Speculators are drawn to low price points, and that's a dangerous game. The notion that low-priced stocks have more upside than investments with chunky share prices is flawed, but that doesn't stop new investors from diving into penny stocks. More than a quarter of the 100 most-owned stocks by Robinhood members have price tags in the single digits. Let's go the other way.
The largest price point among the Robinhood 100 is Amazon (AMZN 3.90%), and with a stock price above $3,000, it's far from a penny stock. Amazon commands the third-largest share price among stateside listed companies, and the world's leading online retailer is likely to beat any basket of penny stocks. Let's dive into why Amazon is the stock to own to protect against market turmoil.
Image source: Amazon.
Shops ahoy
Theses are challenging times. COVID-19 has disrupted the way we live. We're now months deep into a global recession, with no easy way out. There have been a lot of stocks that have moved higher in the calamity, but few of those gainers have earned those upticks. Amazon is one of the winners that has earned its gains.
Amazon is built to excel when the world turns upside down. It's not safe to go outside? Amazon will deliver merchandise and groceries to your door. You don't have a lot of money? Amazon's scalability and well-chiseled execution allows it to sell products for a lot less than most local options. Apps will rise and fall in popularity, but Amazon's AWS is there for the ascending applications as the cloud computing platform of choice.
Net sales rose 40% in Amazon's latest quarter, its strongest growth in more than two years. A year ago -- when the economy was humming along nicely and COVID-19 wasn't a thing -- Amazon was growing at half of today's clip. The 40% top-line surge isn't sustainable, of course, but it only goes to show how well Amazon can do when the world is burning around its fulfillment warehouses.
This year isn't a fluke. In 2001 when the dot-com bubble popped, Amazon's net sales came through with double-digit net sales growth. When the subprime lending crisis sent the global economy into a funk a dozen years ago Amazon's business grew even faster.
Amazon's a money machine. It has come through with at least double-digit net sales growth every single year since going public 23 years ago. It has more than 150 million people worldwide paying for Prime memberships just for the right to expedited access to its growing catalog of merchandise and widening library of digital goodies. Amazon is a winner. There are plenty of low-priced stocks that will bounce back under the right scenarios, but most of them are marked down because they're not winners.
You're not a loser. Invest in winners.
