more than 30 percent from $1.62 billion in the first six months of 2019. Net income for the six-month period was $89.0 million compared to a $12.6 million net loss one year earlier.

Lenovo Group

CEO: Yang Yuanqing

June 30, 2020 Close: $11.03

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $13.20

Change: +19.67%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $7.84 Billion (+18.47%)

Lenovo has reported surging demand for its PCs amid the shift to work-from-home because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

For its fiscal 2021 first quarter (ended June 30) Lenovo reported revenue of $13.35 billion, up nearly 7 percent from $12.51 billion in the first quarter of fiscal 2020. The company reported net income of $213 million, up 31 percent from $162 million one year earlier.

Netgear

CEO: Patrick Lo

June 30, 2020 Close: $25.89

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $30.82

Change: +19.04%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $1.01 Billion (+33.13%)

For the first six months (ended June 28) of 2020, Netgear reported revenue of $510.0 million, up more than 6 percent from $479.9 million in the first six months of 2019. The company reported net income of $1.8 million for the six-month period compared to income of $13.7 million one year earlier.

Eaton

CEO: Craig Arnold

June 30, 2020 Close: $87.48

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $102.03

Change: +16.63%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $40.82 Billion (+16.66%)

On Feb. 3, 2020 Eaton announced a deal to acquire Power Distribution Inc., a leading supplier of mission-critical power distribution, static switching, and power monitoring equipment and services for data centers and industrial and commercial customers. The acquisition, for an undisclosed price, was completed Feb. 25.

For the first six months (ended June 30) of 2020 Eaton reported sales of $8.65 billion, down 20 percent from $10.84 billion in the first six months of 2019. Net income for the six-month period was $489 million, down nearly 58 percent from $1.16 billion one year before.

Amazon

CEO: Jeff Bezos

June 30, 2020 Close: $2,758.82

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $3,148.73

Change: +14.13%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $1.58 Trillion (+14.61%)

Amazon has experienced a surge in demand in 2020 from on-line shoppers who are stuck at home because of the pandemic. The company’s Amazon Web Services business has also seen increased traffic from people who have been working from home.

On July 30 the company said it had created 175,000 new jobs since March.

For the first six months (ended June 30) of 2020 Amazon reported revenue of $164.36 billion, up 33.5 percent from $123.10 billion in the first six months of 2019. Net income for the six-month period was $7.78 billion, up nearly 26 percent from $6.19 billion one year before.

During the six-month period AWS generated $21.03 billion in revenue, up nearly 31 percent from $16.08 billion one year before.

Check Point Software Technologies

CEO: Gil Shwed

June 30, 2020 Close: $107.43

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $120.34

Change: +12.02%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $17.77 Billion (+15.66%)

On Sept. 16, Check Point announced a deal to acquire secure remote access startup Odo Security for an undisclosed sum.

For the first six months (ended June 30) of 2020 Check Point reported revenue of $992.1 million, up 3.3 percent from $960.0 million in the first six months of 2019. Net income for the six-month period was $375.1million, up 2.6 percent from $365.5 million one year before.

SAP

CEO: Christian Klein

June 30, 2020 Close: $140.00

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $155.81

Change: +11.29%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $186.11 Billion (+12.23%)

On April 21 SAP announced that it was returning to a single-CEO management structure with Christian Klein becoming the company’s sole CEO. Klein had been with SAP since 2000 and was serving as the company’s chief operating officer when he was named co-CEO in October.

On July 27 SAP announced a plan to take its Qualtrics experience management application business public while retaining a majority stake in the company. SAP acquired Qualtrics in January 2019 for $8 billion.

For its second quarter (ended June 30) of 2020 SAP reported revenue of 6.74 billion euros (U.S. $7.93 billion), up 1.7 percent from $6.63 billion euros (U.S. $7.80 billion) in the second quarter of 2019. The company reported an after-tax profit of 885 million euros (U.S. $1.04 billion), up 52 percent from 582 million euros (U.S. $684.1 million) one year earlier.

Lumen Technologies

CEO: Jeff Storey

June 30, 2020 Close: $10.03

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $11.00

Change: +9.67%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $12.07 Billion (+9.67%)

On Sept. 14 CenturyLink announced that the company was being rebranded as Lumen Technologies.

