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 cry about 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 who populate the Motley Fool CAPS community also like a bargain, apparently. Below, you'll find five stocks whose shares are selling at least 50% below their 52-week highs, but which still earn top 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
The worldwide recession has brought day-charter rates in the shipping business way down. But dry bulk shippers like Navios Maritime may yet navigate the turmoil successfully -- especially if they have long-term charter contracts, like Navios does. CAPS member artbydouglas thinks the trillions being spent by governments around the globe to stimulate their economies will end up putting the shippers to sail once again:

This world wide mess is temporary. A fleet of [modern] ships and good management will bring these guys out the other side. Plus, I think some governments just dropped a couple trillion in to the world economy. I think most of it will end up in the stock markets in the next two years. Once the bailout money [gets] through the system, it will end up in quality run companies delivering goods and services to a starved consumer driven nation. It looks like they are already preparing to hunker down for the short term.

Canadian miner Teck Cominco is facing some gloomy times ahead, as declining international steel needs dry up demand for metallurgical coal. Prices have continued to fall, and there are concerns that the company might have difficulty meeting debt payments next year from its acquisition of Fording Canadian Coal. To compensate, the company may sell minority interests in Fording's position in Elk Valley, which has contracts as high as $275 a ton through March. But with current pricing in the area of $160 a ton, finding a buyer willing to take market exposure beyond early next year might be difficult. Teck might fare better if it tried to unload some of its gold assets, perhaps to Barrick Gold (NYSE:ABX) or Newmont Mining (NYSE:NEM).

CAPS member tthwebster acknowledges the tough road ahead for Teck, but suggests it has the wherewithal to make it through the tough times: "Sector has a ways to go before it starts climbing again. Having said that, this company is unlike it's peers in that it has twice the profit margin and has only experienced a slight shaving of its revenue."

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 absolutely free, and tell us whether these stocks are twice as good at half the price.