Stocks that can double your money in relatively short periods of time (meaning 1 to 2 years) don't exactly fall out of the sky. Moreover, these types of equities tend to come with a hefty dose of risk, making them unattractive assets for most types of investors.
Having said that, our contributors think that Celldex Therapeutics (CLDX -1.43%), Yamana Gold (LSE: YAU), and Kinder Morgan (KMI 3.46%) are three stocks that could double your money without terrifying levels of risk. Read on to find out why.
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This cancer stock is inching closer to a major catalyst
George Budwell (Celldex Therapeutics): Celldex Therapeutics, a small-cap oncology company, is arguably a deeply undervalued clinical-stage biotech that could double or perhaps even triple in value over the next year.
The brief backstory is that the biotech's stock was hammered after its experimental brain cancer vaccine, Rintega, failed to improve overall survival in a late stage trial last year.
Since then, Celldex's triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) drug candidate glembatumumab vedotin, or glemba for short, has made steady progress in a potentially pivotal Phase 2 trial. And if all goes as planned, this ongoing trial should produce top line data early next year, and perhaps pave the way for the company's first regulatory approval soon thereafter.
Despite glemba's maturation as a promising lead drug candidate, though, Celldex's stock has continued to push lower over the last twelve months -- the ghost of Rintega's failure appears to still be weighing heavily on the company's share price to this day. But this pessimism might be a golden opportunity for risk-tolerant investors to bottom feed, so to speak.
While experimental cancer drugs are particularly risky assets by their very nature (over 90% of cancer drug candidates fail to make it to market), Celldex's glemba seems to have a better than average shot based on its early stage results at hitting the mark as a treatment for TNBC patients. If so, glemba should become an important new option for this hard-to-treat form of breast cancer. Celldex, in turn, would then be firmly on a path toward becoming a profitable oncology company.
And, in a worst case scenario, Celldex does have several other clinical candidates in the works that should provide a nice backstop in case glemba flames out in TNBC.
This gold stock could sparkle going forward
Neha Chamaria (Yamana Gold): Calling out a gold stock as one that could potentially double might sound pretty bold, but I see the potential in Yamana Gold if its ongoing growth initiatives pan out.
To be fair, Yamana's projections of lower production this year are disappointing, but much of the pessimism already appears to be baked into the stock price given the 17% drop since the miner released production guidance in early February. Yamana is now trading at a mere three times cash flow and a book value of only 0.5 times. That's downright cheap if you ask me.
And it's not likely that Yamana's production is headed south long term. 2018 and 2019, in fact, could be game changers -- the miner is working to bring its seventh mine, Cerro Moro in Argentina, online next year even as it expands production at the Canadian Malartic and Chapada mines. As a result, Yamana projects its total gold production to jump nearly 16% between 2017 and 2019.
This enhanced production combined with tapering capital expenditures should boost Yamana's cash flows substantially from next year onwards, not to mention Yamana's efforts to deleverage and monetize its stake in Brio Gold. The market has, of course, not factored in the potential growth yet given the stock's dirt cheap P/CF valuation of three. If Yamana can expand production as scheduled, its sales and cash flows could grow rapidly in 2018 and beyond. There's no reason why the stock price shouldn't follow suit. As it is, Yamana is among the cheapest stocks in the industry today. Gold stocks can, of course, be volatile, but Yamana could shine going forward, providing you great value for your invested money.
A stronger, expanding energy pipeline business
Chuck Saletta (Kinder Morgan): Just two years ago, energy pipeline giant Kinder Morgan was trading at about twice the price its shares recently fetched. The decline since then has been due to over-leveraging its balance sheet, which spooked Moody's into threatening to downgrade its debt rating to junk status. Kinder Morgan then slashed its dividend by around 75%, driving much of the share price decline.
While that cut was painful for investors that had come to rely on Kinder Morgan's dividends, it helped the company strengthen its balance sheet and reduce its reliance on the markets for its financing needs. As a result, today's Kinder Morgan is a fundamentally stronger company than it was two years ago, despite its lower stock price. Kinder Morgan continues to expand -- including in Canada, with the recently approved Trans Mountain pipeline expansion -- which should generate future cash flow growth.
All that's missing at this point is Kinder Morgan's dividend, which still sits at the $0.125 per share per quarter level it has occupied since it reduced the payment in late 2015. While there are no guarantees until the company actually declares a higher dividend, Kinder Morgan has made it clear that it hopes to resume dividend increases in 2018.
The market's ultra-short term attention span makes it likely that Kinder Morgan's previous dividend cut will soon be forgotten as it reestablishes its dividend credibility. While it might take a few years for Kinder Morgan's dividend and stock price to regain their 2015 highs, that's all it'll have to do in order to double today's investors' money. With the business in stronger shape today than it was then, and still investing in its future growth, that's well within the realm of possibility.
