We recently published a list of 10 Hot Software Stocks with High Upside Potential. In this article, we are going to take a look at where MicroStrategy Incorporated (NASDAQ:MSTR) stands against other hot software stocks with high upside potential.
As per MarkNtel Advisors, which is a leading consulting, data analytics, and market research firm, the US software market is expected to grow at a CAGR of ~7.17% over 2024 – 2030. Possessing a strong legacy of innovation and entrepreneurship, the US has been categorized as a world leader in software development, housing a thriving environment of startups, software corporations, and academic institutions. With businesses using technology to fuel creativity, productivity, and competitiveness, the broader US software market continues to move towards digital transformation throughout all industries.
In a bid to be more flexible, responsive to market demands, and scalable, it’s important to modernize legacy systems, procedures, and infrastructure apart from implementing cutting-edge technologies, says MarkNtel Advisors.
Emerging Trends in Software Industry in 2025
With software development evolving at a significant pace (thanks to technological innovation and dynamic business demands), businesses are required to stay ahead in a bid to remain competitive and deliver ground-breaking software solutions, says Datafortune. The rise of AI-powered development and low-code/no-code platforms, integration of DevSecOps practices, and sustainable software engineering are some of the key trends likely to shape software development in 2025.
AI-powered coding assistants, automation of tools, and intelligent debugging tools continue to transform the working infrastructure of developers. Datafortune believes that businesses are increasingly leveraging AI to automate workflows, accelerate software development, and enhance code quality.
READ ALSO: 7 Best Stocks to Buy For Long-Term and 8 Cheap Jim Cramer Stocks to Invest In.
Low-Code/No-Code Platforms and Sustainable Software Engineering
As per Datafortune, the demand for rapid application development continues to drive the adoption of low-code and no-code platforms. Such platforms allow business users and developers to develop applications with minimal or no coding, which makes software development more accessible. The firm believes that, by 2025, most of the enterprise applications are expected to be created using these platforms, which will reduce the requirement for traditional software development cycles and allow firms to innovate rapidly.
Sustainability continues to become a trend in software development. With companies actively optimizing their apps, green coding, optimal algorithms, and cloud optimization are being adopted as best practices, says Datafortune. Notably, the companies are also prioritizing sustainability in their software development services through the removal of redundant code and minimizing energy consumption in the data centers.
Overall, the broader software industry in 2025 will be characterized by innovations in AI, sustainability, security, and advanced and ground-breaking technologies like quantum computing.
Our Methodology
To list the 10 Hot Software Stocks with High Upside Potential, we used a screener to find software stocks. We chose the stocks which have increased significantly over the past 6 months, and that analysts still see upside to. Finally, the stocks were arranged in ascending order of their average upside potential, as of February 14. We also mentioned the hedge fund sentiment around each stock, as of Q3 2024.
At Insider Monkey we are obsessed with the stocks that hedge funds pile into. The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).
A software engineer wearing a headset, collaborating with a remote team on a project.
MicroStrategy Incorporated (NASDAQ:MSTR)
% Gain Over Past 6 Months: ~149.5%
Average Upside Potential: ~62.8%
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 25
MicroStrategy Incorporated (NASDAQ:MSTR), doing business as Strategy, is the world’s first and largest Bitcoin treasury company. It adopted Bitcoin as its primary treasury reserve asset. The company’s business is providing and developing enterprise analytics software, which is focused on business intelligence tools and mobile apps. Analyst Dan Dolev from Mizuho Securities initiated coverage on shares of MicroStrategy Incorporated (NASDAQ:MSTR) with an “Outperform” rating and a price target of $515.
The analyst’s rating is backed by MicroStrategy Incorporated (NASDAQ:MSTR)’s potential to continue buying Bitcoin. The analyst expects the price of Bitcoin to rise over time, pushing the company’s value higher. Elsewhere, Mark Palmer, an analyst at Benchmark, believes that MicroStrategy Incorporated (NASDAQ:MSTR) is a top candidate to be added to the S&P 500 index when the next rebalancing occurs in June 2025. Notably, the stocks that are added to major indices like the S&P 500 get a boost as ETFs and MFs tracking the index need to buy their shares.
The company’s subscription-based cloud revenue can result in increasing the migration to cloud BI (business intelligence) platforms. Also, MicroStrategy Incorporated (NASDAQ:MSTR)’s focus on embedded analytics places it well to capture more enterprise customers. With firms increasing their software spending to improve decision-making, the company’s strong enterprise customer base can fuel software revenue growth. Greenlight Capital, an investment management firm, released its Q4 2024 investor letter. Here is what the fund said:
“There is an open debate as to whether Bitcoin will at some point enter the mainstream as an official currency. In fact, there is a bill before Congress for the U.S. to establish a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve” and buy one million Bitcoins over five years. The bill’s purpose appears to be the use of public funds to ramp up the price of Bitcoin, thereby enhancing the wealth of existing Bitcoin holders. This seems a dubious use of taxpayer funds, but the new administration has a lot of Bitcoin-owning supporters, so it might happen. More likely, cooler heads will decide that the government should not borrow another trillion dollars in the bond market to speculate in Bitcoin and that there is, in fact, nothing strategic about doing so.
One of the biggest owners of Bitcoin is MicroStrategy Incorporated (NASDAQ:MSTR). While MSTR owns a small software business, its principal pursuit is buying Bitcoin. In practice, MSTR is an investment company that buys and holds Bitcoin.2 MSTR trades at a large premium to the value of the underlying Bitcoin it holds. The idea is to raise money from new investors at a premium and use the proceeds to buy more Bitcoin. Since the Bitcoin that MSTR buys costs less than the Bitcoin-implied value of MSTR’s stock, the new investment is dilutive to new investors but accretive to existing investors. MSTR’s promoters have labeled the return to existing investors created by this scheme the “Bitcoin yield”. As Bitcoin itself yields nothing, the Bitcoin yield is simply a measure of the Ponzi finance’s effectiveness. Lately, it has been pretty effective.”
Overall, MSTR ranks 2nd on our list of hot software stocks with high upside potential. While we acknowledge the potential of MSTR as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some deeply undervalued AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for a deeply undervalued AI stock that is more promising than MSTR but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
