Based on key financial metrics such as the price-to-sales ratio, shareholder yield and the price-earnings ratio, the following 7 stocks made the list for top value stocks in the Professional 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 Professional 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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7 Undervalued Professional Services Stocks

Of course, there are countless value stocks that are worth mentioning, but this is a concise list of the top 7 undervalued stocks in the Professional Services industry for Thursday, October 24, 2024. Let’s take a closer look at their individual scores to see how they measure up against each other and the Professional 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.

BGSF, Inc.’s Value Grade

Value Grade:

BGSF, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides consulting, managed services, and professional workforce solutions in the United States. It operates in two segments, Property Management and Professional. The Property Management segment offers office and maintenance field talent to various apartment communities and commercial buildings. The Professional segment provides skilled IT professionals in SAP, Workday, Peoplesoft, Hyperion, Oracle, One Stream, cyber, project management, management services, and other IT workforce solutions. This segment also offers finance, accounting, legal, human resource, and related support personnel. It serves its products to fortune 500 companies, and medium and small companies, as well as consulting companies. The company was formerly known as BG Staffing, Inc. and changed its name to BGSF, Inc. in February 2021. BGSF, Inc. was incorporated in 2007 and is based in Plano, Texas.

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.

BGSF, Inc. has a Value Score of 67, which is considered to be undervalued.

When you look at BGSF, Inc.’s price-to-sales ratio at 0.30 compared to the industry median at 1.36, this company has a lower price relative to revenue compared to its peers. This could make BGSF, Inc.’s stock more attractive for value investors.

BGSF, Inc.’s price-earnings ratio is 41.90 compared to the industry median at 29.05. This means it has a higher share price relative to earnings compared to its peers. This could make BGSF, Inc. less attractive for value investors.

Now, let’s assess BGSF, Inc.’s EV/EBITDA ratio, also known as enterprise multiple. At 9.1, when compared to the industry median of 13.9, 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. BGSF, Inc.’s shareholder yield is lower than its industry median ratio of 0.40%. 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. BGSF, Inc.’s price-to-book ratio is lower than its industry median ratio of 3.05. This could make BGSF, Inc. more attractive to investors looking for a new addition to their portfolio.

Lastly, let’s take a look at BGSF, Inc.’s price-to-free-cash-flow ratio (P/FCF), which can indicate a company’s market value relative to its operating cash flow. BGSF, Inc.’s price-to-free-cash-flow ratio is lower than its industry median ratio of 23.50. This could make BGSF, Inc. more attractive because the lower P/FCF ratio indicates that BGSF, 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.

DLH Holdings Corp.’s Value Grade

Value Grade:

DLH Holdings Corp. provides technology-enabled business process outsourcing, program management solutions, and public health research and analytics services in the United States. It offers digital transformation and cyber security solutions, including artificial intelligence and machine learning, cloud enablement, cybersecurity ecosystem, big data analytics, and modeling and simulation to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Defense Health Agency, Tele-medicine and Advanced Technology Research Center, and US Navy Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC). The company also provides science research and development services and solutions, such as data analytics, testing and evaluation, clinical trials research services, and epidemiology studies to support multiple operating divisions, including NIH and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as the Military Health System. In addition, it offers system engineering and integration solutions in the areas of pharmaceutical delivery logistics, fire protection engineering, biomedical equipment, and technology engineering on behalf of the Department of Veterans Affairs, NIWC, Health and Human Services, and other federal customers. The company also provides business process management services under the trademarks, e-PRAT and SPOT-m, as well as the registered trademark, Infinibyte for cloud-based solutions. The company was formerly known as TeamStaff, Inc. and changed its name to DLH Holdings Corp. in June 2012. DLH Holdings Corp. was incorporated in 1969 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

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.

DLH Holdings Corp. has a Value Score of 65, which is considered to be undervalued.

DLH Holdings Corp.’s price-earnings ratio is 47.9 compared to the industry median at 29.0. This means that it has a higher price relative to its earnings compared to its peers. This makes DLH Holdings Corp. less attractive for value investors.

DLH Holdings Corp.’s price-to-book ratio is higher than its peers. This could make DLH Holdings Corp. less attractive for value investors when compared to the industry median at 3.05.

