As cyber theft and hacking continues to grow, mir or small cap stocks like Splunk Inc (NASDAQ: SPLK), Imation Corp (NYSE: IMN) and Staffing 360 Solutions Inc (OTCBB: STAF) are some overlooked, indirect or just plain interesting plays on cybersecurity that investors might want to take note of:
Splunk Inc. Providing a leading software platform for real-time Operational Intelligence, Splunk Inc software and cloud services enable organizations to search, monitor, analyze and visualize machine-generated big data coming from websites, applications, servers, networks, sensors and mobile devices. Specifically, more than 7,400 enterprises, government agencies, universities and service providers in over 90 countries use Splunk Inc software to deepen business and customer understanding, mitigate cybersecurity risk, prevent fraud, improve service performance and reduce cost. Splunk Inc is also looking for growth overseas in order to secure a beachhead there with the company planning to commit $20 million this year to expand international facilities, including in the UK and China. However, it should also be mentioned that Splunk Inc made its IPO in 2012 at $17 a share and peaked at $106 in February before settling back at the $45 range as analysts have tempered their growth forecasts for the company. After its last earnings report when shares took a hit, Cantor Fitzgerald analysts commented:
"In our view, the upbeat tone of Splunk's call last night was diametrically opposed to the weakness in the stock price over the past three months. As investors begin to separate the wheat from the chaff in the cloud and Big Data world, we believe the sentiment around Splunk will ultimately turn more positive and the stock will reflect the attractive growth characteristics of the business."
On Thursday, Splunk Inc rose 2.10% to $45.75 (SPLK has a 52 week trading range of $39.35 to $106.15 a share) for a market cap of $5.42 billion plus the stock is down 33.6% since the start of the year, up 5.4% over the past year and up 26.4% over the past five years.
Imation Corp. A global data storage and data security company, Imation Corp products and solutions help organizations and individuals store, manage and protect their digital content. Specifically, Imation Corp's storage and security portfolio includes Nexsan high-density, archive and solid-state optimized unified hybrid storage solutions; IronKey mobile security solutions that address the needs of professionals for secure data transport and mobile workspaces; and consumer storage solutions, audio products and accessories sold under the Imation, Memorex and TDK Life on Record brands. In the last earnings report, the CEO commented:
"In 2011, we embarked on a strategic transformation to leverage Imation's roots in data storage to become a major player in higher-growth, higher-margin industry segments. Since then, we have exited two low-margin consumer electronics businesses, acquired NexsanTM and built a mobile security portfolio. We have done this with urgency, since approximately 65 percent of our volume is in declining businesses."
Imation Corp did report a 20.3% decline in net revenue to $178.9 million and a loss per diluted share from continuing operations of $0.41 verses $0.39 with the CEO commenting:
"Performance in our Consumer Storage and Accessories segment came in stronger than anticipated, with our Tiered Storage and Security Solutions segment a bit soft. As our growth investments in sales and channel resources and new products take root, and as the sluggish IT environment improves, we expect our revenues in this segment to increase."
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On Thursday, Imation Corp fell 2.02% to $3.40 (IMN has a 52 week trading range of $3.25 to $6.60 a share) for a market cap of $142.79 million plus the stock is down 26.2% since the start of the year, down 20.9% over the past year and down 62.4% over the past five years.
Staffing 360 Solutions Inc. Armed with a consolidation strategy that is well suited for the highly fragmented temporary staffing industry, small cap Staffing 360 Solutions intends to become a major international publicly-held staffing organization with diversified staffing services by engaging in a targeted accretive acquisition strategy. Staffing 360 Solutions has already developed a significant pipeline of acquisition targets in the IT, financial, accounting, healthcare and banking industries while one of its existing divisions is Cyber 360 Solutions – which is devoted to finding the top cyber security talent in the industry and is already the leading Cybersecurity contract and full time staffing firm in the US. In fact, Staffing 360 Solutions' management believes that Cyber 360 Solutions is one of the few cybersecurity consulting firms solely dedicated to identifying the top 10% of cybersecurity professionals available for consulting assignments. Moreover, consider the following statistics about cybersecurity relates salaries and jobs:
| $86,170 per year $41.43 per hour |
| Bachelor's degree |
| Less than 5 years |
| None |
| 75,100 |
| 37% (Much faster than average) |
| 27,400 |
Obviously, cybersecurity is could potentially be a lucrative staffing niche for the company. On Thursday, Staffing 360 Solutions fell 2.56% to $1.90 (STAF has a 52 week trading range of $0.55 to $2.19 a share) for a market cap $58.22 million plus the stock is down 5% since the start of the year, up 15.1% over the past year and up 153.3% over the past five years.
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