If you're aiming to "buy low and sell high," then it makes infinite sense to start your search with bargain-priced stocks. Regularly reviewing a list of stocks trading near their 52-week lows can be a great first step.

Here, I'll try to do the initial legwork for you. To prevent us from being inundated with scores of disparate companies, I'll conduct my search by industry. This will allow us to make some initial comparisons among semi-related companies.

There are 24 industry groups as defined by the Global Industry Classification Standard. Telecommunication services is one of them.

Below are the top six companies in this space (by market cap) that are hugging 52-week lows.

Company

Market Capitalization (in millions)

% Change From 52-Week Low

P/E Ratio (trailing)

 

China Mobile (NYSE: CHL)

                     $207,779

                         17.2%

                         12.1

AT&T (NYSE: T)

                     $167,165

                         19.0%

                         8.0

NTT DOCOMO (NYSE: DCM)

                      $68,809

                         19.2%

                         11.5

Nippon Telegraph & Telephone (NYSE: NTT)

                      $59,623

                         15.3%

                         9.6

VimpelCom (NYSE: VIP)

                      $18,968

                         19.2%

                         11.1

Vivo Participacoes (NYSE: VIV)

                      $17,030

                         22.8%

                         20.5

Source: Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's. Data as of Oct. 24.

This list is a sampling of telecom from around the world.

Most of the earnings multiples you see are in the low to reasonable range because of low to middling growth expectations. The exceptions are VimpelCom and Vivo, which have double-digit analyst growth expectations.

Of course, with slower growth can come tasty dividends. For example, AT&T and France Telecom both have dividend yields above 5%. One thing to note, though, if you're lusting after AT&T's 8.0 P/E ratio and 5.9% dividend combo -- AT&T's recent earnings are juiced because of a one-time tax benefit, so that P/E ratio looks artificially low.

If you are interested in reading more about these stocks, add them to My Watchlist to find all of our Foolish analysis on them.

Editor's Note: A previous version of this article listed “% Change From 52-Week Low” values based on the home exchanges of foreign-based stocks. We have adjusted to reflect the U.S.-listed values. We have also removed France Telecom from the list.