Big Data refers to vast and diverse collections of structured, unstructured and semi-structured data that inundate businesses on a day-to-day basis. It encompasses the volume of information spurred by digital technology advancements, the velocity or speed at which it is created and collected, and the variety or scope of the data points being covered (known as the "three V's" of Big Data). Over the past few years, three additional V's have gained precedence - value, variability and veracity.

By defining big data space, we focus on companies that process, store and analyze data providing data mining, transformation, visualization and predictive analytics tools. Here we select four such companies — ANSYS Inc. ANSS, Datadog Inc. DDOG, PROS Holdings Inc. PRO and Varonis Systems Inc. VRNS.

These stocks have impressive price upside potential for the short term. Each of our picks currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Utility of Big Data

Big Data is utilized in advanced analytics applications like predictive modeling and machine learning to solve business problems and make informed decisions. The latest high-end digital mobility advancements such as the Internet of Things (IoT), and artificial intelligence (AI) resulted in rapidly growing data. Consequently, new big data tools have emerged to collect, process, and analyze data to derive maximum value out of it.

Big data offers better decision making and risk management on the part of corporates. Big data has also increased agility and innovation, making operations more efficient, resulting in improved customer experiences.

Buy Four Big Data Stocks With Solid Short-Term Price Upside

ANSYS Inc.

Ansys’ performance is being driven by demand for its solutions in the automotive and high-tech industries. In the second quarter of 2024, ANSS won two major multi-year contracts worth $210 million, across these sectors in the Americas region. Strength in the high-tech industry, led by ongoing development in AI, augurs well. Momentum in subscription lease licenses is a tailwind.

Subscription lease revenues (36.8% of revenues) were up 64.4% year over year at constant currency. We believe that ANSS has significant growth opportunities from the rising complexity in product design due to the rapid adoption of IoT in the manufacturing industry. ANSS’ growing demand for energy efficient products is also a key catalyst.

Strong Short-Term Price Upside for ANSS Stock

Ansys has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of 9.6% and 13.2%, respectively, for the current year. The average short-term price target of brokerage firms represents an increase of 10.6% from the last closing price of $308.92. The brokerage target price is currently in the range of $295-$375.

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Datadog Inc.

Datadog is benefiting from new customer additions and increased adoption of its cloud-based monitoring and analytics platform, driven by accelerated digital transformation and cloud migration across organizations. DDOG’s solid adoption of Synthetics and Network Performance Monitoring products is expected to aid customer wins in the near term.

Contributions from a solid cloud partner base, including Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services, remain a key growth driver for DDOG besides an expanding portfolio. Considering the abovementioned factors, we expect 2024 net sales to increase 22% from 2023.

DDOG Shares Offer Robust Short-Term Price Potential

Datadog has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of 23.4% and 23.5%, respectively, for the current year. The average short-term price target of brokerage firms represents an increase of 33.6% from the last closing price of $108.12. The brokerage target price is currently in the range of $98-$160.

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PROS Holdings Inc.

PROS Holdings is a leading provider globally of pricing and revenue optimization software products, specializing in price analytics, price execution, and price optimization. By using PRO’s software products, companies gain insight into their pricing strategies, identify pricing-based profit leaks, optimize their pricing decision making and improve their business processes and financial performance.

PRO’s software products implement advanced pricing science, which includes operations research, forecasting and statistics. PRO also provides a range of services that include analyzing a company's current pricing processes and implementing software products to improve pricing performance.

Astonishing Short-Term Price Upside for PRO Stock

PROS Holding has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of 8.8% and more than 100%, respectively, for the current year. The average short-term price target of brokerage firms represents an increase of 103.9% from the last closing price of $17.10. The brokerage target price is currently in the range of $31-$40.

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Varonis Systems Inc.

Varonis Systems provides an innovative software platform that allows enterprises to map, analyze, manage and migrate their unstructured data in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and internationally. VRNS’ products include DatAdvantage, DataPrivilege, IDU Classification Framework, Data Transport Engine and DatAnywhere.

VRNS sells its products to small and medium businesses, and large multinational enterprises in financial services, consumer and retail, industrial, healthcare, and energy and utilities industries.

VRNS Share Has Impressive Short-Term Price Upside

Varonis Systems has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of 11.8% and 29.5%, respectively, for next year. The average short-term price target of brokerage firms represents an increase of 13.9% from the last closing price of $51.43. The brokerage target price is currently in the range of $46-$67.

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