Outlook 2024: Opportunities in technology
THE information technology (IT) sector had an eventful 2023, with underpinnings that we believe set it up well for another year of potentially strong performance in 2024.
Four key factors that we believe can drive returns for the sector are:
- An inflection in revenue and earnings growth after several quarters of pandemic-era demand digestion;
- Resilient secular demand for digital transformation and the “application” phase of generative artificial intelligence (AI);
- A more stable inflation and interest rate environment; and
- Reasonable valuations on a growth-relative basis.
Sector growth poised to outperform the broader market
We’ve seen the IT sector become more disciplined and profitable over the past year, as the cost of capital increased and growth decelerated following outsized Covid-era demand. After this period of IT budget-cutting, we believe businesses need to reinvest or risk falling behind on their digitalisation initiatives.
We’ve been closely tracking signals that suggest this period of rationalisation is shifting to one of stabilisation, and we think a re-acceleration in 2024 is the likely next step. This is reflected in current market estimates for sector revenue growth rates well above the broader market (S&P 500 Index).
Disciplined expense management is expected to contribute to significant earnings leverage for the sector, potentially leading to double-digit earnings growth substantially ahead of the market.
Resilient demand for digital transformation and AI
Our confidence in above-market growth for the technology sector is bolstered by our assessment of strong demand for generative AI applications, which we believe will edge into the “application” stage for enterprise businesses in 2024.
We’re currently in the “build-out and experimentation” phase – a period of high research and development intensity, and capital expenditure which benefited semiconductor, hardware and cloud-computing companies in 2023. Such companies include several of the so-called “Magnificent Seven” (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla).
We’re now seeing businesses investing in the infrastructure and tools necessary to make better use of their vast amounts of proprietary data. This data can also be used in combination with generative AI models to dramatically improve productivity and the customer experience.
In the application stage, we’ll see more use cases emerge, and more technology companies deploying generative AI to increase the value of their product or service. In this transition, we expect to see more beneficiaries further down the market-capitalisation spectrum, particularly in industries such as software and Internet services.
A more stable interest rate environment
Inflation appears to be easing in the United States and several other key geographies, with recent US Consumer Price Index data particularly encouraging. In November, the Federal Reserve once again chose to pause, rather than increase, interest rates.
We believe these signs of disinflation are encouraging. For the higher-growth technology sector, stable or declining yields are generally supportive of valuation, and as we look to 2024, we continue to assume a stable yield environment.
Reasonable growth-relative valuation
While the 2023 rally brought an increase in sector valuation multiples, we’d note that this multiple expansion was concentrated in the mega-cap companies, and that it generally coincided with improving forward earnings expectations as the year progressed.
When looking at the price-to-earnings relative to growth (PEG) ratio of the MSCI World Information Technology Index, we’d highlight that the current PEG stands just slightly above the five-year average.
In other words, despite the strong performance in the sector year-to-date, we don’t believe investors are currently paying excessively for the sector’s attractive secular growth and quality characteristics.
The writers are from Franklin Equity Group. Jonathan Curtis is chief investment officer and Matthew Cioppa is a portfolio manager.
