5 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 cry about 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 who populate the Motley Fool CAPS community also like a bargain, apparently. Below, you'll find five stocks whose shares are selling at least 50% below their 52-week highs, but which still earn top 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-furnishing 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
With impressive growth in revenue last quarter, Vimpel-Communications has undoubtedly been a victim of the meltdown in the Russian stock market, at least in part. But a deal with Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) to bring the 3G iPhone to Russia in the second half of 2008 should increase the company’s mobile reach. It received a 3G license in Russia last year and is expanding into Cambodia, both of which should allow it to continue adding subscribers in growing markets.

Vimpel is one of CAPS member nickbaes' favorite stocks, and its growth plans should allow it to take market share from its rivals:

My favorite Russian company-hands down. Acquisition of Golden Telecom was genius and has positioned [Vimpel] with a stranglehold over Russian wealth (moscow-St Petersburg). [Vimpel] should eat into [Mobile Telesystems'] presence in these wealthy areas....and provide mobile, home lines, cable and Internet to the home....making themselves a vital component at the center of the beast.

A company charting the waters of real estate is not an unexpected guest on a list of stocks whose prices have been cut in half or more. What might be surprising, though, is that online commercial real estate host LoopNet is performing so much better than other industry foes like CoStar Group (NASDAQ:CSGP), Realtor.com parent Move, or HouseValues.

As commercial real estate has begun souring -- national vacancy rates have climbed to 13.6% in the third quarter -- the need to find outlets to advertise availability grows. That's the rationale behind CAPS member foolishgoth rating LoopNet an outperform, figuring, "Tons of property for rent and buy sitting in inventory needs to be sold somehow."

In August, MoolaMonster advised investors to stay out of the loop because the listing agent's revenue will be constrained in the future:

Most of LoopNet's year-over-year revenue growth was attributed to price increases. ... But, price increases initiated in late 2007 (from a change to volume-based pricing) have almost completely propagated through, and will end in the later half of 2008, per management... Therefore, revenue growth is decelerating.

While vacancy rates have ticked up, pointing to depressed market conditions, they're not as bad as they were back in 2003, and an injection of taxpayer cash into the financial system might improve prospects yet.

Have half a mind
It pays to start your own research on these stocks on Motley Fool CAPS. Read a company's financial reports, scrutinize key data and charts, and examine the comments your fellow investors have made all from a stock's CAPS page.

Sign up today for the completely free service, and tell us whether these stocks are twice as good at half the price.

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