The Altium Limited (ASX: ALU) share price is enjoying a solid day of trading so far this Thursday. At the time of writing, Altium shares are up a healthy 1.34% at $33.19. That performance stands out against the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO), which is also up today, but by a far more muted 0.47%.
But this standout share price performance today doesn't put much of a dent in the rather dismal returns Altium shares have given investors since the start of the year. Year to date in 2022 so far, the printed circuit boards software-as-a-service (SaaS) company remains down by more than 25%. That's an unfortunate date range to be sure, since Altium actually hit its last all-time high right on new year's eve. That high came to $45.30 a share.
So after such a significant slide over this year so far, many investors might be debating whether Altium shares are a buy today, or whether this company is nothing but a falling knife.
Well, let's see what one ASX broker reckons.
Altium share price: sell or buy today?
As my Fool colleague James covered last week, broker Bell Potter is one who is bullish on Altium shares at their current level. Bell Potter currently rates this ASX tech share as a buy. That comes with an elevated 12-month share price target of $41.25.
The broker reckons that the markets are interpreting the war in Ukraine as a negative for Altium, seeing as the company has a presence in Russia and research and development staff in Ukraine. However, Bell Potter notes that Russia only represents "1%-2% of Altium's revenue", and also highlights that the company has moved its Ukraine-based staff to Poland.
It also doesn't expect that the recently announced strategic partnership between Altium's competitors Cadence Design Systems and Dassault Systèmes will prove to be much of a headwind either. The broker notes that these two companies don't really compete in the same space as Altium, so investors don't have much to fret over.
As a result, Bell Potter is expecting strong profit growth from Altium going forward and thus sees the company as undervalued today.
If the broker's opinion regarding the Altium share price proves accurate, it would imply a potential upside of almost 25% over the next year.
No doubt that will be music to Altium investors' ears.
In the meantime, the current Altium share price gives this ASX 200 tech share a market capitalisation of $4.31 billion. That comes with a dividend yield of 1.27%.
