Based on key financial metrics such as the price-to-sales ratio, shareholder yield and the price-earnings ratio, the following 6 stocks made the list for top value stocks in the Software industry. Those looking for value stocks to add to their portfolio may want to use this list as a starting point for further investment research.

Why Focus on Undervalued Software Stocks?

Value investors seek to buy stocks at a discount to their intrinsic value. Long-term returns show that such strategies are advantageous. Value stocks, as a group, tend to outperform growth stocks over extended periods of time. Typically, value investors perform financial analysis of numerous metrics, don’t follow the herd and are long-term investors.

AAII’s A+ Investor Value Grade is derived from a stock’s Value Score. The Value Score is the percentile rank of the average of the percentile ranks of the price-to-sales ratio, price-earnings ratio, enterprise-value-to-EBITDA (EV/EBITDA) ratio, shareholder yield, price-to-book-value ratio and price-to-free-cash-flow ratio. The score is variable, meaning it can consider all six ratios or, should any of the six ratios not be valid, the remaining ratios that are valid. To be assigned a Value Score, stocks must have a valid (non-null) ratio and corresponding ranking for at least two of the six valuation ratios.

What Goes Into AAII’s Value Grade?

Stock evaluation requires access to huge amounts of data as well as the knowledge and time to sift through it all, make sense of financial ratios, read income statements and analyze recent stock movement. AAII created A+ Investor, a robust data suite that condenses data research in an actionable and customizable way suitable for investors of all knowledge levels, to help investors with that task.

AAII’s proprietary stock grades come with A+ Investor. These offer intuitive A–F grades for more than just value. It is possible for a stock to appear cheap based on one valuation metric but appear expensive on another. It is also possible for one valuation ratio to be associated with outperforming stocks during certain periods of time but not others. Some stocks may even have null values for certain metrics like the price-earnings ratio or the price-to-book ratio but not others. An example of this would be a company with losses instead of profits or a negative book value because of heavy borrowing. Negative earnings or book value result in non-meaningful ratios that are left blank or null.

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6 Undervalued Software Stocks

Of course, there are countless value stocks that are worth mentioning, but this is a concise list of the top 6 undervalued stocks in the Software industry for Wednesday, April 24, 2024. Let’s take a closer look at their individual scores to see how they measure up against each other and the Software industry median.

The Value Grade is assigned based on how each stock’s composite valuation compares to all other stocks.

The process for assigning grades starts with each variable for a given stock. The percentile rankings for all valid ratios that a stock has are calculated. So, for instance, a stock could have a price-to-book ranking in the 43rd percentile, a price-earnings ranking in the 67th percentile, a price-to-sales ranking in the 23rd percentile, etc. Then, those rankings are averaged for each stock. (A minimum of two valid variables are required, though all six will be used if available.)

Once the average of the individual variables is calculated, that average is ranked against all stocks. Put another way, each stock’s composite valuation is compared to all other stocks. These ranks are then sorted into quintiles from the cheapest 20% (a grade of A) to the most expensive 20% (a grade of F).

As always, we recommend that you conduct proper due diligence and research before investing in any security. We also suggest that investors utilize numerous grades, not just value, when it comes to deciding whether a company is a good fit for their allocation needs.

Agora Inc (ADR)’s Value Grade

Value Grade:

Agora Inc is a company engaged in providing real-time engagement services on video, voice and messaging. The Company operates a real-time engagement platform-as-a-service (RTE-PaaS) to provide the software and infrastructure required to enable real-time engagement. The Company's products include Real-Time Video, Real-Time Voice, Real-Time Messaging, Real-Time Recording and so on. The products and services are applied in social, gaming, retail, education and other areas. The Company operates its businesses in China, the United States and other countries in Asia Pacific region.

Stocks with a Value Score from 81 to 100 are considered deep value, those with a score between 61 and 80 are value and so on.

Agora Inc (ADR) has a Value Score of 95, which is considered to be undervalued.

When you look at Agora Inc (ADR)’s price-to-sales ratio at 1.67 compared to the industry median at 3.65, this company has a lower price relative to revenue compared to its peers. This could make Agora Inc (ADR)’s stock more attractive for value investors.

Shareholder yield is the sum of a stock’s dividend yield (paid over previous 12 months minus special dividends) and the percentage of net share buybacks over the previous 12 months. Agora Inc (ADR)’s shareholder yield is higher than its industry median ratio of (2.49%). Value investors may look for an attractive shareholder yield because it can be a powerful tool for identifying if the company has a good management team.

As one of the most common value metrics, the price-to-book ratio evaluates a company’s current market price relative to its book value. Agora Inc (ADR)’s price-to-book ratio is lower than its industry median ratio of 3.26. This could make Agora Inc (ADR) more attractive to investors looking for a new addition to their portfolio.

