I love bargain stocks, especially when they're hitting 52-week lows. Still, it can be instructive to also look at stocks that are riding high.
For one thing, they can make good sell candidates. More optimistically, we may be able to find a few companies that can continue their upward climbs.
In this series, I'll be searching industry by industry for stocks reaching 52-week highs. That way, we'll be able to make a few quick comparisons among semi-related companies.
There are 24 industry groups as defined by the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS). Telecommunications is one of them.
Below are the top five companies in this space (by market cap) that are within spitting distance of their 52-week highs.
|
Company |
Recent Price |
52-Week Low |
52-Week High |
P/E Ratio (Trailing) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
AT&T |
$28.50 |
$23.78 |
$29.43 |
7.8 |
|
Vodafone |
$27.42 |
$18.21 |
$27.49 |
10.6 |
|
Telefonica |
$81.31 |
$53.21 |
$89.62 |
11.0 |
|
America Movil |
$57.14 |
$42.24 |
$58.65 |
15.8 |
|
Verizon |
$32.41 |
$25.99 |
$34.13 |
209.3 |
Source: Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's, and Yahoo! Finance.
Based on P/E ratios, AT&T looks more than 25 times cheaper than Verizon. Obviously, this isn't the case. But here's why: AT&T's multiple is a little lower than normal because of a one-time tax benefit. Meanwhile, Verizon's earnings are depressed because of a boatload of restructuring charges.
Both have dividends near 6% and are trading at reasonable prices, P/E ratios be darned! The other three are worth looking into as well if you're interested in the telecom space. For a next step, you can check out the 52-week-lows list. (AT&T made that one, too.)
Still want more? If you're interested in reading more about any of these stocks, add them to My Watchlist to find all of our Foolish analysis on them.
