Are these the best tech stocks in 2023?

Decide which are the best tech stocks for you

Data as of 12 July 2023. Sources: Google Finance, and Stake data. All figures are in U.S. Dollars. 

*The list of stocks mentioned is ranked by market cap. When deciding what stocks to feature, we analyse the financials, recent news, the state of the industry, and whether or not they are actively traded on Stake.

Discover our top 10 tech stocks list from the U.S.

1. Apple, Inc. ($AAPL)

Market Capitalisation: $2.98T

Stock price (as of 12/07/2023): $189.77

Stake Platform Bought / Sold (1 Jan 2023 - 12 Jul 2023): 29% / 71%

The technology firm is known for its consumer electronics, software and media services. Apple originally focussed on personal computers, with their Mac computers bringing a new perspective that emphasised design. Their new product launches are highly anticipated events, with iPod in 2001 and iPhone in 2007 shaping their breakout period in the early 2000s. The shift into wearables with the Apple Watch in 2015 took a little longer to catch on with consumers, but they’ve managed to successfully integrate the new products into their ecosystem. 

They've expanded into the digital media content space to complement their existing hardware and software segments. Future growth is also expected to come from the payments sector, as they extend the uses of Apple Pay. Apple is known for its simple, but sophisticated designs across its products. They tend to command high margins, but there are concerns that markets for these kinds of luxury items have become saturated. It’s still not clear whether their Vision Pro headset could take over as a source of revenue growth.

🆚 AAPL vs MSFT stock comparison→

2. Microsoft Corporation ($MSFT)

Market Capitalisation: $2.51T

Stock price (as of 12/07/2023): $337.20

Stake Platform Bought / Sold (1 Jan 2023 - 12 Jul 2023): 26% / 74%

The company remains at the centre of many workplaces with its flagship products such as the Windows operating system, Microsoft Office suite, and Azure cloud computing infrastructure. It’s established a strong hold on customers with the Windows operating system that powers millions of devices, from personal computers to servers. The Office suite, including applications like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, has become a standard in many industries and households.

Microsoft has extended its interests across the software realm. It offers a wide range of developer tools and resources, including Visual Studio, an integrated development environment (IDE) and GitHub, the popular code repository platform. It also offers hardware products like the Surface line of tablets and laptops, the Xbox gaming console, and accessories like keyboards and mice. Microsoft’s partnership with OpenAI has placed it at the forefront of the emerging artificial intelligence (AI) trend in 2023.

💡Related: How to buy Microsoft shares in Australia→

3. Alphabet Inc. Class A Shares ($GOOGL)

Market Capitalisation: $1.51T

Stock price (as of 12/07/2023): $118.93

Stake Platform Bought / Sold (1 Jan 2023 - 12 Jul 2023): 37% / 63%

Alphabet is the holding company for Google Services, Google Cloud and Other Bets. Google Services segment includes products and services such as ads, Android, hardware, Google Maps. Software such as Chrome, Search, and YouTube are leaders in terms of occupying market share. Advertising remains a major revenue driver for the tech business and is likely to be affected by general economic conditions.  

The Google Cloud segment includes infrastructure and platform services, including those for enterprise customers. Applications for collaboration like Gmail, Docs and Drive fall under the Workspace in this category. Other Bets is responsible for earlier-stage technologies, as well as those further from its core business like health technology. These don’t provide significant income streams at the moment but are seen as integral to its future paths, such as the newly merged Deepmind and Google Brain focusing on AI.

🆚 GOOGL vs AMZN stock comparison→

4. Amazon.com Inc. ($AMZN)

Market Capitalisation: $1.34T

Stock price (as of 12/07/2023): $130.80

Stake Platform Bought / Sold (1 Jan 2023 - 12 Jul 2023): 38% / 62%

The e-commerce giant offers a range of products and services to customers. With its base as an online retailer for third parties, Amazon has also started to create its own content and established a physical store presence. It manufactures and sells electronic devices, including Kindle, Fire tablets and smart speakers like Alexa and Echo. The Amazon Prime membership program has been a key strategy to attract new clients interested in streaming services and retain higher spending users.