For the first six months (ended June 30) of 2020 Lumen Technologies reported operating revenue of $10.42 billion, down 4 percent from $10.80 billion in the first six months of 2019. The communications service provider reported net income of $691 million for the six-month period compared to a $5.79 billion net loss (largely due to a $6.51 billion goodwill impairment charge) one year before.

HP Inc.

CEO: Enrique Lores

June 30, 2020 Close: $17.43

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $18.99

Change: +8.95%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $26.08 Billion (+4.65%)

On Sept. 9, HP disclosed that chief financial officer Steve Fieler was leaving the company for a job outside the company. HP named Marie Myers, who had been chief transformation officer, to serve as interim CFO.

For the first nine months (ended July 31) of its fiscal 2020, HP reported revenue of $41.38 billion, down 4.5 percent from $43.35 billion in the first nine months of fiscal 2019. Net income for the nine-month period was $2.18 billion, down more than 21 percent from $2.76 billion one year before.

Oracle

CEO: Safra Catz

June 30, 2020 Close: $55.27

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $59.70

Change: +8.02%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $179.95 Billion (+5.98%)

For the company’s fiscal 2021 first quarter (ended Aug. 31) Oracle reported revenue of $9.37 billion, up 2 percent from $9.22 billion in the first quarter of fiscal 2020. Net income for the latest quarter was $2.25 billion, up 5 percent from $2.14 billion one year earlier.

For all of fiscal 2020 (ended May 31) Oracle reported revenue of $39.07 billion, down 1 percent from $39.51 billion in fiscal 2019. Net income for the fiscal year was $10.14 billion, down 9 percent from $11.08 billion one year earlier.

Verizon Communications

CEO: Hans Vestberg

June 30, 2020 Close: $55.13

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $59.49

Change: +7.91%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $246.17 Billion (+7.91%)

On May 15 Verizon completed its acquisition of videoconferencing services provider BlueJeans. Verizon is integrating BlueJeans’ scalable, encrypted videoconferencing and event products into its Advanced Communications portfolio.

On Sept. 14 Verizon struck a deal to acquire TracFone Wireless, a pre-paid and value mobile services provider.

In June Verizon Business expanded its virtualized network services portfolio by adding Cisco Systems’ Enterprise Network Compute System to its offerings.

For the first six months of 2020 (ended June 30) Verizon reported operating revenue of $62.06 billion, down 3.3 percent from $64.20 billion in the first six months of 2019. Net income for the six-month period was $9.13 billion, down 1.2 percent from $9.23 billion one year before.

Verizon will report its third quarter earnings on Oct. 21.

Palo Alto Networks

CEO: Nikesh Arora

June 30, 2020 Close: $229.67

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $244.75

Change: +6.57%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $23.59 Billion (+6.46%)

Palo Alto Networks announced a deal on March 31 to acquire SD-WAN player CloudGenix for $420 million. The acquisition was completed April 21.

On Aug. 24 Palo Alto Networks announced a deal to acquire The Crypsis Group, a risk management and digital forensics consulting firm, for $265 million in a move that expands the company’s service offerings in the incident response space. (The acquisition was completed Sept. 17.)

For the fiscal 2020 fourth quarter (ended July 31) Palo Alto Networks reported revenue of $950.4 million, up 18 percent from $805.8 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2019. The company reported a $58.9 million loss for the quarter compared to a $20.8 million loss one year before.

For all of fiscal 2020 (ended July 31) Palo Alto Networks reported revenue of $3.41 billion, up 17.5 percent from $2.90 billion in fiscal 2019. The company reported a $267.0 million net loss for year compared to a $81.9 million net loss one year earlier.

Commvault Systems

CEO: Sanjay Mirchandani

June 30, 2020 Close: $38.70

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $40.80

Change: +5.43%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $1.89 Billion (+5.93%)

In June Commvault announced a multiyear strategic engineering and sales agreement with Microsoft around the Commvault Metallic SaaS data protection technology and the Microsoft Azure cloud.

For its fiscal 2021 first quarter (ended June 30) Commvault reported revenue of $173.0 million, up 6.7 percent from $162.2 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2020. The company reported net income of $2.3 million for the quarter compared to a $6.8 million loss one year earlier.

