No matter what's going on in the market or a specific company's history, there are always reasons to consider buying shares in a business. After all, some of the best opportunities in stocks are born from historically bloody times.
Motley Fool CAPS hosts a boatload of opinions from more than 130,000 members on more than 5,300 stocks, giving good reasons to own -- or sell -- a stock.
In the case of credit card issuer American Express (NYSE: AXP ) , a total of 2,865 members have given a bullish or bearish opinion on the company. Scouring the detailed information packed in pitches and other comments on the company, here are three of the top reasons to buy American Express today:
In value territory: Stocks of financial giants like American Express, Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC ) , General Electric (NYSE: GE ) , and US Bancorp (NYSE: USB ) are trading around multi-year lows and many investors have been waiting for an opportunity like this to buy a well established blue chip for a long term investment.
Reducing risk: American Express bears more risk than Visa (NYSE: V ) or MasterCard (NYSE: MA ) , but the company is taking proactive steps to reduce its risk exposure. Preparing for more tough times ahead, the company is closing inactive accounts, raising rates on some of its credit card portfolio and offering incentives for high risk customers to close their accounts.
Backed by Buffett: Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A ) owns 13% of American Express and the Oracle of Omaha recently gave his bullish opinion of the company stating that he expects it to be around forever. Investors have followed Buffet's principles in the past where he has profited immensely from investments in good companies when they've been in temporary trouble, and see the chance to do so again with American Express.
Of course, there's a lot more devil in the details of these buy-side opinions, which is why CAPS is such a great resource to check and balance your own analysis. You can read the bullish and bearish sides to every stock. To see what the very best CAPS members are saying now about American Express, just click on over to Motley Fool CAPS and have a look -- it's all free, and your opinion's welcome, too.
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