One of the hardest hit areas of the market during the coronavirus crisis has been the tech sector.
Prior to today, since February 17 the S&P/ASX 200 Information Technology index had lost 47% of its value. This compared to a 36% decline by the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) over the same period.
Whilst this isn't overly surprising given the lofty valuations of some shares in the sector, I still feel many top tech shares have been oversold and are trading at attractive levels for long-term investments.
Three ASX tech shares that I would buy when the market volatility eases are listed below:
Altium Limited (ASX: ALU)
Altium is the printed circuit board (PCB) design software provider behind the popular Altium Designer platform. This award-winning platform is used by companies across the world to effortlessly connect with every facet of the PCB design process. Given that almost all Internet of Things (IoT) devices have PCBs inside them and the IoT market is tipped to explode over the next decade, I expect demand for Altium's software to grow materially over the coming years. This should drive strong earnings growth as it scales.
Appen Ltd (ASX: APX)
Another exciting tech share to consider buying when the market volatility eases is Appen. It is a leading developer of high-quality, human annotated datasets for the machine learning and artificial intelligence markets. Appen uses a crowd of over 1 million skilled contractors operating in 130+ countries and 180+ languages and dialects to collect and label high volumes of image, text, speech, audio, and video data used to build and improve artificial intelligence systems. Demand has been very strong for its services and is expected to grow stronger over the next decade due to the increasing importance of AI and machine learning for businesses.
Xero Limited (ASX: XRO)
Another tech share to consider buying is this cloud-based business and accounting software provider. It has been growing at a strong rate over the last few years and has continued this positive form into the new financial year. During the first half the company's Annualised Monthly Recurring Revenue (AMRR) increased 30% on the prior corresponding period to NZ$764.1 million. This was driven largely by a 30% jump in subscriber numbers to 2.057 million. While subscriber growth could take a hit in the near term, I'm confident that its growth will accelerate once the coronavirus passes. Especially given the quality and stickiness of its product, the continued shift to online accounting, and its large market opportunity.