NortonLifeLock

CEO: Vincent Pilette

June 30, 2020 Close: $19.83

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $20.84

Change: +5.09%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $12.32 Billion (+5.45%)

After chip manufacturer Broadcom acquired Symantec's $2.5-billion enterprise security business in late 2019, Symantec’s consumer business, renamed NortonLifeLock, was spun off as an independent, publicly traded entity. Since then the company has been transitioning to a pure-play consumer security company.

For the first quarter (ended July 3) of fiscal 2021 NortonLifeLock reported revenue of $614 million, down 5.5 percent from $650 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2020. Net income for the year was $118 million, up more than four-fold from $26 million one year before.

Alphabet

CEO: Sundar Pichai

June 30, 2020 Close: $1,413.61

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $1,469.60

Change: +3.96%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $998.42 Billion (+3.38%)

The U.S. Justice Department has been conducting an anti-trust investigation against Google and its digital advertising practices for more than a year and published reports in The New York Times and other media throughout September suggest that an anti-trust lawsuit is imminent.

On July 27 the board of directors of Google parent company Alphabet authorized the repurchase of an additional $28 billion of the company’s Class C capital stock.

In 2020 Google’s cloud revenue has soared with so many people working from home while the company’s core advertising revenue has slowed because of the recession.

For the first six months (ended June 30) of 2020 Alphabet reported revenue of $79.46 billion, up 5.5 percent from $75.28 billion in the first six months of 2019. Net income for the six-month period was $13.80 billion, down 17 percent from $16.60 billion one year earlier.

Microsoft

CEO: Satya Nadella

June 30, 2020 Close: $203.51

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $210.33

Change: +3.35%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $1.59 Trillion (+3.18%)

On June 28 Microsoft announced that it planned to close all 83 of its retail stores and would take a $450 million pre-tax charge against earnings. In July published reports said the software giant had made job cuts across a number of operations and geographies with some reports putting the layoffs at less than 1,000.

On Sept. 21 Microsoft announced a deal to acquire video game software developer ZeniMax Media for $7.5 billion.

For its fiscal 2020 fourth quarter (ended June 30) Microsoft reported revenue of $38.03 billion, up nearly 13 percent from $33.72 billion in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2019. Net income for the quarter was $11.20 billion, down 15 percent from $13.19 billion one year before (when the company recognized a significant tax benefit).

For all of fiscal 2020 (ended June 30) Microsoft reported revenue of $143.02 billion, up nearly 14 percent from $125.84 billion in fiscal 2019. Net income for the year was $44.28 billion, up nearly 13 percent from $39.24 billion one year before.

Seagate Technology

CEO: Dave Mosley

June 30, 2020 Close: $48.41

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $49.27

Change: +1.78%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $12.64 Billion (+1.75%)

For the fiscal 2020 fourth quarter (ended July 3) Seagate reported revenue of $2.52 billion, up more than 6 percent from $2.37 billion in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2019. Net income for the quarter was $166 million, down 83 percent from $983 million (including a $692 million tax benefit) one year earlier.

For all of fiscal 2020 Seagate reported revenue of $10.51 billion, up 1.1 percent from $10.39 billion in fiscal 2019. Net income for the fiscal year was just over $1 billion, down 50 percent from $2.01 billion one year before.

FireEye

CEO: Kevin Mandia

June 30, 2020 Close: $12.18

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $12.35

Change: +1.40%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $2.78 Billion (+2.62%)

On June 18 FireEye hired Thomson Reuters CISO Brad Maiorino as the security technology company’s new chief strategy officer.

For the first six months (ended June 30) of 2020 FireEye reported revenue of $454.6 million, up more than 6 percent from $428.2 million in the first six months of 2019. The company reported a net loss of $129.6 million for the six-month period compared to a $142.7 million net loss one year before.

IBM

CEO: Arvind Krishna

June 30, 2020 Close: $120.77

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $121.67

Change: +0.75%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $108.36 Billion (+1.05%)

In January IBM announced that CEO Virginia Rometty would step down as CEO, becoming executive chairman before retiring at the end of 2020. Arvind Krishna, IBM’s senior vice president for cloud and cognitive software, was named IBM’s new CEO, effective April 6.

James Whitehurst, IBM senior vice president and CEO of Red Hat, which IBM acquired in July 2019, was named IBM president.

In May IBM was reported to have undertaken widespread layoffs throughout the company.

