The stock market is knee-deep in a painful correction right now, with 81% of the S&P 500 (^GSPC -0.27%) components having lost value in 2022. More than half of this elite ticker collection is down by more than 50%.
These price drops will mean different things for different stocks. The inflation-powered credit crunch will be the straw that breaks the back of some struggling companies. Business plans dancing on the edge of a financial cliff are coming undone, and there will be no way back for some of them.
At the same time, market makers are judging every stock by the same ultra-strict standard right now. In some cases, perfectly healthy companies with tremendous business prospects have seen their share prices plunge just as fast as the truly troubled peers.
If you can separate these deeply discounted winners from the broken stragglers in this divided market, you're looking at a great buying window right now. That's not an easy task, but it is a worthwhile one. Remember: The market generally goes up in the long run, and every downturn in history has been followed by another bull market.
So let me get you started with a couple of low-priced stocks that seem spring-loaded for a wealth-building rebound when the economy finally stops crushing almost every stock.
Coupang is going places
This might not be a household name in America, but Coupang (CPNG -2.40%) is the leading e-commerce business in South Korea. That's a powerful position, given South Korea's 52 million citizens supporting the 12th-largest economy in the world.
Coupang is not immune to the macroeconomic effects currently weighing on the global consumer market. But this Korean Amazon clone is still eking out double-digit year-over-year revenue growth at a time when Amazon itself has slipped down into single-digit territory.
Meanwhile, Coupang's gross profit margins are growing richer and the negative bottom-line result is inching closer to the breakeven point. The balance sheet holds just $596 million of long-term debt and $3.1 billion in liquid cash, enough to finance about three years of operations at the current annual rate of cash consumption.
It's true that negative free cash flows can be dangerous, but Coupang has a respectable degree of control over that situation. The company is investing heavily in expansion plans beyond South Korea's borders. If the economic downturn lasts too long, Coupang would have the option to rough it through several more years by slowing down the expansion effort. Hardly ideal, but it's good to have that option.
So I expect Coupang to make it through this challenging market alive, and then move on to challenge Amazon and friends on a global scale. Picking up this fantastic growth stock at the modest valuation of 1.7 times sales should serve your portfolio well in the long run.
Opera is investing in itself
Norway-based web browser developer Opera (OPRA -0.67%) looks incredibly undervalued right now. In fact, the stock -- and the American depositary receipts (ADRs) representing Opera's shares on the American market -- are so cheap that the company is doing something about it. It is investing in itself while the iron is hot, buying out its largest shareholder and repurchasing millions of shares on the open market.
As we speak, management is picking up 23.375 million ADRs from Chinese cybersecurity expert 360 Security Technology for a total cash payment of $128.6 million. This transaction will drop 360's Opera ownership to zero, remove the Chinese company's representative from Opera's board of directors, and take 20.6% of the shares off the market.
On top of this strong vote of self-confidence, Opera also bought back 1.3 million ADRs in the second quarter of 2022. The company has another $39 million of unfilled buyback authorization on the table. The 360 transaction consumed most of Opera's cash reserves, but the company generates positive free cash flows on a regular basis and should be able to refill those empty cash coffers quickly.
The secret sauce of the company's success is the gaming-oriented Opera GX browser. This product is three times as profitable as its overall product portfolio, measured by annualized revenue per user (ARPU). At the same time, the GX browser is tremendously popular. The user base stood at 17 million registered gamers in the second quarter, up from 10 million in the year-ago period. This combination of rich profit margins and skyrocketing installations points to continued success for the company as a whole.
And Opera clearly sees great value in its own stock at today's bargain-bin price. The stock and ADRs have fallen more than 50% in 2022 and currently trade at just 7.5 times forward earnings. So the company is setting a bullish example for investors to follow, and I think that's a great idea.
