As the expansion enters its fifth year, there are signs it is “closer to being self-sustaining,” which is helping to spark interest in technology stocks because these companies’ earnings are cyclical and benefit from an improving economy, said David Katz, who oversees about $850 million as chief investment officer at New York-based Matrix Asset Advisors Inc. “Over the next six to 12 months, tech is going to be a good place to invest.”

Shares of Cisco Systems Inc., Microsoft Corp., Hewlett- Packard Co. and TE Connectivity Ltd. “have done well and are poised to do better” as demand improves, Katz said. Similarly, Workday Inc., Splunk Inc. and Tableau Software Inc. offer “interesting” opportunities with “revenue that’s growing like a weed,” said Erick Maronak, chief investment officer at Victory Capital Management Inc. in New York, which oversees $28 billion.

‘Favorite’ Stocks

Tech stocks now are JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s “favorite” because they offer a “beta play on growth” and attractive fundamentals, said Thomas Lee, the bank’s chief U.S. equity strategist in New York. “Investors haven’t been that excited about this group,” though sentiment has been improving as the prospect of changing Fed policy encourages some repositioning, he said. A stock with a high beta tends to rise or fall more than the broader market.

The equal-weight technology ETF reduces the influence of any one “oversized” company, and while “everybody talks about the big-cap names,” small-cap companies also offer an interesting investment opportunity, Jacobsen said.

Small-cap tech stocks capped their best 10 weeks since 2011 last week, and the Russell 2000 Technology Index has outpaced the Russell 2000 Index by 6.9 percentage points since April 19. The relative performance of both the equal-weighted and small- cap groups shows that “investors have more conviction” in this industry now, said Jim Stellakis, founder and director of research at Greenwich, Connecticut-based research company Technical Alpha Inc. and a chartered market technician.

Clear Sign

If these indexes were to trade above highs set in August 2012 relative to the market, this would be “a clear sign that investors are more comfortable overweighting this sector as their expectations for earnings are improving,” Stellakis said. Another “bullish signal” is that the equal-weight ETF “reversed all of its relative weakness and ended up outperforming the market on June 28,” he said, even as shares of Accenture Plc tumbled 10 percent to $71.96 that day, the biggest decline since August 2011.

The world’s second-largest technology-consulting company and a member of the equal-weight ETF said June 27 that fiscal fourth-quarter revenue will be $6.7 billion to $7 billion, falling short of the $7.36 billion average estimate of analysts, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Less Leveraged