The market sell-off in the past few weeks has widened the pool of stocks trading below $10, so let's go swimming. Low-priced stocks often pack high-risk profiles, but there are some big gains to be had when these investments pan out.
JetBlue Airways (JBLU 1.05%), Zynga (ZNGA), and Tencent Music (TME 1.58%) are three promising stocks that are trading in the single digits. Let's see what makes these investments great stocks that are worth adding to your watchlist now.
Image source: JetBlue.
JetBlue
This is a challenging time to be an air carrier. Travel restrictions and grounded flights are rattling the industry, and a total shutdown for weeks or months would be devastating for an industry that's already having its fair share of turbulence.
There will be a shakeout by the time carriers are consistently flying again, and the survivors will be able to cash in on healthier capacity and stronger pricing power. JetBlue is younger than the legacy carriers, and that's a good thing. It's not as leveraged as the larger players, and it commands revenue and EBITDA multiples based on its enterprise value that are relatively lower than its peers.
If the airlines eventually get a bailout -- one that will inevitably find them having to suspend buybacks and dividends -- JetBlue investors don't have to worry about some of those stipulations. Unlike some of the legacy carriers that will have to nix their beefy yields, JetBlue doesn't currently declare quarterly distributions. It's a growing business with positive top-line gains in each of the past 10 years. As a cult fave with its winning combination of low rates and on-board entertainment, it's easy to see how JetBlue will be one of the airlines ready to take off in more ways than one when we get past the coronavirus crisis.
Zynga
People have never been more attached to their smartphones, and that's welcome news for the leading publishers and developers of casual gaming apps. Zynga is the company behind Words With Friends, Merge Dragons!, CSR2, Empires & Puzzles, and several other addictive mobile gaming applications.
Zynga's popularity has been exploding lately. Bookings that account for the lion's share of the revenue mix skyrocketed 80% in its latest quarter, fueling a 63% year-over-year revenue surge. Zynga's outlook calls for revenue growth to decelerate in the year ahead, but with momentum on its side, it's not a surprise to see the reinvigorated market darling blow past its conservative guidance.
Wall Street is starting to come around. Oppenheimer analyst Andrew Uekwitz initiated coverage of the stock last week with a bullish rating. Despite the fickle nature of mobile gamers and the low barriers to entry, he thinks Zynga's time-tested ability to scale winning titles and monetize them effectively makes it a market winner.
Tencent Music
There is one dominant player in the Chinese streaming market, and that's Tencent Music. It controls roughly 75% of the market across various platforms that stream music or give online karaoke a social twist, reaching a whopping 644 million monthly active users.
Revenue rose 35% in the fourth-quarter results it posted last week, accelerating after back-to-back periods of 31% top-line gains. Earnings grew even faster, and yes, Tencent Music is very profitable. Unlike other tune-streaming sites outside China that work on lean mark-ups after shelling out big bucks for licensing rights and bandwidth, Tencent Music is working on thick margins as a result of the virtual gifting that takes place on its social performance platforms.
There are some big risks to investing in China, and that was the case even before the recent viral outbreak. However, a very profitable and dominant player in a growing market shouldn't be hitting all-time lows the way it did earlier this week. Tencent Music is unlikely to trade in the single digits for long.
