Are you looking for cheap tech stocks? I quickly screened tech stocks under $50 in the NASDAQ 100. I came up with just three. I did the same with the S&P 500. My choices jumped more than three-fold to 10.
That’s still not very many. So I broadened my search again to include any tech stock listed on the Nasdaq or NYSE and trading for less than $50. That did the trick, producing 603 possibilities.
To narrow down my search, I included only those companies with a market capitalization of $2 billion or more. That gave me 140 options. Bingo!
For my selection criteria, I combined value (price-to-earnings ratio below 20) with growth (annualized three-year combined revenue and net income growth above 40%) to find three affordable tech stocks under $50 to buy.
I don’t think any of the cheap tech stocks will remain below $50 for much longer.
| KLIC | Kulicke & Soffa Industries | $47.79 |
| CSIQ | Canadian Solar | $36.71 |
| EVTC | Evertec | $34.40 |
Kulicke & Soffa Industries (KLIC)
Kulicke & Soffa Industries (NASDAQ:KLIC) is a leading manufacturer and provider of semiconductor assembly equipment. It has a P/E ratio of 9.2, three-year revenue growth of 40.7% and three-year net income growth of 233.8%.
From its March 2020 low to its all-time high in September 2021, KLIC gained approximately 345%. So, it can make hay when the sun shines. But since then, it’s been hit or miss. Up around 8% YTD, shares have cooled off considerably since early February, when they hit a 52-week high of $58.81.
Can KLIC get back to the high $50s? Of course it can, if the economy plays along.
On Feb. 1, the company reported earnings for its fiscal first quarter, which ended Dec. 31. After five quarters of declining bookings in a row, Kulicke & Soffa saw an increase during fiscal Q1.
“The near-term macro environment remains dynamic, although we continue to anticipate a period of improving demand in our second fiscal half driven by typical seasonal improvements within higher-volume markets, a larger weighting of advanced packaging and advanced display revenue and an improving book-to-bill ratio,” Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Fusen Chen said in the accompanying press release.
My InvestorPlace colleague Josh Enomoto called Kulicke & Soffa a “screaming buy” in early December when it was trading around $48, precisely where it sells today. He highlighted that it had one of the highest cash-to-debt ratios of its peers at 18.6%. While that metric has dropped to 16.9 today, it continues to rank better than three-quarters of the competition.
KLIC finished the first quarter with $796 million in cash and short-term investments. That’s double its total liabilities and translates to $14.03 per share in cash. With shares trading for an incredibly low 3.4x cash, this is a value buy.
Canadian Solar (CSIQ)
Canadian Solar (NASDAQ:CSIQ) is a solar power company that designs and manufactures solar products including modules, inverters and wafers, as well as battery storage solutions. It currently has a P/E ratio of 10.5, three-year revenue growth of 32.6% and three-year net income growth of 11.8%.
2023 has been a wild ride for Canadian Solar’s shareholders. The stock got off to a fast start in January, running up nearly 43% to above $44 a share. But shares have cooled off since then, falling back into the mid-$30s. While CSIQ is still up 18% year to date, it’s a far cry from the mid-$60s, where it topped out in 2021.
Roth Capital has a “buy” rating and a $55 target price on the stock, implying upside of 50%. As for Wall Street overall, it’s a mixed bag, with four analysts rating it a “buy” or “overweight,” five seeing it as a “hold,” and two believing it’s a “sell.” However, the median target price of $47.50 is considerably higher than the current share price.
In 2022, Canadian Solar generated record net income of $240 million on record revenue of $7.5 billion, up 42% YOY. It also saw record shipments of both solar modules and utility-scale battery storage shipments last year, with a significant pipeline of shipments in the future.
If you believe in solar power, CSIQ is currently cheap.
Evertec (EVTC)
Evertec (NYSE:EVTC) is a Puerto Ric0-based payment processing company operating in Latin America and the Caribbean. It currently has a P/E ratio of 9.9, three-year revenue growth of 8.3% and three-year net income growth of 32.2%.
Evertec owns and operates the ATH network, a leading personal identification number (PIN) debit network in Latin America. It operates in 26 countries, including Puerto Rico, processing over 2 billion transactions a year. In the trailing 12 months, it generated $628 million in revenue.
In Q1, Evertec grew revenue by 6% to $159.8 million with $55 million in operating cash flow. In addition, the company is working with MercadoLibre (NASDAQ:MELI) — one of my favorite companies — to support its issuing of credit cards in Mexico. It is also processing debit card transactions for the e-commerce platform operator in Mexico and Chile.
The company’s diversified stream of revenue generates healthy cash flow, yet shares trade at less than 10 times earnings, which is less than one-third of PayPal Holdings’ (NASDAQ:PYPL) valuation.
On the date of publication, Will Ashworth did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.