As ongoing inflation and higher inflation rates impact consumption, revenue growth from this segment could slow. Their Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers various cloud services and infrastructure, being the market leader in this cloud computing space. The unit has also recently launched a suite of AI models named Amazon Bedrock, which other companies can use in their own applications.

5. NVIDIA Corporation ($NVDA)

Market Capitalisation: $1.08T

Stock price (as of 12/07/2023): $439.02

Stake Platform Bought / Sold (1 Jan 2023 - 12 Jul 2023): 29% / 71%

Nvidia is a US-based technology company that designs and manufactures high-performance graphics processing units (GPUs) and system-on-a-chip (SoC) units. These are in demand due to their use in gaming, professional visualisation, and AI applications. This includes demand from those working with robotics, autonomous vehicles and virtual reality. Nvidia also provides data platform solutions, which also cover networking services. 

The stock price surged on the back of positive results for the first quarter of FY2024. 

Nvidia expects significant future demand for their specialised AI chips that could make AI models like ChatGPT run faster and more efficiently. Some have started questioning whether there’s an AI bubble and wonder if semiconductor stocks could pull back later this year.

💡Related: How to buy Nvidia shares in Australia→

6. Meta Platforms Inc ($META)

Market Capitalisation: $792.76B

Stock price (as of 12/07/2023): $309.34

Stake Platform Bought / Sold (1 Jan 2023 - 12 Jul 2023): 26% / 74%

The tech company operates through two segments: Family of Apps (FoA) and Reality Labs (RL). FoA segment includes well-known names like Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp in its collection. Twitter competitor, Threads, is the latest addition. The RL unit covers augmented and VR-related consumer hardware, software, and content work.

The recent launch of Threads indicates a shift away from focusing on metaverse projects, which have struggled to gain traction amongst users and come with high costs. Whether the team can gain revenues and potentially offset these expenses with Threads in the short term remains to be seen. Meta has long integrated AI into its products like Facebook and Instagram. They've released the code behind their LLM model, LLaMA, to the public and built custom computer chips to help with AI tasks.

7. Intel Corporation ($INTC)

Market Capitalisation: $141.73B

Stock price (as of 12/07/2023): $33.98

Stake Platform Bought / Sold (1 Jan 2023 - 12 Jul 2023): 39% / 61% 

Intel designs and manufactures various products and technologies. The firm is known as a leading producer of semiconductor chips and microprocessors used in personal computers, data centres and other applications. Maintaining an edge in this sector does require high investments in research and development. Realising the potential of these efforts and their profits often only occurs in the long term. 

Intel also provides data centre services for businesses that help with storage and networking capabilities. They aim to integrate their products into Internet of Things solutions and for them to come with security features. There’s a focus on high-performance computing, as growth in areas like AI and quantum computing requires optimising ways of working with data intensive workloads.

🆚 INTC vs NVDA stock comparison→

8. Palantir Technologies Inc ($PLTR)

Market Capitalisation: $35.13B

Stock price (as of 12/07/2023): $16.59

Stake Platform Bought / Sold (1 Jan 2023 - 12 Jul 2023): 45% / 55%

Palantir is a software business specialising in software solutions for data analytics and intelligence. The team develops platforms that enable organisations to integrate various data formats, and then analyse and gain insights from large datasets. They also prioritise data privacy and security, as part of ongoing training and technical assistance services to their clients. 

Palantir’s three principal software platforms are named Gotham, Foundry and Apollo. These use AI and other methods to help operators plan and execute real-world responses to threats. There are few details about their activities and the tech company has been criticised for working with various government and defence agencies.

9. CrowdStrike Holdings ($CRWD)

Market Capitalisation: $34.65B

Stock price (as of 12/07/2023): $146.13

Stake Platform Bought / Sold (1 Jan 2023 - 12 Jul 2023): 41% / 59%

CrowdStrike is a cybersecurity company with a specialisation in protection for cloud-based technology endpoints. Their flagship Falcon platform provides real-time threat detection, prevention, and response capabilities across various devices like laptops, servers and desktops. They use machine learning and AI intelligence to try to identify sophisticated cyber threats by monitoring and analysing data patterns across networks. 

