Should You Buy It?: CA

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CA(CA Quote) is a beaten-up enterprise software producer that is starting to garner the attention of Wall Street.

The company was upgraded to outperform on Wednesday by the brokerage Cowen & Co. According to the analyst, at Wednesday's closing price of $20.12, the shares are merely valued at CA's order book of recurring contract revenue.

This follows a similar upgrade at JPMorgan in mid-September, again citing the approximately 70% of the company's total revenue that is generated by recurring software subscriptions and maintenance. Still, despite the recent upbeat sentiment from Wall Street, only seven of the 14 analysts who follow CA rate the stock a buy, while the other seven have neutral ratings.

With that in mind, I'm here to answer readers' questions. Should you buy it? Does CA offer value at current levels, or will pressure from the general economic slowdown affect the company's growth?

At current levels, the stock is down 19% year to date, largely keeping pace with the broader market averages. That values CA at just 13.4 times expected fiscal 2009 (ending March) earnings of $1.50 a share, compared with an average P/E ratio of 18.5 times expected full-year earnings for technology stocks, according to Bloomberg.

And CA's subscription revenue model does give the company better revenue visibility than its peers. In the fiscal first quarter, ended June, the company posted total bookings of $1.03 billion -- up 15% from the previous year.