You don't need a lot of money to buy a lot of shares. Even with just $100 to invest, you can find plenty of low-price stocks that happen to be former growth darlings discarded by the market. Allbirds (BIRD 9.07%), Carnival (CCL 1.13%) (CUK 1.65%), and Carvana (CVNA 0.11%) are three stocks that I want to take a closer look at now after they have all plummeted to single-digit price points.
You don't have to look at low-price stocks to put your $100 to work. There are a growing number of brokers and trading platforms that will allow you to buy fractional shares, so a stock's price is no longer an obstacle. But I'm going to discuss three former growth stocks that could bounce back after their recent and precipitous drops.
Image source: Getty Images.
1. Allbirds
It's hard to believe that Allbirds went public at $15 just a year ago. The maker of lightweight footwear and apparel soared like runners wearing its machine-washable wool sneakers -- it roughly doubled on its first day of trading.
It's been getting tripped up on the trails since then, and at its Tuesday close of $2.71, it has lost more than 90% of the closing price on its first day of trading in early November of last year.
Growth has slowed at Allbirds, but it still posted 16% year-over-year growth in its latest quarter. It sees deceleration continuing, projecting a 10% to 14% increase for the current holiday quarter. Those are still double-digit gains on the top line, and in line with the 13% increase it posted for all of 2020 before more than doubling that rate in 2021.
The problem with Allbirds has been its lack of profitability. Analysts don't see it posting positive net income anytime soon, and that's not a fashionable look these days. A silver lining is that it has posted smaller-than-expected deficits in back-to-back reports. A depressed price for a stock that is still growing the audience for its distinctive yet stylish and sustainable footwear sounds appealing.
The red ink is problematic, but this is a debt-free company that is still flush with the cash from its initial public offering. If you think its $405 million market cap is intriguing, you're going to love knowing that its enterprise value is now down to just $224 million.
2. Carnival
The world's largest cruise line can also be had for less than $10 a share. The cruise industry has naturally been one of the hardest-hit travel segments during the pandemic, but with COVID-19 restrictions fading, we're seeing a healthy appetite among folks wanting to hit the high seas again.
Carnival isn't back to pre-pandemic form. Revenue for its seasonally significant fiscal third quarter was still a third below where it was three years ago. The cruise operator, which was once consistently profitable, has now posted 11 consecutive quarters of deficits. Unlike Allbirds clocking in better on the bottom line than expected, Carnival has been missing badly with larger-than-expected losses in recent reports:
| EPS Estimate | EPS Actual | Surprise | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q3 2021 | ($1.25) | ($1.55) | (24%) |
| Q4 2021 | ($1.27) | ($1.52) | (20%) |
| Q1 2022 | ($1.26) | ($1.66) | (32%) |
| Q2 2022 | ($1.17) | ($1.64) | (40%) |
| Q3 2022 | ($0.13) | ($0.58) | (287%) |
Data source: Yahoo! Finance.
Things aren't perfect at Carnival. Its longtime CEO sailed away earlier this year. Consumer demand is rising but costs are, too. Cruise line stocks are finding it hard to raise fares aggressively, especially in wooing international passengers given the strong U.S. dollar.
We might be done with the "revenge travel" phase of the tourism industry, when folks spent heavily on vacations over the past year to make up for getaways that were squandered in 2020 and early into 2021. But you still have to like the cruise business' chances of continuing to improve, and Carnival should benefit as the market leader if it's able to handle its beefy debt in a climate of rising interest rates.
3. Carvana
One of this year's biggest losers, down a brake-slamming 97% in 2022, is Carvana. Some worrywarts think that this is a house of cards -- or house of cars, if you will, given its nine-story-tall glass-enclosed automobile vending machines. Carvana benefited for years with its unique approach to selling used cars.
Beyond the company's flashy dispenser buildings at some of its showrooms, the online platform redefined convenience with the ability to complete delivery, trade-in pickup, and even a generous seven-day return policy without having to leave the home. It expanded quickly, resulting in a stunning streak of 23 quarters of triple-digit revenue growth that came to an end in 2020. Triple-digit growth returned in 2021 as folks turned to used cars with supply chain issues tripping up new-car inventory, but it's raining at Carvana now.
Revenue declined 3% in its latest report, posted earlier this month, and guidance for the current quarter calls for a problematic sequential reduction in units sold. It's a perfect storm. New cars are now readily available locally, and used-car prices are plummeting. The comparisons are coming from an unusual surge a year ago, so the reversal isn't shocking.
The rub is that Carvana is a highly leveraged company with a business model built on scalable growth. Things should stabilize next year, but with losses continuing to mount, this is the riskiest of the three stocks -- but potentially the one with the greatest upside if it's able to navigate through these challenging channels.
