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 semirelated companies.
Today, let's look at some large European bank stocks. Below are seven banks that are within 20% of their 52-week lows and have market caps above $200 million.
|
Company |
Recent Price |
52-Week Low |
52-Week High |
Trailing P/E Ratio |
Price-to-Book Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria |
$8.19 | $7.71 | $14.05 | 5.4 | 0.7 |
|
Banco Santander |
$8.27 | $7.84 | $13.52 | 6.9 | 0.5 |
|
National Bank of Greece |
$0.83 | $0.80 | $2.73 | NM | 0.3 |
|
HSBC Holdings |
$41.07 | $40.28 | $59.14 | 9.7 | 0.9 |
|
Barclays |
$9.89 | $9.51 | $21.69 | 7.2 | 0.3 |
|
The Royal Bank of Scotland Group |
$6.92 | $6.75 | $18.82 | NM | 0.3 |
|
Lloyds Banking Group |
$1.97 | $1.76 | $4.86 | NM | 0.6 |
Sources: Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's, and Yahoo! Finance.
Much like the U.S. housing bubble, the European debt crisis has reverberated across the global marketplace. But the pain is felt nowhere more strongly than in the European banking sector. Beyond the negative effects most normal companies feel, as large holders of European sovereign debt, European banks will feel real pain with any negative credit events. There are some very cheap-looking price multiples here, but these discounts must be weighed against real risks.
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