Bridgeline Digital Inc’s Value Grade

Value Grade:

Bridgeline Digital, Inc. is a marketing technology software company. Its Unbound platform is a digital platform that integrates Web content management, e-commerce, e-marketing, digital marketing, and Web analytics. It offers enterprise site search solutions with its Celebros Search and HawkSearch products. The Celebros Search is a commerce-oriented site search product that provides for natural language processing and incorporates artificial intelligence to present relevant search results based on long-tail keyword searches. HawkSearch is a site search, recommendation, and personalization application built for marketers, merchandisers, and developers to enhance online customer's content search. Its Woorank is a search engine optimization (SEO) audit tool that generates an instant performance audit of the site’s technical, on-page, and off-page SEO. Its TruPresence is a Web content management and e-commerce platform to support the needs of multi-unit organizations and franchises.

Stocks with a Value Score from 81 to 100 are considered deep value, those with a score between 61 and 80 are value and so on.

Bridgeline Digital Inc has a Value Score of 68, which is considered to be undervalued.

Bridgeline Digital Inc’s price-to-book ratio is higher than its peers. This could make Bridgeline Digital Inc less attractive for value investors when compared to the industry median at 3.26.

You can read more about Bridgeline Digital Inc’s key financial metrics like shareholder yield, price-to-free-cash-flow and EV/EBITDA ratio, or learn more about its Momentum and Growth Grades, by subscribing to A+ Investor.

Luokung Technology Corp’s Value Grade

Value Grade:

Luokung Technology Corp is a China-based investment holding company. The company's main business includes spatial-temporal intelligent big data services, Location Based Services (LBS) and High Definition (HD) Maps for various industries. The Company has established city-level and industry-level holographic spatial-temporal digital twin systems and actively serves industries including smart transportation with applications in autonomous driving, smart highway and vehicle-road collaboration, natural resource asset management, covering carbon neutral and environmental protection remote sensing data service, and LBS smart industry applications, including mobile Internet LBS, smart travel, smart logistics, new infrastructure, smart cities, emergency rescue. The Company mainly operates in the domestic market.

Stocks with a Value Score from 81 to 100 are considered deep value, those with a score between 61 and 80 are value and so on.

Luokung Technology Corp has a Value Score of 75, which is considered to be undervalued.

Luokung Technology Corp’s price-to-book ratio is higher than its peers. This could make Luokung Technology Corp less attractive for value investors when compared to the industry median at 3.26.

You can read more about Luokung Technology Corp’s key financial metrics like shareholder yield, price-to-free-cash-flow and EV/EBITDA ratio, or learn more about its Momentum and Growth Grades, by subscribing to A+ Investor.

Hello Group Inc (ADR)’s Value Grade

Value Grade:

Hello Group Inc, formerly Momo Inc, is a China-based online social and entertainment company. The Company operates in three segments. Momo segment and Tantan segment mainly provide live video service, value-added services including membership subscription and virtual gift service, and mobile marketing services including advertising and marketing solutions. QOOL segment provides music service revenues, film distribution service and film promotion service. The Company also operates other applications to serve different social and entertainment demands from its users.

Stocks with a Value Score from 81 to 100 are considered deep value, those with a score between 61 and 80 are value and so on.

Hello Group Inc (ADR) has a Value Score of 97, which is considered to be undervalued.

Hello Group Inc (ADR)’s price-earnings ratio is 4.3 compared to the industry median at 48.5. This means that it has a lower price relative to its earnings compared to its peers. This makes Hello Group Inc (ADR) more attractive for value investors.

Hello Group Inc (ADR)’s price-to-book ratio is higher than its peers. This could make Hello Group Inc (ADR) less attractive for value investors when compared to the industry median at 3.26.

You can read more about Hello Group Inc (ADR)’s key financial metrics like shareholder yield, price-to-free-cash-flow and EV/EBITDA ratio, or learn more about its Momentum and Growth Grades, by subscribing to A+ Investor.

Upland Software Inc’s Value Grade

Value Grade:

Upland Software, Inc. provides cloud-based software applications. The Company's applications enable its customers to drive digital transformation in various business functions, including marketing, sales, contact center, knowledge management, project management, information technology, business operations, and human resources and legal. Its applications interact with consumers across multiple channels to acquire new customers, drive product and service utilization, and resolve issues. It offers applications that help organizations optimize their sales opportunities and account management processes, coordinate proposal and reference activities, collaborate on the creation and publication of digital content and gain increased control over key sales and marketing workflows, activities and budgets. It offers applications that improve customer experience and reduce call volume and cycle times through customer self-service products and voice of the customer (VoC) technology.

