Massive opportunity in 'digital transformation' - Jon Markman joins Alpha Trader

This week's Alpha Trader podcast features hosts Aaron Task and Stephen Alpher talking (mostly) tech with Jon Markman, founder and president of Markman Capital Insight. Before getting into individual stock picks, Markman first looks at the big picture: Going back about 80 years, whenever the Fed steps in to put the brakes on a bear market, one should expect the averages to go up five times over the following ten years. The Fed helped end the bear market, says Markman, on March 23 this year. Applying that 5x multiple to what the Dow (DJI) and the Nasdaq (COMP) were that day leads to 91,000 on the Dow and almost 34,000 on the Nasdaq in roughly 10 years. Before considering that extreme, consider that the S&P 500 (SP500) bottomed in 2009 at 666. Markman's target then for that index was 3,330, which was hit late in 2019. This, of course, doesn't mean that there will be any number of scares and sizable corrections along the way. These should be thought of as buying opportunities, particularly for those companies leading and benefitting from the "digital transformation," which Markman defines as the use of data and software to build new business models. A great example of this is Netflix (NFLX), which over two decades went from being a mail-order DVD business to offering bits of data in the cloud. Tap an image on your electronic device of choice, and the show begins. The company has 193M customers, a $234B market cap, and a stock that's up something like 15,000% over 20 years - all from harnessing the digital revolution. As you might imagine given the major wave he's talking about, Markman doesn't have a ton of interest in Netflix's earnings this week. Over the next 10-20 years, Netflix and others leading the digital revolution - think Amazon (AMZN), Peloton (PTON), and Zoom Video (ZM) to name just three - are all going to be multi-baggers (though Peloton and Zoom might be due for a correction). Now the above are very well-known (and hot) names. Maybe not as well-known, but with an equally great opportunity, is a player like Schrodinger (SDGR), a company delivering healthcare using digital tools. Another digital healthcare play is For those wishing to ride the digital revolution, but undecided about which horse to ride, Markman suggests Visa (V) and Mastercard (MA) as - more than any other companies - perfectly levered to e-commerce and the transformation of money to software. Other digital transformation long ideas discussed in the podcast, include The Trade Desk (TTD), a platform for the buying and selling of digital ad inventory, and enterprise workflow platform operator ServiceNow (NOW). Both have eye-popping charts, but massive opportunity over the next decade still awaits. We couldn't let Markman go without comment on two tech megacaps - Microsoft (MSFT) and Apple (AAPL). He's a fan of Microsoft, giving its post-Ballmer management kudos for moving the focus of the company away from selling devices and instead selling into the high-margin areas of digital space. He's not bullish on Apple though, worried about waning iPhone sales, and questioning the ability of the company to replace that revenue with other devices and services.