You can read more about DLH Holdings 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.

Hudson Global, Inc.’s Value Grade

Value Grade:

Hudson Global, Inc. provides talent solutions for mid-to-large-cap multinational companies and government agencies under the Hudson RPO brand in the Americas, the Asia Pacific, and Europe. It offers recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) services, such as recruitment outsourcing, project-based outsourcing, contingent workforce solutions, and recruitment consulting for clients' permanent staff hires; and RPO contracting services, including outsourced professional contract staffing and managed services. The company was formerly known as Hudson Highland Group, Inc. and changed its name to Hudson Global, Inc. in April 2012. Hudson Global, Inc. was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Old Greenwich, Connecticut.

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.

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

Hudson Global, Inc.’s price-to-book ratio is higher than its peers. This could make Hudson Global, Inc. less attractive for value investors when compared to the industry median at 3.05.

You can read more about Hudson Global, 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.

GEE Group Inc.’s Value Grade

Value Grade:

GEE Group Inc. provides permanent and temporary professional and industrial staffing and placement services in the United States. The company operates through two segments, Industrial Staffing Services and Professional Staffing Services. It offers placement of information technology, accounting, finance, office, engineering, engineering professionals for direct hire and contract staffing services, and data entry assistants; and temporary staffing services for industrial clients. The company also provides scribes that specialize in electronic medical record services for emergency departments, specialty physician practices, and clinics. It offers professional staffing services under the names of Access, Data Consulting, Agile Resources, Ashley Ellis, GEE Group (Columbus), Omni One, Paladin Consulting, Scribe Solutions, Accounting Now, Staffing Now, SNI Banking, SNI Certes, SNI Energy, SNI Financial, and SNI Technology; and light industrial contract labor under the Triad Staffing brand. The company was formerly known as General Employment Enterprises, Inc. and changed its name to GEE Group Inc. in July 2016. GEE Group Inc. was founded in 1893 and is headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida.

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.

GEE Group Inc. has a Value Score of 97, which is considered to be undervalued.

GEE Group Inc.’s price-to-book ratio is higher than its peers. This could make GEE Group Inc. less attractive for value investors when compared to the industry median at 3.05.

You can read more about GEE 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.

TELUS International (Cda) Inc.’s Value Grade

Value Grade:

TELUS International (Cda) Inc. design, builds, and delivers digital solutions for customer experience (CX) in the Asia-Pacific, the Central America, Europe, Africa, North America, and internationally. The company provides digital experience solutions, such as AI and bots, omnichannel CX, enterprise mobility solutions, cloud contact center, big data analytics, platform transformation, and UX/UI design; and customer experience solutions, including work anywhere/work from home, contact center outsourcing, technical support, sales growth and customer retention, healthcare/patient experience, and debt collection. It also offers IT lifecycle services comprising cloud platform solutions, managed IT services, application development and management, quality assurance and testing, system operations, IT service desk, internet of things, engineering solutions, and enterprise platform services; advisory services consists of digital strategy, CX process consulting, data and customer analytics, workforce management, learning excellence solutions, and business and process transformation; back office and automation solutions, such as robotic process automation, talent acquisition, finance and accounting, and supply chain management; and trust, safety, and security services, including content moderation and social media community management, and fraud prevention and detection. In addition, the company provides AI data solutions comprising data collection and creation, data annotation, data validation and relevance, and linguistic annotation for video, audio, text, image, and geographical data, as well as 3D sensor fusion. It serves technology and gaming, communications and media, ecommerce, financial services and financial technology, healthcare, travel and hospitality, and automotive industries. The company was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada. TELUS International (Cda) Inc. operates as a subsidiary of TELUS Communications Inc.

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.

TELUS International (Cda) Inc. has a Value Score of 79, which is considered to be undervalued.

TELUS International (Cda) Inc.’s price-earnings ratio is 39.8 compared to the industry median at 29.0. This means that it has a higher price relative to its earnings compared to its peers. This makes TELUS International (Cda) Inc. less attractive for value investors.

TELUS International (Cda) Inc.’s price-to-book ratio is higher than its peers. This could make TELUS International (Cda) Inc. less attractive for value investors when compared to the industry median at 3.05.

