It has been a rough year for the tech sector, as buyers pulled out of growth shares these as tech amid soaring inflation, desire rate hikes and other headwinds that have remaining traders clamoring for safer bets. The tech-weighty Nasdaq Composite is down all-around 30% this yr. That’s worse than the broad-centered S & P 500 , which has fared superior, with a 17% decrease in the exact same period. Meanwhile, layoffs and other charge-slicing steps at big tech firms this kind of as Amazon, Meta , Tesla and even Microsoft have additional to the pessimism in the sector. Trader confidence in the sector might have been battered, but leading tech investor Paul Meeks explained he’s now “extra bullish” on it than he was in latest months, even though he continues to be selective. E-commerce Meeks is keeping away from the e-commerce room altogether, citing considerations about “lackluster” on line Xmas shelling out in the United States and the return of Covid shutdowns in China. “In China, I was commencing to feel greater about the prospects for online profits expansion as the federal government had commenced to unwind regulations on Chinese engineering companies and considering the fact that there were less Covid-19 limitations, but, of training course, now pandemic shutdowns are back in that state,” Meeks, portfolio supervisor at Unbiased Methods Prosperity Administration, claimed in notes shared with CNBC. “Consequently, it truly is also too risky to spend a lot in these Chinese [internet] shares now although I choose them to their U.S. counterparts due to the fact they have improved likely upside when China’s economy reaccelerates mainly because their valuations are a lot less costly and consequently, they are extra desirable than their U.S. brethren,” he included. Among the the world’s main e-commerce stocks, Meeks explained he prefers JD.com to Alibaba and Amazon , nevertheless he suggested that “buyers wait around to invest in any of them.” Cyber shares Cyber stocks, like practically anything else in the broader tech sector, have not been spared from this year’s tech rout. But they’ve been extra resilient than the rest of the sector. The 1st Have confidence in Nasdaq Cybersecurity ETF (CIBR) and the iShares Cybersecurity and Tech ETF (IHAK) are both equally down by about 22% this calendar year, much less than the Nasdaq’s 30% drop. And Meeks is a enthusiast. “I go on to like cybersecurity, which will improve as a result of any kind of economic downturn. There is a corporation known as Palo Alto Networks. I however consider the cloud has a whole lot of legs, not just in the US, but also overseas,” he advised CNBC’s ” Street Indications Asia ” on Tuesday. Meeks is just not the only 1 bullish on Palo Alto . About 90% of analysts masking the stock gave it a “invest in” ranking and an typical upside of 27.5%, in accordance to FactSet knowledge. Within just the cloud segment, Meeks likes Arista Networks , Microsoft , Oracle and knowledge storage firm Pure Storage . Semiconductors It is really been a hard yr so significantly for the when-booming semiconductor sector. In a indication of just how bearish the market has turned on it, the ProShares UltraShort Semiconductors ETF , an inverse exchange-traded fund that bets in opposition to the sector, has returned almost 29% this 12 months, while the PHLX Semiconductor Sector Index (SOX) is down about 32% in the exact same interval. The semiconductor sector has, having said that, recovered marginally, with the SOX up 14.9% given that the conclusion of the third quarter. Meeks counts a number of chip shares in his portfolio, preferring names with exposure to the industrial and car sector. His picks include things like NXP semiconductors , ASML , Broadcom and Taiwan Semiconductor Production Organization .