On Oct. 8, after the period covered by this analysis, IBM announced a plan to spin off its Global Technology Services managed infrastructure services unit to create a publicly held company with revenue of $19 billion and more than 4,600 clients.

For the first six months (ended June 30) of 2020 IBM reported revenue of $35.69 billion, down 4.4 percent from $37.34 billion in the first six months of 2019. Net income for the six-month period was $2.54 billion, down 38 percent from $4.09 billion one year before.

NetApp

CEO: George Kurian

June 30, 2020 Close: $44.37

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $43.84

Change: -1.19%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $9.73 Billion (-1.11%)

On May 12 storage and cloud data services vendor NetApp announced that it had hired former Microsoft executive Cesar Cernuda as president.

On July 13 NetApp completed its acquisition of Spot, a developer of technology used to manage and optimize compute operations on public clouds. That followed the company’s acquisition of virtual desktop infrastructure provider CloudJumper in April.

For its fiscal 2021 first quarter (ended July 31) NetApp reported annualized recurring revenue of $178 million, a 192 percent year-over-year increase and all-flash array annualized net revenue run rate of $2.3 billion. For the quarter NetApp reported total revenue of $1.30 billion, up 5.4 percent from $1.24 billion in the first quarter of fiscal 2020. Net income for the quarter was $77 million, down 25 percent from $103 million one year earlier.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

CEO: Antonio Neri

June 30, 2020 Close: $9.73

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $9.37

Change: -3.70%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $12.05 Billion (-3.58%)

On Sept. 21 Hewlett Packard Enterprise completed its $925 million acquisition of SD-WAN technology leader Silver Peak.

In 2020 HPE has focused on expanding sales of its GreenLake Everything-as-a-Service offering and growing sales of its hyper-converged systems.

For the first nine months (ended July 31) of fiscal 2020 Hewlett Packard Enterprise reported revenue of $19.77 billion, down nearly 10 percent from $21.92 billion in the first three quarters of fiscal 2019. The company reported a net loss of $479 million for the three-quarter period compared to net income of $569 million one year earlier.

Splunk

CEO: Doug Merritt

June 30, 2020 Close: $198.70

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $188.13

Change: -5.32%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $30.18 Billion (-4.41%)

In September Splunk disclosed that Susan St. Ledger, who joined Splunk in 2016 and had served as president of worldwide field operations since October 2017 was leaving the company for a leadership position with another technology company that Splunk described as a partner.

As a result, the company promoted John Sabino, senior vice president of customer success, to chief customer officer and Christian Smith, senior vice president of global sales, to chief revenue officer. And Chief Marketing Officer Carrie Palin now reports directly to CEO Doug Merritt.

For the first six months (ended July 31) of its fiscal 2021 Splunk reported revenue of $925.7 million, down 1.7 percent from $941.4 million in the first six months of fiscal 2020. The company reported a net loss of $566.9 million for the six-month period compared to the $256.3 million loss one year before.

AT&T

CEO: John Stankey

June 30, 2020 Close: $30.23

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $28.51

Change: -5.69%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $203.13 Billion (-5.69%)

In April AT&T announced that CEO Randall Stephenson would retire as of July 1. AT&T president and chief operating officer John Stankey was named the new CEO.

On June 16 AT&T said it would cut more than 3,400 jobs and shutter more than 250 retail stores as a direct result of the pandemic-induced recession.

For the first six months (ended June 30) of 2020 AT&T reported operating revenue of $83.73 billion, down 6.7 percent from $89.78 billion in the first six months of 2019. Net income for the six-month period was $5.89 billion, down more than 25 percent from $7.81 billion one year before.

AT&T will release its third quarter results on Oct. 22.

Juniper Networks

CEO: Rami Rahim

June 30, 2020 Close: $22.86

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $21.50

Change: -5.95%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $7.13 Billion (-5.83%)

On Sept. 28 Juniper Networks announced an agreement to acquire Netrounds, developer of a programmable, software-based active test and service assurance platform for fixed and mobile networks.

For the first six months (ended June 30) of 2020 Juniper reported revenue of $2.08 billion, down nearly 1 percent from $2.10 billion in the first half of 2019. Net income for the six-month period was $81.6 million, up 5.6 percent from $77.3 million one year before.

