Based on key financial metrics such as the price-to-sales ratio, shareholder yield and the price-earnings ratio, the following 3 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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3 Undervalued Software Stocks

Of course, there are countless value stocks that are worth mentioning, but this is a concise list of the top 3 undervalued stocks in the Software industry for Thursday, September 26, 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.

Ibex Ltd’s Value Grade

Value Grade:

IBEX Limited is a provider of global business process outsourcing and end-to-end customer engagement technology solutions. The Company helps brands effectively engage their customers with services ranging from customer support, technical support, inbound/outbound sales, business intelligence and analytics, digital demand generation, and customer experience (CX) surveys and feedback analytics. Through the Company’s integrated customer lifecycle experience (CLX) platform, a comprehensive portfolio of solutions is offered to help optimize customer acquisition, engagement, expansion and experience for clients. The Company leverages advanced technology and proprietary analytics, in combination with its global footprint and business process outsourcing expertise, to protect and enhance clients’ brands. Its services cover three areas: Digital & Omni-Channel Customer Experience (ibex Connect), Digital Marketing and E-Commerce (ibex Digital) and Digital CX surveys and analytics (ibex CX).

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.

Ibex Ltd has a Value Score of 87, which is considered to be undervalued.

When you look at Ibex Ltd’s price-to-sales ratio at 0.68 compared to the industry median at 3.53, this company has a lower price relative to revenue compared to its peers. This could make Ibex Ltd’s stock more attractive for value investors.

Ibex Ltd’s price-earnings ratio is 10.79 compared to the industry median at 43.74. This means it has a lower share price relative to earnings compared to its peers. This could make Ibex Ltd more attractive for value investors.

Now, let’s assess Ibex Ltd’s EV/EBITDA ratio, also known as enterprise multiple. At 3.5, when compared to the industry median of 22.9, the company may be considered undervalued in relation to its peers. Value investors could use the enterprise multiple to identify stocks that are considered overvalued or undervalued relative to their industry.

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. Ibex Ltd’s shareholder yield is higher than its industry median ratio of (2.38%). 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. Ibex Ltd’s price-to-book ratio is lower than its industry median ratio of 3.11. This could make Ibex Ltd more attractive to investors looking for a new addition to their portfolio.

Lastly, let’s take a look at Ibex Ltd’s price-to-free-cash-flow ratio (P/FCF), which can indicate a company’s market value relative to its operating cash flow. Ibex Ltd’s price-to-free-cash-flow ratio is lower than its industry median ratio of 28.75. This could make Ibex Ltd more attractive because the lower P/FCF ratio indicates that Ibex Ltd is undervalued. The P/FCF ratio metric can also be viewed over a long-term time frame to see if the company's cash flow to share price value is generally improving or worsening.

Katapult Holdings Inc’s Value Grade

Value Grade:

Katapult Holdings, Inc. is an e-commerce focused financial technology company. It offers e-commerce point-of-sale (POS) lease-purchase options for non-prime United States consumers. Its fully digital technology platform provides non-prime consumers with a flexible lease-purchase option to enable them to obtain durable goods from Company’s network of e-commerce retailers. It primarily operates within the virtual lease-to-own (LTO) market. Its LTO platform offers customers an alternative to traditional financing of automotive goods, computers, electronics, home furnishings and other durable goods. It has launched Katapult Cartridge for business-to-consumer commerce, an omnichannel solution, which is integrated directly with Salesforce and available on AppExchange for consumers who don’t have access to traditional financing or credit. Its platform can be integrated regardless of integration method: platform plug-in, developer documentation, and direct application programming interface.

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.

Katapult Holdings Inc has a Value Score of 87, which is considered to be undervalued.

You can read more about Katapult Holdings 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.

WM Technology Inc’s Value Grade

Value Grade:

WM Technology, Inc. operates the online cannabis marketplace for consumers together with a set of eCommerce and compliance software solutions for cannabis businesses, which are sold to retailers and brands in the United States and Canadian cannabis markets. The Company?s business primarily consists of its commerce-driven marketplace (Weedmaps), and its fully integrated suite of end-to-end software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions software offering (Weedmaps for Business). The Weedmaps marketplace provides cannabis consumers with information regarding cannabis retailers and brands. In addition, the Weedmaps marketplace aggregates data from a variety of sources, including retailer point-of-sale solutions to provide consumers to browse by strain, price, cannabinoids and other information regarding locally available cannabis products, through the Company?s website and mobile apps. Its subscription package includes WM Listings, WM Listings, WM Listings, WM Connectors and WM Insights.

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.

WM Technology Inc has a Value Score of 73, which is considered to be undervalued.

WM Technology Inc’s price-to-book ratio is lower than its peers. This could make WM Technology Inc more attractive for value investors when compared to the industry median at 3.11.

You can read more about WM Technology 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 3 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.

• Ibex Ltd stock has a Value Grade of A.
• Katapult Holdings Inc stock has a Value Grade of A.
• WM Technology Inc stock has a Value Grade of B.

Now that you have a bit more background about each of the 3 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.

• 3 Undervalued Software Stocks for Thursday, September 26
• 3 Undervalued Software Stocks for Wednesday, September 25
• Why Appian Corp’s (APPN) Stock Is Up 5.22%
• Why C3.ai Inc’s (AI) Stock Is Up 4.09%

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.