I am always looking for a good deal, whether that means buying an extra box of Frosted Flakes when they're on sale or pouncing on undervalued stocks. The idea that anybody would sell a stock for less than its worth may seem silly, but legendary value investor Ben Graham tells us, by way of allegory, how we can look out for these situations.
In The Intelligent Investor, Graham introduces readers to a wacky guy named Mr. Market. Mr. Market's game is to pay you house calls on a daily basis to offer to sell you interests in businesses he owns or to buy from you interests in businesses you own. Sometimes Mr. Market will show up at your door very excited and offer you premium prices for your holdings, while at other times he'll be inconsolably depressed about the future and will offer to sell you what he has for as low as pennies on the dollar.
So to find some of the stocks that Mr. Market is depressed about, I've turned once again to The Motley Fool's CAPS investor community. Each of the companies below had been given a five-star rating (the highest) by our community of investors just 30 days ago:
|
Stock |
30-Day Return |
One-Year Return |
Current CAPS Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
|
L.B. Foster |
(34.2%) |
30.9% |
**** |
|
Gildan Activewear |
(25.8%) |
(12.8%) |
**** |
|
Chicago
Bridge
& Iron |
(18.3%) |
4.8% |
***** |
|
Holly Corp. |
(16.0%) |
(35.9%) |
***** |
|
Tele Norte Leste Participacoes |
(12.2%) |
46.2% |
***** |
|
Turkcell |
(11.2%) |
34.5% |
***** |
|
Suntech Power Holdings |
(9.6%) |
16.3% |
***** |
As the table shows, these stocks are all still very well-regarded by the CAPS community despite their underperformance over the past month. While these are not formal recommendations, they could be a great place to kick off some further research. I'll even get you started with some thoughts on Chicago Bridge & Iron.
Why so blue?
Don't be fooled by CB&I's name -- the company is actually based in The Netherlands and hasn't built any bridges in a long, long time. CB&I is actually an engineering, procurement, and construction specialist in the energy sector and works on projects such as liquefied natural gas terminals and refinery process units.
Since the company is in a sector that has been going full speed ahead, the market had high hopes for its first-quarter earnings report. As it turns out, the 68% revenue growth and 13% earnings-per-share growth that it reported didn't make the cut. Even the $943 million in new contracts -- which brought the company's backlog to $7.3 billion -- heartily disappointed. Analysts wanted 42% EPS growth instead.
What followed was a downgrade from the investment banks and a 20% sell-off by investors, both of which put a nasty dent in the stock's price.
What the bulls say
But let's not count out CB&I quite yet. The CAPS community has given the stock 890 outperform ratings versus just 18 underperforms. Players like the company's position in a strong industry and seem to have an eye toward the longer term. CAPS All-Star TMFDeej tagged the stock back in February and concluded his lengthy pitch with:
One would think that the stock of a company that is growing so quickly would be performing well, right? Wrong. ... Chicago Bridge & Iron is a company that has been performing great, which serves a rapidly growing industry, generates tremendous amount of cash that it uses to buy back shares ... and make solid acquisitions (most recently Lummis), yet is available at a much cheaper price today than it was only a few short months ago despite the fact that nothing has changed. I believe this is a winning combination.
So do you think the recent drop has created a good buying opportunity? Or is there more downside ahead? Let the community know what you think -- head over to CAPS and share your thoughts with the other 100,000-plus players currently part of the community. Even if you'd prefer to pass on CB&I, you can check out a couple of the other stocks listed above or any of the 5,600 stocks that are rated on CAPS.
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