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 IT Services 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 IT Services 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 IT Services 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 IT Services industry for Wednesday, October 16, 2024. Let’s take a closer look at their individual scores to see how they measure up against each other and the IT Services 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.

Brightcove Inc.’s Value Grade

Value Grade:

Brightcove Inc. provides cloud-based streaming services the Americas, Europe, the Asia Pacific, Japan, India, and the Middle East. It offers Video Cloud, an online video streaming platform that enables its customers to publish, deliver, and distribute high-quality video to internet-connected devices. The company’s solutions and products comprise Brightcove Marketing Studio, a video streaming solution; Brightcove Communications Studio for marketers and corporate communications professionals; Brightcove Media Studio, a solution for over-the-top (OTT) video services, media publishers, and leading broadcasters to monetize their media, live stream at scale, and nurture their audience lifecycle; Brightcove Audience Insights, a customer data platform for video streaming businesses; Zencoder, a cloud-based video encoding service; and Brightcove Beacon, a platform that enables its customers to launch premium OTT video streaming experiences, as well as Brightcove Marketplace. It also provides ad monetization; professional; customer success, support, and documentation; online and onsite training; and video.js and developer solutions. The company serves media companies, broadcasters, digital publishers, sports and entertainment companies, fashion and hospitality brands, faith-based institutions, retail and e-commerce businesses, and technology organizations, as well as government agencies, educational institutions, and non-profit organizations. Brightcove Inc. was incorporated in 2004 and is headquartered in Boston, 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.

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

When you look at Brightcove Inc.’s price-to-sales ratio at 0.49 compared to the industry median at 2.08, this company has a lower price relative to revenue compared to its peers. This could make Brightcove 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. Brightcove Inc.’s shareholder yield is lower than its industry median ratio of (1.90%). 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. Brightcove Inc.’s price-to-book ratio is lower than its industry median ratio of 2.99. This could make Brightcove Inc. more attractive to investors looking for a new addition to their portfolio.

Lastly, let’s take a look at Brightcove Inc.’s price-to-free-cash-flow ratio (P/FCF), which can indicate a company’s market value relative to its operating cash flow. Brightcove Inc.’s price-to-free-cash-flow ratio is lower than its industry median ratio of 22.80. This could make Brightcove Inc. more attractive because the lower P/FCF ratio indicates that Brightcove Inc. 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.

CLPS Incorporation’s Value Grade

Value Grade:

CLPS Incorporation provides information technology (IT), consulting, and solutions to institutions operating in banking, insurance, and financial sectors in the People’s Republic of China and internationally. It offers IT consulting services in credit card business areas, such as credit card application, account setup, authorization and activation, settlement, collection, promotion, point system, anti-fraud, statement, reporting, and risk management. The company also provides banking services, including business analysis, system design, development, testing, system maintenance, and operation support; and services in loans, deposit, general ledger, wealth management, debit card, anti-money-laundering, statement and reporting, and risk management, as well as architecture consulting services for banking systems, and online and mobile banking. In addition, it offers solutions in the field of wealth management; e-commerce solutions in online platforms, cross-border e-commerce, logistics, and back-end technology, such as big data analysis and intelligent decision-making; and driving, automatic control, and other AI-driven technology solutions for the automotive industry. Further, the company provides IT services to its clients in the banking, wealth management, e-commerce, and automotive industries; and software project development, maintenance, and testing services. Additionally, it offers CLPS Virtual Banking platform, a training platform for IT talents; recruitment and headhunting; and fee-for-service training services, as well as sells product and third-party software. The company was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Kwun Tong, Hong Kong.

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.

CLPS Incorporation has a Value Score of 98, which is considered to be undervalued.

CLPS Incorporation’s price-to-book ratio is higher than its peers. This could make CLPS Incorporation less attractive for value investors when compared to the industry median at 2.99.

You can read more about CLPS Incorporation’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.

Taoping Inc.’s Value Grade

Value Grade:

Taoping Inc. provides cloud-app technologies for smart city IoT platforms, digital advertising delivery, and other internet-based information distribution systems in China. The company provides cloud-based products, high-end data storage servers, and related services sold to private sectors including new media, healthcare, education and residential community management, and other industries and applications; and hardware and software solutions with proprietary software and content. It also engages in the wastewater treatment business and other AI-related product and solutions. In addition, the company operates Taoping Net, an advertising-resources trading service platform, which connect screen owners, advertisers, and consumers; and Taoping App that enable customers to distribute and manage ads from mobile terminals. The company was formerly known as China Information Technology, Inc. and changed its name to Taoping Inc. in June 2018. Taoping Inc. was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Shenzhen, the People’s Republic of China.

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.

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

Taoping Inc.’s price-earnings ratio is 0.8 compared to the industry median at 29.9. This means that it has a lower price relative to its earnings compared to its peers. This makes Taoping Inc. more attractive for value investors.

Taoping Inc.’s price-to-book ratio is higher than its peers. This could make Taoping Inc. less attractive for value investors when compared to the industry median at 2.99.

You can read more about Taoping 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 IT Services 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 IT Services stocks as well as other industrys.

Choosing Which of the 3 Best IT Services 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.

• Brightcove Inc. stock has a Value Grade of B.
• CLPS Incorporation stock has a Value Grade of A.
• Taoping Inc. stock has a Value Grade of A.

Now that you have a bit more background about each of the 3 undervalued stocks in the IT Services 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 IT Services Stocks

Want to learn more about IT Services 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 IT Services Stocks for Wednesday, October 16
• 3 Undervalued IT Services Stocks for Tuesday, October 15
• 6 Undervalued IT Services Stocks for Monday, October 14
• 3 Undervalued IT Services Stocks for Friday, October 11

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.