@edgescape I wouldn't sweat over the short term on this one - looks like a beautiful business. If we get another July-2022, i'd probably join the club.

With a 5-year NPAT CAGR of 19%, and reasonable variability in annual % earnings growth, we regularly get entry opportunities.

The only reason I haven't bought to date has been preferring to add to higher margin SaaS businesses and my focus on healthcare.

But maybe, one day soon. Volatility is a beautiful thing.

I am a DTL owner IRL as well and was surprised by the reaction yesterday too. Is it one of those things that the frothy PE ratios for some of these companies are starting to come back to more normal levels, if the growth prospects aren't as high in the future?

I also have the $45m in my forward NPAT calculations over the next year for this stock and agree with your updated valuation on this one.

@mikebrisy Yes the volatility we seem to be seeing more of with many companies, the few days after reporting, for the past few earnings seasons, is a wonderful thing if you really think about it. For those who have done their homework and really know how the business is operating etc, can take advantage of short term silliness.

I have done particularly well IRL over the past couple of years in companies like DTL, DDR, JIN, CDA, NCK, RMD and DUR by adding when pessimism was high after reports and then waiting for some cooler heads to prevail!

@mikebrisy I believe DTL is more resilient during downturn as the business has exposure to BAU than new projects like MP1.

Because at the end of the day you can't get away with system upgrades and maintenance of your live systems. However as I've heard from word of mouth, you can still kill your Dev and Test systems but leave your Live and Preproduction systems up and running.

Having said that, my comment on Dev/Test postponement is only sample size of 1. So maybe software investors in general you can ignore that account...

I reckon the analysts have been doing checking around the industry on project implementations and are probably trying to use that info to their advantage.

If you go back to the last cyclical downturn DTL really sold off heavily. I think it is far more cyclical than the market appreciates. The last few years have been a purple patch.

@UlladullaDave

I don't deny the fact that Data#3 is a mining co dressed up as a tech co. I will make it clear on that point

@UlladullaDave possibly has some positive structural changes in the market over time, but the PE has doubled from circa 15X to 30X over and above the earnings growth, that's the crux of my issue with DTL as an investment.

I agree @Solvetheriddle that isn't a sustainable trend. That said, they were added to the ASX200 in the past year, so have the had bump of being added to all those passive indexes and now the ongoing flow of new super money, so the future average multiple is likely to be higher than the historical one. I've just got to figure out what the new "fair" range is...