Is it that software stocks are undervalued relative to the market? Will they outperform going forward? In our view, the risk-return matrix of investing in software stocks currently is equally poised.
On a relative basis, assuming a 15% CAGR growth in earnings of the BSE Sensex companies, the benchmark index is trading at a price to earnings multiple of around 14 times FY08 earnings. As compared to the same, the top five software majors, on an average, are trading at 19 times our estimated FY08 earnings. This is a 28% premium to the benchmark index. Considering the fact that earnings growth of the top three software companies i.e. Infosys, Wipro and TCS is likely to around 25% CAGR in the next three years (66% higher than Sensex earnings growth), we believe that the premium is justified

From: BSE IT: Has it tracked fundamentals

Question: Company A has a PE of 10, expected growth of 10 % for next 10 years and a ROE of 5 %. Company B has a PE of 15, expected growth of 8 % for the same period and an ROE of 20 %. Which company is cheap?

IT companies have a return on capital which is far in excess of 25%. However the key point in justifying the current valuations would be whether this level of growth and ROE hold? and that is where issues such as competivitive advantage of the indian IT service companies, their ability to contain costs, rupee – dollar rates etc comes in. So basically the answer to the question posed in the above article is not as obvious as the writer is suggesting (at least to me)

I typically avoid reading broker reports and their recommendations. The analysis is typically very shallow, incomplete
and hardly covers any of the key aspects in valuing the company. And worse is the tendency to compare apples and oranges, which in this case is to compare BSE sensex (which includes banks, commodity companies etc ) with an IT services company.

Answer to my question: Company A is a value destroyer and would need capital to grow at 10 % for next 10 years. So I would not pay more than 4-5 PE for the company.