Jim Cramer Thinks Roper Technologies Won't Bounce Back Until Software Stocks Recover

Roper Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:ROP) is one of the stocks Jim Cramer shed light on recently. Cramer highlighted the “fascinating story” of the company during the episode, as he stated:

Finally, there’s, alright, this one’s a little funny, but I don’t mean to laugh if you own the stock, if you work there, but Roper Technologies. It’s a fascinating story. For over a century, this was a fabulous industrial company. I always liked it so much. Dates back to the late 1800s with various different focuses over the years, maker of home appliances, pumps, other industrial products. Always being the best at what they do. But starting around 15 years ago, Roper began acquiring a series of software companies, gradually moving away from its metal-bending roots. In this new software centric era for Roper, the company’s operated like a private equity firm snapping up software businesses it likes, mostly allowing them to operate independently.

Many of them were, I think, very expensive acquisitions. And in fairness, the strategy worked great for its first 15 years. Problem is enterprise software is going out of style at the Wall Street fashion show. Investors are paying much, much lower prices to earnings multiples for these stocks nowadays, as we know from the investment punishment meted out to ServiceNow, Adobe, and Salesforce.com, among other enterprise software companies, which brings me to Tuesday morning when Roper reported a mixed quarter. A revenue miss paired with a small earnings beat, and the stock ultimately got hit.

Why? Because Roper’s full-year forecast missed expectations on every line, and their earnings guidance for the current quarter also came up short. Now, Roper looks like a bad house in a bad neighborhood, and I’m not sure what could get investors interested in this stock again, at least until the company starts delivering some better prints. I think this one doesn’t bounce back until the enterprise software cohort finally gets out of the [doghouse buzzer], and I don’t see that happening any time soon.

Roper Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:ROP) builds specialized software and technology products for industries like healthcare, education, and transportation. The company provides cloud-based management tools, data analytics, medical devices, and precision measurement systems.

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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.