The Appen Ltd (ASX: APX) share price has been one of the biggest movers on the local share market this morning.
At the time of writing the data solutions and services provider's shares are up a massive 20% to $3.10.
What happened?
After the market closed yesterday the company released a positive announcement which revealed an upgrade to its full-year earnings guidance.
The increasing demand for its high quality data for machine learning-based product development has led management to expect full-year earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) growth of between 40% and 50% on last year's result.
Previous guidance given in its full-year result in February was for mid to high teen EBITDA growth in FY 2017.
Should you invest?
As I said yesterday, I think Appen is a great buy and hold investment option in the information technology sector.
With natural language processing, machine learning, and artificial intelligence increasingly being used to automate business processes and personal tasks, I believe demand for Appen's services is likely to remain strong for the foreseeable future.
So with its shares changing hands at around 29x trailing earnings, I think Appen is great value for money given its current growth profile.
As a result, I would put it up there with Nextdc Ltd (ASX: NXT) and WiseTech Global Ltd (ASX: WTC) as one of the best shares to own in the tech sector.
