3 Top Stocks at Half-Price

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 in the Motley Fool CAPS community also like a bargain, apparently. Below, you'll find three companies whose shares are selling at least 50% below their 52-week highs but still earn high honors from our investor-intelligence database. Consider it a BOGO sale on stocks.

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 into your portfolio.

Take two; they're small
Cardiovascular-drug developer Cardiome Pharma hasn't exactly had hearts racing these days. With only one drug on the market, and limited to sales in Europe, Iceland, and Norway, revenues plunged by 99% as the effects of a year-ago payment from Merck (NYSE: MRK) wore off, turning a $0.26-per-share profit into a $0.12 loss. That was even worse than the $0.11 analysts had been anticipating.

It's not all Cardiome's fault, though. It has been left in FDA limbo ever since the regulatory agency demanded a review of a single serious bad reaction to its drug vernakalant. Pharmaceutical partner Astellas subsequently suspended patient enrollment.

Highly rated CAPS All-Star zzlangerhans believes that although it's hard to divine information from the biotech, it will start beating again soon enough.

Cardiome plays their cards close to their chests to a frustrating degree, but I believe upcoming catalysts are more likely to be positive than negative. The hold on IV vernakalant is based on a single adverse event which did not prompt the DSMB to suspend the trial. IV vernakalant is already approved in Europe and it seems unlikely that development will be terminated in the US over safety issues. Furthermore, the company will begin reporting revenues from IV vernakalant in Europe over the next couple of quarters.

Let us know on the Cardiome Pharma CAPS page whether the biotech has the heart to make it through to the next level.

A house of cards
Seems short sellers were correctly tuned in to the pending disaster at RAIT Financial Trust back in April, as its stock cratered after a poorly received earnings report. Before that, it was thought that with the housing market still decimated, RAIT ought to fare better because of a greater trend toward apartment dwelling. Along with competitors American Capital Agency (Nasdaq: AGNC) and Annaly Capital (NYSE: NLY), RAIT is a REIT focused on the real estate financing market, but two-thirds of its portfolio is in multifamily properties.

The CAPS community thinks the selloff on RAIT's shares has been excessive, noting the $2 level which it has since broken through. CAPS member foolishStocker says the low valuation is just too cheap to pass up.

Great current valuation, less than half of book value. [Dividends] will start flowing this year. Stock price will recover that is a sure thing so [it's] just a matter of time.

Only you can determine whether RAIT is right for your portfolio, so add it to your watchlist and have all the Foolish news and analysis about it aggregated for you in one place. Then let us know on the RAIT Financial CAPS page or in the comments section below whether the CRE market can rebuild itself.

A smaller form factor
When you see that AT&T is more often than not deploying Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) Ethernet routers rather than those from Tellabs, but that Cisco is still suffering from slack business growth, then you can also understand why Tellabs shares have been cut in half. The selloff began in earnest back in January and hasn't relented since.

Yet Tellabs still offers investors a chance for international growth and has been spending a good portion of its money on R&D. Even though the market appears to be declining for the telecom networking solutions provider, it's continuously looking for new ways to break out of the rut it's found itself in. Cold comfort for investors right now, but there should be a payoff down the road.

Network with other investors on Tellabs' CAPS page, and monitor how its investments work out by adding the stock to your personalized version of the Fool's free portfolio tracker.

Have half a mind
Sign up today for the completely free CAPS service, and tell us whether these stocks are twice as good at half the price.