CrowdStrike has benefitted from the strong demand for cybersecurity services, as the number of data breaches has increased rapidly in recent years. As more aspects of daily life move into the digital realm, the risk of online attacks is expected to grow further. However, threats are constantly evolving and there’s a risk that the firm could find itself playing catch up.

10. Unity Software ($U)

Market Capitalisation: $16.54B

Stock price (as of 12/07/2023): $43.69

Stake Platform Bought / Sold (1 Jan 2023 - 12 Jul 2023): 40% / 60%

Unity Software has established a platform for content creators. Their offerings include tools for developing real-time three-dimensional, interactive two-dimensional, augmented reality and VR experiences. The content can be published onto various other streaming services and devices. Artists, designers and developers across a range of industries use these tools to bring their ideas to life, although their primary market is online gaming. 

Unity’s Grow Solutions unit provides technologies and strategies for customers to engage their users and monetise their content. The firm’s stock price has benefited from a partnership with Apple and expects their services to be utilised in the Vision Pro headset. Unity is also using generative AI to streamline and extend their capabilities.

How to invest in tech stocks?

Investors can access these technology stocks and the general U.S. market in a few steps through online investment platforms.

1. Open a stock investing account (it takes just a few minutes to sign up to Stake).
2. Fund your account.
3. Assess your investment goals and strategies to determine what kind of shares could fit.
4. Find a suitable tech company or ETF on the platform.
5. Choose the order type and purchase shares of the technology company or ETF.
6. Monitor your investment and check that it continues to match your investment goals.

What tech ETFs are available to invest in?

ETFs can give investors access to the broader market and general tech sector instead of focusing on individual stocks. They provide diversification and can reduce the risk of being exposed to one specific tech stock performing badly. On the other hand, ETF returns are unlikely to reach the same highs as those of the top tech stocks.

Exposure to the largest 100 tech companies listed in the U.S. is possible with ETFs tracking the Nasdaq index, such as Invesco QQQ Trust ($QQQ). Other options to consider are Vanguard Information Technology ETF ($VGT) and Technology Select Sector SPDR ($XLK). 

If investors are worried about the effect a small number of large firms could have on the performance of an ETF, the S&P 500 Equal Weight Technology ETF ($RSPT) adjusts the size of the market caps of all stocks to be equal.

There are also ETFs that focus on specific subsectors and can have different holdings to general tech industry ETFs. For example, the iShares Cybersecurity and Tech ETF ($IHAK) and VanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF ($SMH) will only include companies operating in those areas.

Check out this guide if you are looking for ASX tech ETFs to invest in.

Is it still worth investing in tech stocks?

The tech sector has experienced a rough few years, with the valuations of tech companies falling considerably in 2022. They’ve made a comeback in 2023 and there are questions about whether the path is sustainable into the second half of the year. Industries tend to have periods of over and underperforming, with these cycles often occurring over several years. 

The tech sector is associated with innovation and the recent AI boom has renewed interest in a number of firms. Some technologies play a significant role in shaping our daily lives and others will greatly impact our futures. The specifics of these technologies and whether or not they all translate into success on the stock market is less certain.

Risks of investing in the tech sector

Investors witnessed high levels of decline in tech stock prices in 2022 and there is a risk that a similar downturn could occur again. Many technology stocks have been hit hard by rising interest rates, with valuations often being dependent on future growth rather than existing cash flows and profits.

This trend could also impact the performance of tech firms over the next few years, as many might need to reprioritise their activities and smaller businesses could find raising funds particularly difficult. Like any one sector of the stock market, the tech industry and specific stocks will have periods of good and bad performance.

This does not constitute financial product advice nor a recommendation to invest in the securities listed. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance. As always, do your own research and consider seeking appropriate financial or taxation advice before investing.