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.
Stock |
CAPS Rating (out of 5) |
% Off 12-Month High |
---|---|---|
MELA Sciences |
**** |
50% |
Neutral Tandem |
***** |
55% |
STEC |
**** |
68% |
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
The one thing markets hate is uncertainty. MELA Sciences was hoping the FDA would meet this month to decide the fate of its skin cancer screening device, but the advisory panel needs more time and has pushed the meeting back to November.
MELA took a big hit when the FDA delayed pre-market approval for the MelaFind device because they needed more data. Because it emits light waves to capture images of suspected lesions, and uses a sophisticated algorithm trained on MELA's database, to analyze the images to provide information on whether a biopsy is needed, the device is a significant departure from the methods used by General Electric
However, the device is so novel, and there seems to be such great need for it that CAPS member jrusso9722 just doesn't see how the MelaFind cannot be approved:
Since Mela-Find (r), is not a drug, I believe, FDA wonders what criteria to use to approve it. I'll predict FDA will approve it. How in God's name can they not approve an imaging device to identify the most deadly form of skin cancer. They dare not keep it from the public.
A reserve player
Network connection services provider Neutral Tandem has suffered from the analyst community's belief that robust competition from Level 3 Communications
CAPS member kmote is as fearless as the nearly 1,100 other members who've rated the company to outperform the broad market averages, believing it will be supported by its hefty cash position:
About half the stock price is cash, take a look at the balance sheet, currently $5.65 per share is cash.
With friends like these
Now that STEC has resolved its ZeusIOPS inventory issues with EMC
STEC has moved to address these concerns by putting in place plans to sell more drives to its other customers, including Oracle
Have half a mind
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