We recently published our article Top 5 Best Cybersecurity Micro-Caps to Watch in 2026. This article looks at where Tenable Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:TENB) fits as cloud and SaaS data security demand rises and investors hunt for sub-$5B cybersecurity winners.
Valuation has quietly reentered the market conversation at a time when many investors least expected it. After several years in which price momentum, thematic investing, and speculative growth dominated headlines, a growing number of market participants are once again screening for cheap stocks and low P/E stocks that trade at meaningful discounts to their underlying earnings power. This shift has not been driven by panic or crisis, but rather by fatigue with stretched valuations and an increasing emphasis on cash flow, balance sheet discipline, and durable business models. In many portfolios, the “multiple you pay” is starting to matter again, especially when the margin for error is thin and investors are demanding proof rather than promises.
What makes this period unusual is that the market is not behaving like a single unified story. Instead, it has become a collection of mini-markets. A small cluster of high-multiple names continues to attract outsized attention, while a much larger portion of the investable universe trades as if growth is permanently capped. That divergence has created a widening lane for undervalued stocks, particularly those with steady earnings, tangible cash generation, and the kind of predictability that tends to regain popularity when investors become more selective.
Why Cheap Stocks Are Showing Up in More Screens Again
Strategists following sector rotation trends have pointed out that valuation dispersion remains unusually wide. Capital has continued to chase a narrow group of high-multiple names tied to emerging technologies and narrative-driven growth, but this has left behind many profitable businesses that are still executing in the real economy. The result is that cheap P/E ratios are no longer limited to distressed companies or structurally broken industries. More frequently, low forward P/E stocks now include firms with recurring revenue streams, stable end markets, or clear capital return policies that have simply fallen out of favor.
This is the type of setup that tends to trigger broader screening behavior. When investors notice that quality companies are trading at discounted multiples, the next step is usually to ask whether the market is mispricing risk or simply ignoring improvement. That question alone is often enough to bring “best cheap stocks to buy right now” back into the research pipeline, especially for managers who need exposure outside the most crowded trades.
The Interest Rate Lens That Keeps Repricing Multiples
Interest rate expectations have played a central role in this dynamic, and they continue to shape how investors interpret valuation. As inflation pressures show signs of moderation and productivity improvements become more visible across the economy, analysts have increasingly discussed the possibility that restrictive monetary policy may not remain in place indefinitely. Even modest shifts in rate expectations can have an outsized impact on valuation models, particularly for companies with steady earnings and predictable cash flows.
When discount rates stabilize or drift lower, the market often becomes more willing to assign higher multiples to cash flows that appear durable. At the same time, when rates remain elevated, investors often prefer stocks that are already priced conservatively. Either way, low forward earnings multiples can act as a buffer, because they require less “multiple expansion” to generate respectable returns. This is one reason forward P/E has become a popular shortcut for identifying cheap stocks, especially when the market is still debating the path of rates.
Sector Rotation Is Quietly Shifting the Hunting Grounds
Sector by sector, this valuation reset has manifested in different ways, and the differences matter. In healthcare, portions of the sector continue to benefit from non-cyclical demand and pricing resilience, yet still trade at earnings multiples more commonly associated with mature or declining industries. In communications and infrastructure-heavy sectors, high capital intensity and regulatory overhangs can weigh on sentiment even when cash generation is steady. In software and digital services, the market’s skepticism around growth normalization can overshadow improving margins and free cash flow conversion. In industrial and consumer-linked sectors, macro uncertainty can mask company-level execution, operational improvement, and shareholder return programs.
What ties these sectors together is not that they are collapsing. It is that their valuations often reflect an assumption that good news will not last or that improvement will not translate into durable earnings. When sectors fall out of favor, the market sometimes prices in a permanent handicap. That is where valuation gaps can form, and where low P/E stocks can begin to stand out again.
Perception Versus Performance Is Creating Price Gaps
What stands out in the current market is how often price movements reflect perception rather than performance. Many companies now classified as cheap stocks have continued to meet or exceed earnings expectations, strengthen balance sheets, and return capital to shareholders, yet their valuations imply limited future upside. This kind of disconnect tends to happen when investors are focused on what could go wrong rather than what has been going right.
