5 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.

Members of our Motley Fool CAPS community also like a bargain, apparently. Below, you'll find five companies whose shares are selling at least 50% below their 52-week highs, but that still earn top five-star status 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
China has often found it cheaper to import much of its coal and iron ore instead of producing it at home. The country has imported 10.5 million metric tons of coal from Australia alone in the first five months of 2009, according to China customs officials. And as its economy grew 8% in the second quarter, iron ore imports jumped 29%. As coal and ore prices rise and freight rates float upward, China may be encouraged to bring its own idled production back online.

Those rising rates are reflected in the Baltic Dry Index, which has recovered from the lows it hit in January. By bouncing back, the index is leading dry-bulk shippers like Navios Maritime and Excel Maritime (NYSE:EXM) to a recovery, too. Navios' shares are up 38% year to date, while Excel Maritime's shares are up 10%. DryShips (NASDAQ:DRYS), which has had troubles beyond collapsing rates, and its shares are still down 45% this year, though that marks a bit of an improvement for a stock that lost more than 90% of its value over the past 12 months.

Some investors remain convinced that Navios Maritime will come out of this recession better for it. According to CAPS member Teacherman1, Navios' top-notch management team could find a way to prosper from China.

They have a really "first class" team running this company. They also stand to gain from their [South America] operations if China decides to "cozy up" to Brazil for future iron ore purchases. As strange as it seems, it is cheaper for China to buy their ore outside and pay to ship it, then it is to provide it domestically. It will take some time, but when the world economy gets back to a more normalized configuration, [Navios] will be in a position to profit because they are laying a strong, diversified base to operate from. In the mean time, they pay a good dividend (especially if you got in or get in low).

The 16 companies with the CAPS Dry Bulk Shipping tag have posted fairly flat returns over the past month. As a whole, they're off more than 60% over the past year. Navios Maritime, one of the top-rated stocks in the sector, has fared better than most.

Have half a mind
It pays to start your own research on these stocks on Motley Fool CAPS. Read a company's financial reports, scrutinize key data and charts, and examine the comments your fellow investors have made -- all from a stock's CAPS page.

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