Important bullet points:

  • 77% of executives expect remote work to increase in the post-corona economy - this profits the stocks of companies providing remote work and team collaboration tools.

  • Slack and Zoom alone have increased in worth by $50 billion since COVID-19 hit.

  • Video and VoIP business telephony providers are seeing their stock values doubling.

  • Team collaboration tools such as Slack, Trello, and Microsoft Teams are driving the stocks of their parent companies.

  • Cloud computing companies have benefited as well, with the BVP Nasdaq Emerging Cloud Index up 31% for the year.

  • Fund company Direxion is setting up a dedicated remote work ETF to trade under the ticker WFH.

The light at the end of the corona tunnel is slowly getting brighter. With lockdown measures gradually relaxing in Europe and Asia, and the rockier reopening of the economy in the US, the stock market is now slowly recovering from its cliff-edge plunge in March.

But the future is still uncertain, especially with the threat of a second wave of the virus looming on the horizon. Many investment decisions still have to rely on shaky assumptions.

One set of stocks, however, has profited massively during the COVID-19 pandemic, and is likely to continue to do so in its aftermath: Companies offering tools for remote work and team communication.

At the height of the pandemic, almost a quarter of the world’s population was under lockdown. As a consequence, work life abruptly shifted online.

In the post-corona business landscape, many companies are now looking to solidify the distributed workforce model adopted during the crisis. The necessary investments have been made, infrastructure has been set up, and skills acquired. Many employees, too, find themselves more productive working from home - and enjoy the flexibility.

Emblematic for this continued shift towards remote work is a recent survey of human capital executives. 77% of them expect that the number of employees working primarily from home will increase post-pandemic.

To aid you in harnessing these developments, here is an overview of the stocks likely to benefit most from the continued trend towards remote work.

Communication Tools

Remote communication tools are integral to a functioning distributed team. Unsurprisingly, providers of such tools have seen their stocks soar during the pandemic, and will likely continue to do so.

The most striking example of a stock skyrocketing due to corona-induced remote work is Zoom. The video communications provider just released its Q1 report on June 03, and the figures vastly exceed earlier estimates.

Zoom’s revenue soared 169% year over year to $328.2 million, compared to the $202.7 million forecast. Share prices are now up 224% for this year, in stark contrast with the S&P 500's overall 9% decline in the same period.

Other communication providers have also seen gains. The VoIP business phone market, in particular, has picked up, following an initial slump at the beginning of March. Stock values for VoIP provider RingCentral have almost doubled since mid-March, rising from $138.96 to a stunning $279.93 at the beginning of June. A similar pattern can be observed for Ring Central’s competitor Vonage, which more than doubled in stock value from $4.53 in mid-March to $10.05 at the beginning of June.

Part of the reason these companies flourish is their adaptability. Besides providing essential voice and video telephony services, many are expanding with team collaboration features to provide a solid basis for distributed workforces.

This is exemplified by Nextiva, recently voted best VoIP business phone service provider by U.S. News. The Arizona-based company has seen solid growth throughout the crisis, but experienced a particular surge in interest following the release of its new team collaboration platform Cospace.

Team Collaboration and Project Management Platforms

Dedicated tools for file sharing, collaborative work, as well as project and team management have also flourished.

Probably the most prominent among these is Slack, a collaboration tool based on chat streams. After a slump mid-March as the market reeled from the impact of the virus, Slack’s stock more than doubled in value, shooting from $14.62 to $35.00 by the first week of June.

Australian SaaS company Atlassian shows a similar development. The company provides enterprise tools for software development, content management, and project management - notably Trello. After plummeting to $120.57 in the second week of March, stock values have bounced back, holding at $183.46 in early June.

Other providers of software are pushing their own team collaboration solutions. Similar to Nextiva’s Cospace release, Microsoft has been making waves with its Teams application.

Initially released in 2017, the platform offers collaboration tools and unified communications. But it only gained real traction after it was pushed to users as the pandemic hit.

Teams expanded massively within mere weeks. It hit 75 million daily active users at the end of May, gaining 31 million users in just under a month. The push seems to have paid off, with Microsoft stocks picking up after the March low, increasing by almost 30%.

Cloud Computing

No distributed workforce model is viable without cloud computing applications. Databases, security, analytics - these are just a few essential services covered by cloud computing companies.

A prime example is Datadog, a platform for analytics, and cloud monitoring tools. Its Q1 results, published last week, show revenues soaring to all-time highs, increasing by 87% this year. Forecasters now expect between $555 and $565 million in full-year revenue.

With businesses increasingly living in the cloud, security grows in importance. Enter CrowdStrike, which offers high-level cloud security. The company’s Falcon platform runs on AI and Big Data to guarantee cloud-native endpoint protection. In its last fiscal year, CrowdStrike’s revenue increased by 93% - a trend that continued throughout the pandemic, with revenue up by 89% in its first quarter of this fiscal year.

In general, the rise of cloud computing platforms to new heights is mirrored in the BVP Nasdaq Emerging Cloud Index. Established in 2013 by Bessemer Venture Partners, this index lists cloud companies - and is currently up 31% for the year.

Final Thoughts

The coronavirus pandemic has wrought a fundamental change in the world of work and business. With infrastructures in place, and a workforce now habituated to remote work, remote teams will continue to flourish in the future.

So far, the increases of remote working and team collaboration stocks are breathtaking. Zoom and Slack alone have gained over $50 billion in worth since COVID-19 hit. Though further surges of this kind are unlikely in the future, banking on tools that power remote work is a solid investment in the uncertain post-corona business landscape.

Finally, another indicator of how important remote teams have become in stock market considerations is given by the fund company Direxion. At the end of April, it filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to launch a new work-from-home ETF. Under the ticker WFH, this ETF would encompass companies likely to benefit from remote work, chiefly cybersecurity, communications, and cloud technology providers.