Professional investors, especially those with longer time horizons, often treat valuation as a margin of safety rather than a timing tool. When they see durable earnings trading at compressed multiples, the natural question becomes whether the stock is priced for a downturn that may already be reflected in fundamentals, or whether the business is quietly improving while the market remains distracted. This is why forward P/E ratios and earnings durability have become increasingly important screening criteria. They do not guarantee outperformance, but they help narrow the field to companies where expectations appear unusually low relative to current results.
What “Cheap” Actually Means in This Market
In practice, “cheap” does not simply mean low price. It usually means the market is offering an earnings stream at a discounted multiple compared with peers, history, or the broader index. That is why forward earnings multiples tend to be used more than trailing multiples in screening work. Forward P/E is a shorthand for how the market is pricing the next year of expected profitability, and it can reveal where skepticism is embedded.
It also helps explain why cheap stocks often come in clusters. If an entire sector is viewed as out of favor, multiples compress broadly, even for the strongest operators. If a business is executing but the market is still anchored to an older narrative, the valuation may lag. When the story changes faster than the market’s perception, the valuation gap becomes the opportunity.
Why This Leads Naturally to a “Best Cheap Stocks” Shortlist
Against this backdrop, compiling a list of the 5 Best Cheap Stocks to Buy Right Now is less about making bold predictions and more about identifying where valuation, fundamentals, and market expectations are misaligned. These opportunities tend to emerge when sectors fall out of favor not because of structural decline, but because attention has shifted elsewhere. History suggests that such periods often precede meaningful re-rating cycles, especially when broader market conditions begin to stabilize.
This is also why a shortlist approach matters. Not every low multiple stock is undervalued, and not every discounted company is cheap for the right reasons. The goal is to isolate situations where the business has measurable earnings power, credible cash flow generation, and enough visibility for forward expectations to be judged rationally. When those boxes are checked, a low forward multiple becomes more meaningful as a signal rather than a warning.
Setting the Stage for the 5 Best Cheap Stocks to Buy Right Now
In an environment where uncertainty remains elevated but fundamentals continue to assert themselves, cheap stocks with proven earnings power stand out as a distinct segment of the market worth close examination. With valuation once again playing a central role in portfolio construction, the focus naturally turns to identifying which names offer the most compelling combination of low forward multiples, financial resilience, and potential upside if expectations normalize.
That framework sets the stage for reviewing the 5 Best Cheap Stocks to Buy Right Now, a group defined not by hype or narrative momentum, but by the simple reality that the market is still offering some earnings streams at prices that look unusually conservative relative to their fundamentals.
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Our Framework
To identify the 5 Best Cheap Stocks to Buy Right Now, the analysis focused on publicly traded companies listed in the United States that meet a clear set of quantitative and coverage based criteria. The initial screen required a minimum market capitalization of approximately $2 billion to ensure sufficient liquidity and institutional relevance. Companies were also required to be covered by at least three sell-side analysts, providing a baseline level of market scrutiny and earnings visibility. Finally, the shortlist was narrowed to stocks trading at forward price to earnings multiples below 15x, reflecting a valuation profile that is meaningfully below broader market averages while still supported by ongoing profitability.
YOU MUST READ THIS!!! – 5 Best Cheap Stocks to Buy Right Now
Top 4: Tenable Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:TENB)
Market Cap: $2.5 B
Tenable is one of the cleaner “high-growth cybersecurity stocks” stories in a market that’s crowded with point solutions, because it sits at the intersection of exposure management, vulnerability management, attack surface management, cloud security, identity security, and risk-based prioritization. The core bull case is simple: modern enterprises don’t just need another security tool, they need an exposure management platform that continuously shows where they are most exposed across their entire digital infrastructure, what matters most right now, and what to remediate first before attackers exploit the same weaknesses. Tenable’s platform direction is built for that reality, and the company is reinforcing the narrative with steady double-digit revenue growth, improving earnings power, rising billings, expanding enterprise adoption, stronger cash generation, and shareholder-friendly capital returns. If you’re looking for a cybersecurity stock to buy that has both operational execution and a category tailwind tied to cyber risk reduction, Tenable is increasingly hard to ignore.
Exposure management is becoming the new must-have category in cybersecurity
The security world has shifted from defending a defined perimeter to defending a living, constantly changing attack surface. Companies now run hybrid environments with cloud workloads, SaaS platforms, endpoints, identity systems, containers, remote users, and third-party dependencies that expand the number of potential entry points. In that environment, the real problem isn’t whether vulnerabilities exist. The real problem is how to prioritize and fix the exposures that are most likely to cause a breach. That’s why exposure management is emerging as a high-priority cybersecurity category: it’s designed to create continuous visibility across the attack surface, rank exposures by real-world exploitability and business impact, and align remediation work to measurable risk reduction.
