QLogic (QLGC) is an interesting deep value play for equity investors to consider. The company is a major player in the field of high performance networking products, providing adapters, switches, routers and custom ASICs ("application specific integrated circuit") for use in a wide variety of networking applications. The company was founded in 1994 as the result of a spin-off from parent company Emulex (ELX) with whom QLogic today competes. Shares now present an attractive risk/reward profile at the $10 level for the following reasons:
- The company has strong valuation support with $484M in cash and marketable securities, no debt, and a market capitalization of roughly $900M
- The relevance of the company's products in an