3 Top Stocks at Half Price

You love buying your shirts when they go on sale. And who can resist a buy-one-get-one-free offer? So when our stocks go on sale, why do we bemoan their low prices?

Smart investors like Warren Buffett or Marty Whitman love it when their stocks are suddenly selling at bargain-basement prices. For them, these companies become no-brainer buys.

The investors in the Motley Fool CAPS community also like a bargain, apparently. Below, you'll find three companies whose shares are selling at least 50% below their 52-week highs, but which still earn high honors from our investor-intelligence database. Consider it a BOGO sale on stocks.

Naturally, we want you to look a bit closer at these stocks before buying. You can get low-priced appliances in the dent-and-ding section of your home-remodeling superstore, but their quality might not be so good. Same thing here: Make sure there's nothing seriously wrong with the company before you plug it into your portfolio.

Take two; they're small
Not many are expecting the commercial real estate market to stage a strong recovery anytime soon. As with the residential market, it was built up on too much leverage, and when the collapse in values came, investors like General Growth Properties were caught and had to file for bankruptcy protection. After being pursued by Simon Property Group (NYSE: SPG), the country's largest mall operator, General Growth Properties will try to emerge from court oversight as two separate entities, one investing solely in mall properties and the other in various assets.

Real estate investment trust Gramercy Capital understands well the risks and pitfalls of investments made at the wrong time. It's pursuing strategic alternatives for its realty unit because funds from operations fell into negative territory in the fourth quarter and it's expected to generate negative cash flow for the next year. It had to set aside nearly twice as much in reserves for loan losses as it did a year ago, and the situation clouded its outlook such that it declined to provide any earnings forecasts.

Interestingly, 97% of the CAPS All-Stars rating Gramercy and willing to peer into the fog of commercial real estate expect it to come out on top. That's a slightly better percentage than the overall estimates of the more than 300 CAPS members who weighed in on the REIT's prospects. You can offer your own opinion on the Gramercy Capital CAPS page.

Full steam ahead
Drug development is a risky enough arena. Shares of InterMune (Nasdaq: ITMN) collapsed when the Food and Drug Administration refused to approve its lung drug, despite an advisory panel vote in the company's favor. Biotech GenVec also lost almost three-quarters of its value when it halted production on advanced pancreatic cancer therapy TNFerade because of a lack of positive results. Sequenom (Nasdaq: SQNM) and Dendreon are both familiar to investors for their dramatic falls from grace.

Myriad Genetics, though, was hit with a one-two punch when its patents were struck down by a federal court, and -- what amounted to an even worse development -- it reported earnings below Wall Street expectations. Although there was a flurry of negative sentiment on CAPS after the price drop, the overwhelming consensus is that Myriad will go on to outperform the broad averages. Highly rated CAPS All-Star UltraLong thinks the stock still represents a good value.

So here's the new skinny on Myriad. They're growing at 14%-15% per year, they have $3.50 in cash per share with no debt, they plan to repurchase up to 100M dollars worth of shares, and their guidance places them at (based on the after hours price) 13.5 times 2010's figures and less than 11 times my 2011 figures. That makes for a PEG of 0.9 this year and close to 0.7 for 2011. Cheap cheap said the bird!

Not playing games
The market just hasn't liked the Shanda Interactive (Nasdaq: SNDA) spinoff Shanda Games since its IPO last September. Online gaming in China has become a crowded, competitive field, so new games are going to have a harder time becoming a success. Mix in an unhealthy dose of proposed government restrictions and it's a volatile cocktail.

CAPS member Swingtime1 is at least one who looks at the various valuation metrics and thinks the company's shares are attractively priced.

It would be acceptable for this stock to begin to trade with peer valuation of around 15 PE, which would put it in the ball park of 12.45 fair value per share by the end of 2011. The PEG ratio is still below 1 (.66) and as it is a fast [growth] company tracking the PEG ratio is an appropriate valuation method. If mochi media pans out, and they gain international immersion, a P/E much higher than 15 would be appropriate, and higher earnings of course would be expected to follow in the [coming] years.

Have half a mind
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