You can read more about TELUS International (Cda) 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.

WNS (Holdings) Limited’s Value Grade

Value Grade:

WNS (Holdings) Limited, a business process management (BPM) company, provides data, voice, analytical, and business transformation services worldwide. The company operates through TSLU, MRHP, HCLS, and BFSI segments. It engages in diversified business, including manufacturing, retail, consumer packaged goods, media and entertainment, and telecommunication; travel and leisure, utilities, shipping, and logistics; healthcare and life sciences; banking, financial services, and insurance; and Hi-tech and professional services, as well as procurement. In addition, the company provides a range of services, such as finance and accounting, customer experience, research and analytics, technology, legal, and human resources outsourcing services. Further, it offers digital transformation and consulting services designed to allow its clients to enhance productivity, manage changes in the business environment, and leverage business knowledge to increase market competitiveness. Additionally, the company provides claims handling and repair management services for automobile repairs through a network of third-party repair centers, as well as accident management services. WNS (Holdings) Limited was founded in 1996 and is based in Mumbai, India.

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.

WNS (Holdings) Limited has a Value Score of 61, which is considered to be undervalued.

WNS (Holdings) Limited’s price-earnings ratio is 18.8 compared to the industry median at 29.0. This means that it has a lower price relative to its earnings compared to its peers. This makes WNS (Holdings) Limited more attractive for value investors.

WNS (Holdings) Limited’s price-to-book ratio is higher than its peers. This could make WNS (Holdings) Limited less attractive for value investors when compared to the industry median at 3.05.

You can read more about WNS (Holdings) Limited’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.

Exela Technologies, Inc.’s Value Grade

Value Grade:

Exela Technologies, Inc. provides transaction processing solutions, enterprise information management, document management, and digital business process services worldwide. It operates in three segments: Information & Transaction Processing Solutions (ITPS), Healthcare Solutions (HS), and Legal & Loss Prevention Services (LLPS). The ITPS segment provides lending solutions for mortgages and auto loans; banking solutions for clearing, anti-money laundering, sanctions, and interbank cross-border settlement; property and casualty insurance solutions for origination, enrollments, claims processing, and benefits administration communications; and public sector solutions for income tax processing, benefits administration, and records management. It also offers solutions for payment processing and reconciliation, integrated receivable and payables management, document logistics and location services, records management, and electronic storage of data and documents; and software, hardware, professional, and maintenance services related to information and transaction processing automation. Its HS segment provides revenue cycle solutions, integrated accounts payable and accounts receivable, and information management; claims processing, and claims adjudication and auditing services; enrollment processing and policy management services; scheduling and prescription management services; and medical coding and insurance claim generation, underpayment audit and recovery, and medical records management services. The LLPS segment processes legal claims for class action and mass action settlement administrations, involving project management support, notification, and outreach to claimants; and collects, analyzes, and distributes settlement funds. It also offers data and analytical services in the areas of litigation consulting, economic and statistical analysis, expert witness services, and revenue recovery services for delinquent accounts receivable. The company was incorporated in 2014 and is headquartered in Irving, Texas.

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.

Exela Technologies, Inc. has a Value Score of 80, which is considered to be undervalued.

You can read more about Exela Technologies, 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 Professional 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 Professional Services stocks as well as other industrys.

Choosing Which of the 7 Best Professional 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.

• BGSF, Inc. stock has a Value Grade of B.
• DLH Holdings Corp. stock has a Value Grade of B.
• Hudson Global, Inc. stock has a Value Grade of A.
• GEE Group Inc. stock has a Value Grade of A.
• TELUS International (Cda) Inc. stock has a Value Grade of B.
• WNS (Holdings) Limited stock has a Value Grade of B.
• Exela Technologies, Inc. stock has a Value Grade of B.

Now that you have a bit more background about each of the 7 undervalued stocks in the Professional 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 Professional Services Stocks

Want to learn more about Professional 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.

• 7 Undervalued Professional Services Stocks for Thursday, October 24
• 7 Undervalued Professional Services Stocks for Wednesday, October 23
• 7 Undervalued Professional Services Stocks for Tuesday, October 22
• 5 Undervalued Professional Services Stocks for Monday, October 21

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.