Andrew Willis: In the recent “10 for 2023” report from Sustainalytics, Martin Vezér and Poulomi Sengupta combed through Pitchbook and Sustainalytics to find you AI stocks that turn down the noise in data.
Have you ever been sent an excel file that’s loaded with data – and you don’t know where to start? That feeling of information overload happens with companies as well, and Splunk (SPLK) is there to sift and simplify.
Delivering an instant visualization of the status of a hundred servers, for example, while working in the background to detect and address activity that could be problematic – is some of what Splunk does. Users get the data they need to make business-critical decisions quickly, and analyst Malik Ahmed Khan says the business is inherently sticky. And they’re the market leader.
Investors considering narrow-moat Splunk should consider the ESG implications that come with large amounts of data and privacy, however. In their report, Sustainalytics says the company has a data protection officer, but earns a medium risk rating in data privacy and security, noting that employee training and technology audits could be improved. Overall, however, the ESG risk is rated low for Splunk.
Next week, we’ll cover our final stock in the 10 for 2023 series with perhaps the most nascent emerging technology, but one of the most exciting. Let’s just say it involves Rolls-Royce and nuclear energy…
For Morningstar, I’m Andrew Willis.