This shift is an investment tailwind because exposure management is increasingly treated as budget-protected. Executives want to know their true cyber exposure, which assets represent the highest security risk, and what fixes will meaningfully reduce breach probability. That demand aligns directly with the language of modern security buyers: continuous monitoring, vulnerability remediation, cyber risk management, security posture management, and operational resilience. As cybersecurity spending becomes more scrutinized, vendors that translate complex security data into business-ready risk prioritization often win the consolidation cycle.
From Nessus to platform expansion: Tenable’s advantage is credibility plus breadth
Tenable’s long-term advantage begins with credibility in vulnerability assessment and vulnerability scanning, which remains a foundational layer of enterprise cybersecurity. The company’s legacy product is widely recognized in security operations because accuracy, coverage, and research depth matter more here than marketing. That practitioner credibility makes it easier to expand into a broader platform motion because the starting point is already trusted by technical buyers.
The next stage of the story is platformization. Instead of being “only” a vulnerability management vendor, Tenable is positioning itself as an exposure management company that can unify visibility across IT assets, cloud environments, identities, and external attack surface elements. The practical benefit is that security teams can reduce tool sprawl and focus on risk-based remediation workflows rather than jumping between disconnected tools that each show only part of the problem. In cybersecurity SEO terms, Tenable is playing into the highest-intent searches that CISOs and security leaders are actively looking for: exposure management platform, risk-based vulnerability management, attack surface visibility, cloud security posture, identity exposure, vulnerability prioritization, and continuous threat exposure management.
Q4 2025 results strengthen the thesis because execution is meeting the narrative
A bullish thesis becomes much more credible when financial performance supports it. In Q4 2025, Tenable delivered results that exceeded all guidance metrics. Revenue grew 11% year over year to $260.5 million in the quarter, while full-year revenue rose 11% to $999.4 million. That kind of consistent growth matters because it signals durable demand rather than a one-time spike. It also suggests that Tenable’s platform direction is not slowing its base business; instead, the company is sustaining growth while moving up the stack.
The quarter also showed improving earnings power, with diluted EPS rising to $0.48 from $0.41 a year earlier, and full-year diluted EPS increasing to $1.59 compared to $1.29 in 2024. That improvement is important for investors looking for high-growth software that is not trapped in “growth at any cost” mode. Tenable is demonstrating that it can scale profitably, which tends to change how the market values the stock over time. When a cybersecurity company can pair steady revenue growth with rising earnings per share, it becomes easier to argue for multiple expansion as investors reward quality and durability.
Billings growth supports commercial momentum, but the real story is scalable demand
Alongside revenue, Tenable reported robust billings performance. Current billings increased 8% in the fourth quarter and full year to $327.8 million and $1.049 billion, respectively. In subscription software, billings can be an important indicator of forward demand and deal activity, especially when paired with stable revenue recognition trends. The key bullish takeaway is that Tenable is not just retaining customers; it is expanding commercial engagement enough to keep revenue growth steady while building more earnings leverage.
Even more telling than billings, though, is the evidence that Tenable’s enterprise strategy is working. The company added 502 new enterprise platform customers and five net new six-figure customers. Those figures matter because platform customers tend to have higher lifetime value, lower churn, and greater upsell potential. In other words, these are the types of customers that can turn Tenable into a compounding cybersecurity business rather than a tool that gets swapped out every budget cycle. That enterprise traction also reinforces the notion that exposure management is not merely an analyst buzzword; it’s a buying behavior that is translating into real platform adoption.
2026 guidance implies a durable growth runway with rising profitability
A strong quarter matters, but guidance is where the company tells you whether momentum is sustainable. Tenable’s outlook for 2026 suggests continued expansion and improved profitability. For Q1 2026, the company expects revenue between $257 million and $260 million, with diluted EPS between $0.39 and $0.42. For full-year 2026, it expects revenue of $1.065 billion to $1.075 billion and diluted EPS of $1.81 to $1.90. From an investor standpoint, that combination of revenue growth and meaningful EPS expansion suggests improving operating leverage. It implies a business that is not only growing but increasingly efficient as it scales.
