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 Thursday, October 10, 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.’s Value Grade

Value Grade:

Agora, Inc. operates in real-time engagement technology business in the People’s Republic of China, the United States, and internationally. The company offers real-time engagement platform-as-a-services providing developers with application programming interfaces to embed real-time voice, video, interactive live-streaming, chat, whiteboard, and artificial intelligence capabilities into their applications. It also provides video and voice calling, interactive live and broadcast streaming, chat, signaling, and interactive whiteboard products; and extensions, such as analytics, recording, AI noise suppression, 3D spatial audio, real-time transcription, and extensions marketplace. In addition, the company offers Application Platforms, including Flexible Classroom, a low-code application Platform as a Service, which combines video, voice, chat, signaling, whiteboard and recording functionalities into an integrated cloud-based solution for education providers; and App Builder, a no-code application platform, designed for developers with little or no coding experience to build their own applications with video conference and live streaming functionalities. It operates through Agora and Shengwang brands. Agora, Inc. was incorporated in 2013 and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California.

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. has a Value Score of 91, which is considered to be undervalued.

When you look at Agora, Inc.’s price-to-sales ratio at 2.18 compared to the industry median at 3.69, this company has a lower price relative to revenue compared to its peers. This could make Agora, Inc.’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.’s shareholder yield is higher than its industry median ratio of (2.60%). 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.’s price-to-book ratio is lower than its industry median ratio of 3.35. This could make Agora, Inc. more attractive to investors looking for a new addition to their portfolio.

Bridgeline Digital, Inc.’s Value Grade

Value Grade:

Bridgeline Digital, Inc. operates as a marketing technology company in the United States, Canada, and internationally. The company offers HawkSearch, a site search, recommendation, and personalization application for marketers, merchandisers, and developers; Celebros Search, a commerce-oriented site search product that provides natural language processing with artificial intelligence; and Woorank, a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) audit tool that generates an instant performance audit of the site’s technical, on-page, and off-page SEO. It also provides Bridgeline TruPresence, a web content management and eCommerce platform to support the needs of multi-unit organizations and franchises; Bridgeline Unbound, a technology suite that empower marketers to easily manage their digital experiences and create personalized customer journeys; and OrchestraCMS, a digital experience platform that enables development of custom solutions, third-party integrations, and delivery of digital transformation initiatives on the Salesforce platform. In addition, the company offers digital engagement services comprising digital strategy, web design and web development, usability engineering, information architecture, and SEO, as well as hosting services. It serves vertical markets, such as industrial distributors and wholesalers, franchises and enterprises, manufacturers, eCommerce retailers, health services and life sciences, technology, credit unions and banks, and associations and foundations through its direct sales force. The company was formerly known as Bridgeline Software, Inc. Bridgeline Digital, Inc. was incorporated in 2000 and is based in Woburn, Massachusetts.

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 70, 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 3.35.

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.

Viant Technology Inc.’s Value Grade

Value Grade:

Viant Technology Inc. operates as an advertising technology company. It provides Household ID, a people-based innovation that combines digital and personal identifiers into a normalized household profile; AI Bid Optimizer, solution that uses AI to analyze historical bid opportunities to predict the lowest media cost for desired advertisement; and Viant Data Platform, which offers marketers control over their own data with actionable insights into their marketing initiatives within a single platform. The company also offers Holistic, an omnichannel DSP for marketers and their agencies to manage omnichannel campaigns and access metrics from each channel to inform decisions in other channels; Viant Identity Graph, which reduces or eliminates the need for cookies by enabling matching of people-based identifiers that anchor digital identifiers that allows marketers to reach targeted consumers in a privacy-conscious manner; and Direct Access, a path optimization program. In addition, it provides campaign analysis and data intelligence tool that empowers customers with differentiated insights, including conversion lift, multi-touch attribution, foot-traffic data reports, digital-out-of-home lift, sales reporting, and ROAS analytics; and self-service platform that provides customers with transparency and control over their advertising campaigns and underlying data infrastructure. The company sells its platform through a direct sales team focused on business development in various markets. It serves purchasers of programmatic advertising inventory; and large, independent, and mid-market advertising agencies, as well as marketers. The company was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Irvine, California.

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.

Viant Technology Inc. has a Value Score of 61, which is considered to be undervalued.