The company will announce its third quarter results on Oct. 27.

BlackBerry

CEO: John Chen

June 30, 2020 Close: $4.89

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $4.59

Change: -6.13%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $2.57 Billion (-5.31%)

For the first six months (ended Aug. 31) of fiscal 2021, BlackBerry reported revenue of $465 million, down more than 5 percent from $491 million in the first six months of fiscal 2020. The company reported a $659 million net loss for the six-month period (including a $594 million impairment of goodwill charge from the first quarter), compared to a $79 million net loss one year earlier.

Nutanix

CEO: Dheeraj Pandey

June 30, 2020 Close: $23.70

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $22.18

Change: -6.41%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $4.48 Billion (-3.66%)

On Aug. 27 CEO Dheeraj Pandey, who founded Nutanix 11 years ago and built it into a $1.6 billion company and hyperconverged technology leader, stunned the industry when he announced a plan to retire. A CEO search committee of the Nutanix board of directors is looking for a replacement and Pandey is remaining on the job until a new CEO is chosen.

On Aug. 27 Nutanix announced a $750 million investment (in convertible senior notes) from Bain Capital Private Equity to support growth initiatives.

For the fiscal 2020 fourth quarter (ended July 31) Nutanix reported revenue of $327.9 million, up 9.3 percent from $299.9 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2019. The company reported a $185.3 million net loss for the quarter compared to a $194.3 million loss one year earlier.

For all of fiscal 2020 (ended July 31) Nutanix reported revenue of $1.31 billion, up 5.8 percent from $1.24 billion in fiscal 2019. The company recorded a $872.9 million loss for the year compared to the $621.2 million loss one year before.

Citrix Systems

CEO: David Henshall

June 30, 2020 Close: $147.91

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $137.71

Change: -6.90%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $17.01 Billion (-6.83%)

For the first six months (ended June 30) of 2020 Citrix reported revenue of $1.66 billion, up 13 percent from $1.47 billion in the first half of 2019. Net income for the six-month period was $294.1 million, up more than 44 percent from $203.8 million one year before.

Citrix will report its third quarter financial results on Oct. 22.

VMware

CEO: Pat Gelsinger

June 30, 2020 Close: $154.86

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $143.67

Change: -7.23%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $60.36 Billion (-6.99%)

In July Dell Technologies confirmed that the company was in the early stages of considering whether to spin off its 81 percent equity stake in virtualization leader VMware.

On July 1 VMware announced a deal to acquire hyper-converged infrastructure startup Datrium for an undisclosed sum. VMware is expected to leverage Datrium’s technology to enhance its cloud data backup and disaster recovery offerings.

For the first six months (ended July 31) of its fiscal 2021 VMware reported revenue of $5.61 billion, up 10.4 percent from $5.08 billion in the first six months of fiscal 2020. Net income for the six-month period was $833 million, down from $5.65 billion (including a one-time $4.9 billion income tax benefit) one year before.

Extreme Networks

CEO: Ed Meyercord

June 30, 2020 Close: $4.34

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $4.02

Change: -7.37%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $499.07 Million (-4.34%)

On July 9 Extreme Networks appointed Chief Product Officer Nabil Bukhari to the additional role of chief technology officer.

For its fiscal 2020 fourth quarter (ended June 30) Extreme reported revenue of $215.5 million, down 14.6 percent from $252.4 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2019. The company reported a net loss of $21.2 million for the quarter compared to a $17.1 million net loss one year earlier.

For all of fiscal 2020 (ended June 30) Extreme reported revenue of $948.0 million, down 4.8 percent from $995.8 million in fiscal 2019. The company reported a $126.8 million net loss for the year compared to the $25.9 million loss one year before.

F5 Networks

CEO: Francois Locoh-Donou

June 30, 2020 Close: $139.48

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $122.77

Change: -11.98%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $7.51 Billion (-11.58%)

For the first nine months (ended June 30) of fiscal 2020 F5 Networks reported revenue of $1.74 billion, up 5 percent from $1.65 billion in the first nine months of fiscal 2019. Net income for the nine-month period was $229.8 million, down 31 percent from $332.9 million one year earlier.