Stocks with a Value Score from 81 to 100 are considered deep value, those with a score between 61 and 80 are value and so on.

Upland Software Inc has a Value Score of 94, which is considered to be undervalued.

Upland Software Inc’s price-to-book ratio is higher than its peers. This could make Upland Software Inc less attractive for value investors when compared to the industry median at 3.26.

You can read more about Upland Software Inc’s key financial metrics like shareholder yield, price-to-free-cash-flow and EV/EBITDA ratio, or learn more about its Momentum and Growth Grades, by subscribing to A+ Investor.

Zenvia Inc’s Value Grade

Value Grade:

Zenvia Inc is a Brazil-based company engaged in the technology sector. The Firm develops communications platform focused on customer experience (CX), dedicated to companies and their end-customers. The platform provides solutions for marketing campaigns, sales teams, customer service and engagement, enabling creation of surveys, sending bulk notifications, schedule management, automatic answers for frequently asked customer questions, collection of users’ data, enrollment for events, two-factor authentication and order tracking, among others. It also offers tools, such as software application programming interfaces (APIs), chatbots, documents composer and authentication. The Company’s solutions support several communications channels, such as short message service (SMS), rich communication services (RCS), Voice, WhatsApp and Webchat. Its products include Zencia Flow, Zencia Chat, Zencia Message and Sirena. The Firm operates in Brazil, Argentina and Mexico.

Stocks with a Value Score from 81 to 100 are considered deep value, those with a score between 61 and 80 are value and so on.

Zenvia Inc has a Value Score of 68, which is considered to be undervalued.

Zenvia Inc’s price-to-book ratio is higher than its peers. This could make Zenvia Inc less attractive for value investors when compared to the industry median at 3.26.

You can read more about Zenvia Inc’s key financial metrics like shareholder yield, price-to-free-cash-flow and EV/EBITDA ratio, or learn more about its Momentum and Growth Grades, by subscribing to A+ Investor.

Other Software Stock Grades

Value is just one of the five Stock Grades included in our A+ Investor service. AAII members can see the top-graded stocks—those with grades of A or B for value, growth, momentum, earnings estimate revisions and quality—on the A+ Stock Grades Screener.

Also, if you want full access to all of AAII’s premium services, you can subscribe to one convenient bundled plan called AAII Platinum where you can try out A+ Investor, AAII Dividend Investing, the Stock Superstars Report, Growth Investing and VMQ Stocks. With the other premium services, you can dive deep into additional metrics, portfolios, commentary and information about Software stocks as well as other industrys.

Choosing Which of the 6 Best Software Stocks Is Right for You

Choosing which value stocks to invest in will ultimately depend on your individual goals and allocation; however, comparing similar value stocks in the same industry can help you analyze which might be better investments for you in the long run. So, let’s take a look at the Value Grade for all of our stocks.

• Agora Inc (ADR) stock has a Value Grade of A.
• Bridgeline Digital Inc stock has a Value Grade of B.
• Luokung Technology Corp stock has a Value Grade of B.
• Hello Group Inc (ADR) stock has a Value Grade of A.
• Upland Software Inc stock has a Value Grade of A.
• Zenvia Inc stock has a Value Grade of B.

Now that you have a bit more background about each of the 6 undervalued stocks in the Software industry as well as their overall grades, it’s time for you to conduct additional research to see if these could fit your portfolio needs based on your goals and risk tolerance. AAII can help you figure out both and identify which investments align with what works best for you.

We do so through a program of education that teaches you to invest for yourself and become an effective manager of your own wealth—no more relying on others for your financial independence. You can rely on AAII for timeless articles on financial planning and stock-picking, unbiased research and actionable analysis that makes you a better investor.

A+ Investor adds to that qualitative teaching by giving you a powerful data suite that helps you whittle down investment decisions to find stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) or mutual funds that meet your needs.

Additional Resources About Software Stocks

Want to learn more about Software stocks to see if they could be the right investment for you? Check out some additional resources and articles to help you on your financial journey.

• 6 Undervalued Software Stocks for Wednesday, April 24
• 6 Undervalued Software Stocks for Tuesday, April 23
• Why Appian Corp’s (APPN) Stock Is Up 4.19%
• Why Applovin Corp’s (APP) Stock Is Up 4.92%

AAII Disclaimer

We make no representations or warranties that any investor will, or is likely to, achieve profits similar to those shown, because past, hypothetical or simulated performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. Before making an investment decision, you should consider your circumstances and whether the information on our content is applicable to your situation. This information was prepared in good faith and we accept no liability for any errors or omissions. The full disclaimer can be read here.