Viant Technology Inc.’s price-to-book ratio is higher than its peers. This could make Viant Technology Inc. less attractive for value investors when compared to the industry median at 3.35.

You can read more about Viant 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.

HeartCore Enterprises, Inc.’s Value Grade

Value Grade:

HeartCore Enterprises, Inc., a software development company, provides Software as a Service solutions to enterprise customers in Japan and internationally. Its customer experience management platform includes marketing, sales, service, and content management systems, as well as other tools and integrations, which enable companies to enhance the customer experience and drive engagement. The company also operates a digital transformation business that offers customers with robotics process automation, process mining, and task mining to accelerate the digital transformation of enterprises. In addition, it provides consulting services; and education, services, and support solutions. The company was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.

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.

HeartCore Enterprises, Inc. has a Value Score of 81, which is considered to be undervalued.

HeartCore Enterprises, Inc.’s price-to-book ratio is higher than its peers. This could make HeartCore Enterprises, Inc. less attractive for value investors when compared to the industry median at 3.35.

You can read more about HeartCore Enterprises, 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.

ON24, Inc.’s Value Grade

Value Grade:

ON24, Inc. provides a cloud-based intelligent engagement platform that enables businesses to convert customer engagement into revenue through interactive webinar, virtual event, and multimedia content experiences worldwide. The company provides ON24 Elite, for live and interactive webinar experience; ON24 Breakouts, for live breakout room experience that facilitates networking, collaboration, and interactivity between users; ON24 Forums, for live and interactive experience, which facilitates video-to-video interaction between presenters and audiences; ON24 Go Live, for live and interactive video event experience that enables presenters and attendees to engage face-to-face in real-time; and ON24 Virtual Confrence, for live and large scale managed virtual event experience. It also offers ON24 Engagement Hub, for always-on multimedia content experience; ON24 Target, for personalized and curated landing page experience; ON24 Intelligence, for analytics backbone that captures first-person data to power the insights, benchmarking, reporting, and artificial intelligence and machine learning engine; ON24 AI-powered ACE, for enabling hyper-personalization at scale across ON24 experiences; ON24 Connect, for ecosystem of third-party application integrations; and ON24 Services and Platform Support, which provides a portfolio of professional services that provide consulting and support for product and platform adoption. In addition, the company offers consulting services, such as experience management, monitoring and production, implementation, and other support services. It sells its products through direct sales. The company serves technology, financial services, healthcare, industrial and manufacturing, professional services, and business-to-business information service companies. The company was formerly known as NewsDirect, Inc. and changed its name to ON24, Inc. in December 1998. ON24, Inc. was incorporated in 1998 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

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.

ON24, Inc. has a Value Score of 77, which is considered to be undervalued.

ON24, Inc.’s price-to-book ratio is higher than its peers. This could make ON24, Inc. less attractive for value investors when compared to the industry median at 3.35.

You can read more about ON24, 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.

Porch Group, Inc.’s Value Grade

Value Grade:

Porch Group, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates a vertical software and insurance platform in the United States. The company operates in two segments, Vertical Software and Insurance. The Vertical Software segment provides software and services to inspection, mortgage, and title companies on a subscription and transactional basis, as well as move and post-move services. This segment offers inspection software and services, title insurance software, mortgage software, moving services, mover and homeowner marketing, and measurement software for roofers. The Insurance segment offers consumers with insurance and warranty products to protect their homes. This segment provides property-related insurance and captive reinsurance products; and warranty products under the Porch Warranty, American Home Protect, and Residential Warranty Services brands. The company was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington.

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.

Porch Group, Inc. has a Value Score of 81, which is considered to be undervalued.

You can read more about Porch Group, 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. stock has a Value Grade of A.
• Bridgeline Digital, Inc. stock has a Value Grade of B.
• Viant Technology Inc. stock has a Value Grade of B.
• HeartCore Enterprises, Inc. stock has a Value Grade of A.
• ON24, Inc. stock has a Value Grade of B.
• Porch Group, Inc. stock has a Value Grade of A.

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 Thursday, October 10
• 4 Undervalued Software Stocks for Wednesday, October 09
• Why MicroCloud Hologram Inc’s (HOLO) Stock Is Up 1900.00%
• Why Verb Technology Company Inc’s (VERB) Stock Is Up 19900.00%

AAII Disclaimer

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