Intel

CEO: Robert Swan

June 30, 2020 Close: $59.83

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $51.78

Change: -13.45%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $220.22 Billion (-13.07%)

Keeping up a pace set in the first half of 2020, Intel in the third quarter continued to launch a steady stream of new processor products. In early September the company unveiled its 11th-generation Core processors, code-named Tiger Lake, for ultra-thin laptops. The chips will compete against the Ryzen 4000 mobile processors being offered by rival AMD.

On Sept. 23 Intel appointed Saf Yeboah-Amankwah as senior vice president and chief strategy officer.

On Aug. 19 Intel initiated $10 billion accelerated share repurchase agreements.

For the first six months (ended June 27) of 2020 Intel reported revenue of $39.56 billion, up more than 21 percent from $32.57 billion in the first half of 2019. Net income for the six-month period was $10.77 billion, up 32 percent from $8.15 billion one year before.

Intel will report its fiscal 2020 third quarter results on Oct. 22.

Fortinet

CEO: Ken Xie

June 30, 2020 Close: $137.27

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $117.81

Change: -14.18%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $19.07 Billion (-14.11%)

On July 20 Platform security vendor Fortinet announced that it had acquired cloud security startup Opaq Networks in a move to expand its offerings for protecting distributed networks.

For the first six months (ended June 30) of 2020 Fortinet reported revenue of $1.19 billion, up 20 percent from $994.3 million in the first six months of 2019. The company reported net income of $216.1 million for the six-month period, up more than 64 percent from $131.5 million one year earlier.

The company will announce its third quarter results on Oct. 29.

Cloudera

CEO: Robert Bearden

June 30, 2020 Close: $12.72

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $10.89

Change: -14.39%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $3.37 Billion (-10.35%)

In June reports surfaced that Cloudera, in which Carl Icahn is a major investor, was exploring a potential sale of the company.

For the first six months (ended July 31) of fiscal 2021 Cloudera reported revenue of $424.8 million, up nearly 11 percent from $384.2 million in the first six months of fiscal 2020. The company reported a net loss of $94.0 million for the six-month period compared to a $190.2 million loss one year earlier.

Cisco Systems

CEO: Chuck Robbins

June 30, 2020 Close: $46.64

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $39.39

Change: -15.54%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $166.76 Billion (-15.32%)

On July 31 Cisco said it had acquired Swedish video analytics provider Modcam, bringing in technology that will add more intelligence to Cisco’s Meraki smart camera portfolio. On Aug. 25 Cisco announced a deal to acquire BabbleLabs, which develops noise removal and speech enhancement technology for video conferences. (The acquisition was completed Oct. 1.)

Those followed the deal announced May 28 to acquire network monitoring company ThousandEyes for nearly $1 billion. (The acquisition was completed Aug. 7.)

In mid-August Cisco Systems implemented a $1 billion cost-cutting plan that included layoffs and the company’s potential exit from unprofitable IT markets.

For its fiscal 2020 fourth quarter (ended July 25) Cisco reported revenue of $12.15 billion, down 9.5 percent from $13.43 billion in the fiscal 2019 fourth quarter. Net income for the quarter was $2.64 billion, up more than 19 percent from $2.21 billion one year before.

For all of fiscal 2020 (ended July 25) Cisco reported revenue of $49.30 billion, down 5 percent from $51.90 billion in fiscal 2019. Net income for the fiscal year was $11.21 billion, down 3.5 percent from $11.62 billion one year earlier.

Western Digital Corp.

CEO: David Goeckeler

June 30, 2020 Close: $44.15

Sept. 30, 2020 Close: $36.55

Change: -17.21%

Sept. 30, 2020 Market Cap: $11.06 Billion (-16.44%)

On March 5 Western Digital announced the appointment of David Goeckeler as the company’s new CEO, replacing Steve Milligan who previously announced his retirement. Goeckeler joined Western Digital from Cisco Systems where he was executive vice president and general manager of the company’s $34 billion networking and security business.

For the company’s fiscal 2020 fourth quarter (ended July 3) Western Digital reported revenue of $4.29 billion, up 18 percent from $3.63 billion in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2019. Net income for the quarter was $148 million compared to the $197 million net loss reported one year before.

For all of fiscal 2020 (ended July 3) Western Digital reported revenue of $16.74 billion, up 1 percent from $16.57 billion in fiscal 2019. The company reported a net loss of $250 million for the fiscal year compared to a $754 million net loss one year earlier.