A Closer Look at Seven Beaten-Down Tech Stocks

WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR?

Once again, the U.S Information Technology (IT) sector is outpacing the broader market. As of Feb. 21, The sector is up 10.7% while the S&P500 is up 4.4%, since the start of the year. The IT sector is well known for its high growth companies with high multiples while the value ones are often forgotten.

Today, we will be looking for value U.S large cap in the IT sector with the focus on companies that have been beaten by the market over the last year. Such stocks often offer great value, but sometimes the lower valuation is justified, so we need to be mindful of this caveat.

THE SCREEN

We screened the U.S companies from the IT sector by focusing on the following criteria:

• Market capitalization greater than $10-billion;
• Price earnings ratio between 0 and 27.5 – We want a company with positive earnings and one that is not too expensive;
• Return on capital higher than 10% – We want to find profitable companies that have good return on investments;
• A free-cash-flow-to-capital ratio higher than 0% – We want a company that generates positive free cashflow.

For informational purposes, we have also included recent stock price, dividend, one-year return and 24-month change in sale. Please note that some ratios may be reported at the end of the previous quarter.

MORE ABOUT INOVESTOR

Inovestor for Advisors is a fundamental-analysis research platform specializing in the economic value-added (EVA) approach. With Inovestor, advisers can quickly identify attractive investment opportunities, outsource their stock picking by using model portfolios, and easily communicate investment decisions with clients through client-friendly reports. In addition, Inovestor allows users to create personalized filters, build custom portfolios and carry out in-depth analysis on more than 13,000 companies (Canadian stocks, U.S. stocks and American depositary receipts).

WHAT WE FOUND

First, we compute the inverse of the price earnings ratio, also known as the earnings yield. Then, we calculate the average of each of the following: earnings yield, the FCF to capital, the return on capital and the 24-month sales growth for each company. Taken together, these calculations allow us to distinguish cheap companies with good fundamentals from those with bad ones. They are ranked accordingly, by a filter selection score.

Based on our selection filter, Seagate Technology and NetApp have the worst results as their fundamentals seem to support the low valuation. Arista Networks has the highest score of the list. The company offers a decent price earnings of 20 for a great 26% return on capital, 28% FCF to capital and 46% 2-year sales growth. On February 13^th, Arista Networks reported a decline of 7.2% in Q4 2019 sales over Q4 2018, but the sales increased of 12.1% on a year over year basis.

For more details about Arista Networks stock and performance, please subscribe the Inovestor for Advisors platform for free: https://www.inovestor.com/en-CA/store/

Investors are advised to do further research before investing in any of the companies listed in the accompanying table.