I am always looking for a good deal, whether that means buying an extra box of Golden Grahams when they're on sale or pouncing on undervalued stocks. The idea that anybody would sell a stock for less than its worth may seem silly, but legendary value investor Ben Graham (no relation to the cereal) tells us, by way of allegory, how we can look out for these situations.
In The Intelligent Investor, Graham introduces readers to a wacky chap named Mr. Market. Mr. Market's game is to pay you house calls on a daily basis to offer to sell you interests in businesses he owns or to buy from you interests in businesses you own. Sometimes Mr. Market will show up at your door very excited and offer you premium prices for your holdings, while at other times he'll be inconsolably depressed about the future and will offer to sell you what he has for as low as pennies on the dollar.
So to find some of the stocks that Mr. Market is depressed about, I've turned once again to The Motley Fool's CAPS investor community. Each of the companies below had a five-star rating (the highest) by our community of investors 30 days ago but have traded downward since then:
|
Stock
|
30-Day Return
|
One-Year Return
|
Current CAPS Rating
|
|
Terex (NYSE: TEX)
|
(25.0%)
|
(53.8%)
|
*****
|
|
Corning (NYSE: GLW)
|
(22.5%)
|
(35.2%)
|
*****
|
|
Ultra Petroleum
|
(22.5%)
|
(5.9%)
|
****
|
|
Sasol (NYSE: SSL)
|
(22.2%)
|
4.7%
|
*****
|
|
Vimpel Communications (NYSE: VIP)
|
(20.0%)
|
(22.0%)
|
*****
|
|
Vale (NYSE: RIO)
|
(18.6%)
|
(15.8%)
|
*****
|
|
Atheros Communications (Nasdaq: ATHR)
|
(18.4%)
|
(7.1%)
|
*****
|
Data from Motley Fool CAPS as of Sept. 9.
As the table shows, these stocks are all still very well regarded by the CAPS community, despite their underperformance over the past month. While these are not formal recommendations, they could be a great place to kick off further research. I'll even get you started with some thoughts on Vimpel Communications.
Why so blue?
VimpelCom is based in Russia.
Oh, you were waiting for more of an explanation? Over the past few months it hasn't taken much more than that for Russia-based stocks to decline sharply. Back in late July, Putin showed that not all that much has changed in Russia since the Yukos debacle, and that some seminars on what capitalism really means could still be quite helpful.
This time the hammer came down on mining and steel company Mechel (NYSE: MTL). Though VimpelCom's communications services have little to do with the prices that Mechel charges for coking coal, the concern is that nobody is safe from a good ol' Russian-bear-style government shakedown. And when one of your chief competitors is government-owned Svayzinvest -- parent to Rostelecom -- that only complicates matters further.
What the bulls say
If you can look past the threat of potential Russian (in)justice, then you may very well find yourself in the company of the nearly 1,200 CAPS members that are bullish on VimpelCom.
You can take your pick of reasons to like this stock. After the stock's extended slide it's now trading at under 10 times expected 2008 earnings. That's a pretty low price to pay, given that the company just reported revenue and net income growth of 52% and 31%, respectively, for the second quarter. And for all of the concern over Russian politics, the country is still one of the fastest-growing regions in the world and it -- along with the surrounding countries that VimpelCom provides services in -- is one heck of a growth market for the company to sell into.
One VimpelCom bull, timattox, thinks the thesis for this stock could be as simple as a bounce from the recent pessimism:
Nice fundamentals, and a recent price drop due to Putin's slamming of [Mechel]. ... Short term momentum is downwards so this pick will probably be in the red for a little while, but I do like to catch a falling knife... they do sometimes bounce real high afterwards.
So do you think the recent drop has created a good buying opportunity? Or is there more downside ahead? Let the community know what you think -- head over to CAPS and share your thoughts with the other 115,000-plus players currently part of the community. Even if you'd prefer to pass on VimpelCom, you can check out a couple of the other stocks listed above or any of the 5,500 stocks that are rated on CAPS.
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