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Trade Alert: Two stocks for The 5G Revolution basket

Cody Willard

Cody Willard

— 2 min read

Markets, markets, markets! Will they ever pullback? Will the bulls’ fear of downside ever outweigh the fear of missing out? Yes, most certainly. But today might not be that day just yet.

Here are a few questions to ponder about the stock market, if you’re so inclined: Does anybody expect the stock markets will rocket through the all-time highs this year at some point? Does anybody expect the stock markets will fall below their Christmas Eve 2018 lows? Is everybody expecting a range bound year from here?

If you dig down past the stock market indices, you’ll find thousands of stocks that are still down 50% or more from their September 2018 highs — even though most of those same stocks are up 10-40% so far this year.

I’ve been digging more into The 5G Revolution. And I’m growing increasingly certain that the small cells and densification of the cellular tower network is probably the best way to invest in The 5G Revolution for the next five (and maybe ten years).

Carriers have spent the last couple years spending their 5G money on preparing the core of the network to handle all the increased traffic that will come from 5G. The wireless carriers like Verizon and AT&T and Deutsche Telecom and so on will have to continue spending on the core for the next couple years too as they roll out 5G services around the world. But they’ll really have to start spending more money on putting 5G antennas on top of light poles, buildings, parking lots, stadiums and so on.

The giant wireless towers you see around already aren’t going anywhere, but 5G requires many more antennas to make it work. (More spectrum too but let’s save that discussion for another day.)

Two of the best ways to play the 5G small cell rollout in coming quarters will be:

Commscope COMM. The company sells 5G small cell antennas to T-Mobile and other carriers. That said, the company is in the midst of a big acquisition of a related company, ARRS, that will close in the first half of 2019 . COMM just pre-announced a pretty good quarter and we’ll find out more on the earnings report call on February 21. I’ve been buying some common stock n this name and have left myself room to nibble more as usual.

Dycom DY. The company’s workers are the ones who actually go out on the light poles and stadiums and wire up those small cell antennas is another stock I’ve been buying here (but leaving room to buy more later, of course). More than once in the last week as I’ve been talking to people in the wireless tower industry, they’ve mentioned how strong demand for “climbers” and “skilled labor” is. Dycom might be in a sweet spot near-term in addition to being a good play on the small cell 5G roll out in coming years.

You can consider the following list in alphabetical order to be my working basket of stocks for The 5G Revolution. I’ll probably force myself to remove one of these before adding any other 5G names to the portfolio:

  • ADTN
  • COMM
  • DY
  • INTC
  • QCOM
  • QRVO
  • VIAV
  • VZ

Stay connected, rock on, be contrarian.

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