This matters because cybersecurity investors are increasingly selective. The market is more likely to reward companies that show repeatable, forecastable subscription growth while improving margins and cash generation. Tenable’s guidance supports the idea that it is entering a phase where scale economics become more visible, which can be a catalyst for re-rating if execution stays consistent quarter after quarter.
Share repurchases add a shareholder-friendly layer to the investment case
Tenable also announced a $150 million expansion of its share repurchase program. Buybacks are not automatically bullish in every scenario, but they become meaningful when a company is generating enough cash to fund growth and still return capital to shareholders. For Tenable, repurchases can serve as a signal that management views the stock as undervalued relative to fundamentals, while also reducing share count over time and supporting EPS growth. In practical terms, this adds another pillar to the bull thesis: Tenable is not just a growth story, it’s increasingly a disciplined capital allocation story.
For investors, this can matter especially in volatile markets. When software valuations swing, companies with real cash generation and active buybacks often show more resilience because there is a built-in buyer and a clearer demonstration of financial strength.
Analyst support reinforces the view that fundamentals are improving
Tenable’s better-than-expected performance also drew supportive commentary from at least one major analyst firm. Cantor Fitzgerald reaffirmed its Overweight rating and maintained a $30 price target after the Q4 2025 results. While no single price target should be treated as certainty, the broader signal is that professional coverage is acknowledging the company’s improving execution and financial trajectory. In markets where investor sentiment can lag fundamentals, that kind of reinforcement can help re-anchor expectations around what the business is actually delivering.
Why Tenable can win even in a competitive cybersecurity landscape
The cybersecurity market is crowded, but Tenable’s strategy has a clear logic: become the exposure management layer that gives organizations a unified, prioritized view of risk across their attack surface. That is a powerful value proposition because most security failures aren’t caused by a lack of tools; they’re caused by the inability to prioritize and remediate exposures quickly enough. If Tenable can keep refining its ability to correlate exposures, rank them by exploitability and asset criticality, and help teams execute remediation workflows, it can remain relevant even as competitors fight over narrower categories.
This also ties directly into the strongest cybersecurity SEO themes that drive investor and buyer attention: vulnerability scanning, vulnerability management software, cyber exposure, attack surface reduction, cloud security, identity security, risk-based prioritization, security posture management, threat exposure management, and cyber risk analytics. Tenable’s platform narrative naturally aligns with these high-intent areas because it is focused on continuous visibility and practical risk reduction outcomes, not just alerts.
Key risks to monitor and what would break the thesis
The main risks are execution and differentiation. If Tenable’s platform adoption slows, if enterprise expansions weaken, or if competitive offerings commoditize the exposure management message, growth could decelerate and the stock could remain trapped in a valuation range. Macro-driven IT budget caution can also stretch deal cycles, even if security remains a priority. Another risk is that market expectations for “high growth cybersecurity stocks” can shift quickly, especially if investors rotate away from software. That said, Tenable’s improving EPS profile, consistent revenue growth, and shareholder returns help offset these risks by supporting a more durable investment profile.
What would most strengthen the bull thesis from here is continued evidence that platform customers are expanding, six-figure customer adds remain consistent, and the company continues to deliver on guidance while sustaining earnings growth. Exposure management is a category where the winner is often the vendor that becomes operationally embedded; once a platform becomes the risk dashboard and remediation driver for multiple teams, it becomes harder to replace.
Bottom line: Tenable is evolving into a higher-quality high-growth cybersecurity stock
Tenable’s bull case is not just about one quarter. It’s about category alignment plus consistent execution. Exposure management is becoming a core need as enterprise attack surfaces expand, and Tenable’s platform direction is positioned to benefit from that shift. The company’s Q4 and full-year 2025 results show steady double-digit revenue growth and improving earnings, while customer adds suggest the platform message is gaining traction in larger accounts. Guidance for 2026 points to continued growth and further EPS expansion, and the expanded share repurchase program adds a shareholder-friendly tailwind.
For investors looking for a cybersecurity stock that combines vulnerability management credibility with exposure management upside, Tenable offers a compelling blend of durable demand, improving profitability, and a strategy that fits the real direction of cybersecurity budgets: fewer tools, more unified risk visibility, and faster remediation of the exposures that matter most.
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Disclosure: No material interests to disclose. This article was originally published on Global Market Bulletin.
