5 Cloud Stocks Likely to Rally as Coronavirus Drives Remote Working

Source:-finance.yahoo.com

Nearly 80% of Americans have been put under lockdown as coronavirus cases continue to rise in the United States. President Donald Trump has extended the lockdown until Apr 30. So far, 215,344 people have been infected in the United States and the lockdown has forced people to maintain social distancing and work remotely.

In fact, the outbreak is changing the manner in which individuals conduct their day-to-day lives and how they interact with friends and family. It has also impacted the way organizations operate, as employees have been compelled to work from home. A change in working habit has also been observed.

Cloud computing is playing a huge role. The cloud is helping organizations remotely process a lot of information, build and run crucial applications and services, and also helping employees work together from anywhere across the globe.

Cloud Computing to the Rescue Amid Lockdown

Cloud workspaces are based in server-filled data centers, where businesses can store data and software and users can stream it online from any location. Cloud computing also ensures security with user-specific passwords and encryption of files that cannot be opened by unauthorized users. Additionally, in the event of theft of mobile devices or laptops, a security breach can be prevented.

Another major issue that cloud workspace solves is accommodation of a large workforce. This ensures greater level of flexibility, security and scalability to employees who work remotely.

In fact, cloud technology and remote working have helped millions to remain productive amid the coronavirus-led crisis through video conferencing, remote project collaboration and much more. Cloud servers use mission-basic applications that do not put strain on local resources, thus avoiding additional storage pressure on user devices.

Companies can rent nearly limitless amount of computing power from a cloud supplier for a certain time period and avoid the expense of owning it. Overall, cloud computing services range from full applications and development platforms to servers, storage, and virtual desktops.

5 Stocks to Watch

Given the major role that cloud computing is playing during this virus-driven crisis, we are discussing five cloud computing stocks that are likely to rally as the work-from-home trend continues.

Alibaba Group Holding Limited BABA owns cloud computing company, Alibaba Cloud. The platform offers tailored cloud solutions. Alibaba Cloud offers an AI-powered computing platform and super-computing cluster for free to power global research institutions, helping them to accelerate viral gene-sequencing, protein-screening and other research that will help in treating or preventing coronavirus disease.

The company’s expected earnings growth rate for the current year is 31.3% against the Zacks Internet – Commerce industry’s projected earnings decline of 1.7%.Alibabacarriesa Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 (Strong Buy) Rank stocks here.

Amazon.com, Inc.’s AMZN cloud web hosting platformAmazon Web Services (AWS) offers fast, flexible, reliable and cost-effective solutions. AWS also keeps adding features that give it an edge over its competitor. It recently launched Amazon Detectivethat collects AWS log data, and combines it with AI, statistical analysis and graph theory to investigate and identify the root cause of potential security issues or suspicious activities

Additionally, AWS has also announced an initial $20 million to help accelerate research and development of diagnostic solutions, and the program is called AWS Diagnostic Development Initiative. The company’s expected earnings growth rate for the current year is 19.2% against the Zacks Internet – Commerce industry’s projected earnings decline of 1.7%. Amazon.com carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Microsoft Corporation’s MSFT cloud computing platform Azure helps in development, data storage, service management and hosting solutions. Azure allows employers to scale IT resources according to business needs. Per latest reports, the platform currently has more than 44 million daily users, who engage in more than 900 million meeting and calling minutes per day. This shows that the usage of the platform has more than doubled from what it was four months ago, before the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan.