You love buying your shirts when they go on sale. And who can resist a buy-one-get-one-free offer? So when our stocks go on sale, why do we bemoan their low prices?
Smart investors like Warren Buffett or Marty Whitman love it when their stocks are suddenly selling at bargain-basement prices. For them, these companies become no-brainer buys.
The investors who populate the Motley Fool CAPS community also like a bargain, apparently. Below, you'll find five stocks whose shares are selling at least 50% below their 52-week highs but still earn top five-star honors from our investor-intelligence database. Consider it a BOGO sale on stocks.
|
Stock
|
CAPS Rating (Out of 5)
|
% Off 52-Week High
|
|
AgFeed Industries (Nasdaq: FEED )
|
*****
|
61%
|
|
Allied Irish Banks (NYSE: AIB )
|
*****
|
79%
|
|
Conexant Systems (Nasdaq: CNXT )
|
*****
|
66%
|
|
Huntsman (NYSE: HUN )
|
*****
|
57%
|
|
Sunrise Senior Living (NYSE: SRZ )
|
*****
|
90%
|
Naturally, we want you to look a bit closer at these stocks before buying. You can get low-priced appliances in the dent-and-ding section of your home-remodeling superstore, but their quality might not be so good. Same thing here: Make sure there's nothing seriously wrong with the company before you plug it in to your portfolio.
Take two; they're small
What do you get when you mix benzene with nitric and sulfuric acids and water? If you guessed Starbucks' new instant coffee, you'll be forgiven, since they both undoubtedly taste incredibly bad. But the actual result of mixing that cocktail is a venti-sized nasty chemical reaction known as nitrobenzene, an incredibly dangerous chemical because of its exothermicity, or the amount of heat it throws off when produced. Think of it as a flamethrower in a test tube. Yet it's also the precursor to making the polyurethane foams used to insulate your refrigerator -- and apparently it's in whatever keeps Larry King so well preserved.
One of the leading manufacturers of these poly foams is Huntsman, a specialty-chemicals manufacturer slumping in a recession that has also dragged down Dow Chemical (NYSE: DOW ) and other chemical makers. Huntsman's slip, though, has been more notable because of a failed acquisition by private-equity firm Apollo Management. In fact, it was pretty much only the settlements stemming from the merger litigation that allowed Huntsman to post a tenfold increase in profits in the most recent quarter.
Ratings agency Moody pushed Huntsman's credit further into junk territory, over concerns that Huntsman's margins are coming under pressure as future volume falls. But the chemicals specialist reported that although volumes dropped sharply year over year, they jumped quite well sequentially. Polyurethanes in particular sported a nice increase -- up 14% from the first quarter. The market sold off Huntsman's shares after the report, but CAPS member jasenj1 thinks that was an overreaction to an otherwise favorable earnings report: "They took a 10% hit this morning on what looked to my eyes to be a decent earnings report, from ~7.25 to ~6.60. Looks like a good place to get in."
Fattening up profits
Envy the lowly pig. It lies around in the mud all day, as it eats slop and gets fat basking in the sun. Pretty much like your average college freshman. The one drawback is that the slaughterhouse awaits the pig. But all that lolling about makes for some tasty bacon, and the butcher's block separating its fat back from its bone is the totality of what it can call a future. Particularly if it lives in China.
Pork accounted for more than 62% of China's meat production in 2007. While most pigs are raised on small family farms, a growing number are being raised in commercial operations, like those run by Zhongpin (Nasdaq: HOGS ) . AgFeed Industries is on both ends, making the feed that gets them porky and also running a chain of hog farms. And without the benefit of some smart-alecky spider spinning witticisms over their sties, most of those pigs are going to end up in someone's moo shu dish.
Highly rated CAPS All-Star member devilinside believes that China will continue going whole hog on pigs and may even one day become a net exporter of pork products. Feeding all of those swine will have AgFeed in hog heaven for a long time.
FEED, what a great symbol for a great company. China is determined to be fully self producing in [its] agriculture within the next 10 years. Currently it is a net importer across the board for agricultural products to FEED [its] growing and demanding population. Billions of dollars will be pumped into agricultural development and I truly believe it will be a net exporter of agricultural products within 15 years.
Have half a mind
It pays to start your own research on these stocks on Motley Fool CAPS. Read a company's financial reports, scrutinize key data and charts, and examine the comments your fellow investors have made -- all from a stock's CAPS page.
Sign up today for the completely free service, and tell us whether you think these stocks are twice as good at half the price.
RSS Headlines
Fool UK