The Wall Street Journal's
All Things Digital Conference
will take place from today until Thursday, May 31st. Apple's CEO,
Tim Cook, is expected to be the first speaker at 6pm PT
tonight.
This will be the 10th annual All Things Digital Conference and
according its website, this year's conference is currently sold
out.
The conference will highlight speeches by influential leaders
from some of the nation's most notable technology companies. Over
the past decade, the conference has built a reputation for
breaking news and unveiling innovations that have the potential
to move stocks.
In addition to featuring Apple (NASDAQ:
AAPL
) CEO Tim Cook, this year's conference will feature CEOs of three
other publicly traded companies: Oracle (NASDAQ:
ORCL
), Zynga (NASDAQ:
ZNGA
) and LinkedIn (NYSE:
LNKD
).
These four companies may see share price movements related to
their CEOs' speeches, a possibility that makes all four of them
stocks to watch:
Apple:
The future of Apple has been a point of contention. Shares of
Apple have risen more than 40% year to date, but have declined
around 10% since their peak in early April. The consumer
electronics firm is currently the largest US company by market
capitalization. If Apple unveils a new product such as Apple TV
at the conference, shares of the company may see significant
price movement.
Apple has provided its shareholders tremendous capital
appreciation over the past decade, but at this point, its
relatively modest price-to-earnings ratio might be an indicator
that investors are skeptical about whether its strong profit
growth can continue. Apple has disproven nay-sayers many times in
the past, but could the company follow in the footsteps of Sony
(NYSE:
SNE
) and fall from glory?
Oracle:
Shares of Oracle have essentially amplified the major movements
of the S&P 500 index year to date, up 18% year to date at
their peak in March, but now up around 4% year to date.
Some
commentators
are anticipating increases in Oracle's stock price as a result of
recent acquisitions and a secular trend toward cloud computing.
Others are getting impatient after Oracle, over the past twelve
months, has reported less-than-explosive earnings growth and has
seen an approximate 20.5% stock price decline.
Zynga:
Social game provider Zynga's share price has declined more than
20% since the day of Facebook's (NASDAQ:
FB
) IPO. This IPO may have detracted from Zynga's value as a
publicly traded proxy for Facebook.
The company has recently released news about a deal with
DreamWorks to advertise on the game "Draw Something." But with
little other positive news about the company, Zynga's CEO may
feel pressure to provide investors with a reason to be optimistic
about the stock.
LinkedIn:
This professional networking site has seen share price growth of
more than 55% year to date, after the company has been one of the
few internet stocks that are currently profitable and projecting
significant earnings growth. LinkedIn has a lofty
price-to-earnings ratio near 611.
Will LinkedIn grow quickly enough to justify a
price-to-earnings ratio this high? The consensus analyst estimate
for this fiscal year's asjusted earnings per share is $0.68 and
for the following fiscal year is $1.22, an anticipated increase
of approximately 79.5%.
Other companies
sending speakers to the conference include Google (NASDAQ:
GOOG
), Disney (NYSE:
DIS
), Microsoft (NASDAQ:
MSFT
), Spotify and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byer.
Shares of streaming music provider Pandora (NYSE:
P
) have already traded more than 4% lower today, perhaps partly in
anticipation of a speech at the conference by the CEO of Spotify,
one of Pandora's competitors.
Some speakers will be
streamed live
from the conference. A schedule is available on the conference's
website
.
Disclosure: At the time of this writing, I did not own
shares of any companies mentioned in this post.
(c) 2012 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment
advice. All rights reserved.