If you're aiming to "buy low and sell high," then it makes infinite sense to start your search with bargain-priced stocks. Regularly reviewing a list of stocks trading near their 52-week lows can be a great first step.
In this series, I do the initial legwork for you. To prevent us from being inundated with scores of disparate companies, I conduct my search by industry. This allows us to make some initial comparisons among semi-related companies.
Today, let's look at the chemicals space. Below are the dozen stocks that are within 25% of their 52-week lows and have market caps above $200 million.
| Company | Recent Price | 52-Week Low | 52-Week High | P/E Ratio (trailing) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical (NYSE: SHI ) | $37.87 | $32.24 | $63.05 | 6.5 |
| PolyOne (NYSE: POL ) | $11.61 | $9.80 | $16.61 | 4.4 |
| Praxair (NYSE: PX ) | $105.27 | $88.64 | $111.74 | 23.4 |
| Sigma-Aldrich (Nasdaq: SIAL ) | $67.78 | $56.18 | $76.16 | 18.8 |
| Zep | $16.13 | $13.33 | $20.95 | 20.7 |
| Sherwin-Williams (NYSE: SHW ) | $84.24 | $69.47 | $87.87 | 18.1 |
| Olin (NYSE: OLN ) | $19.60 | $16.11 | $27.16 | 7.0 |
| Airgas | $71.43 | $58.00 | $72.39 | 23.1 |
| Minerals Technologies | $56.99 | $46.17 | $70.68 | 16.4 |
| Air Products & Chemicals | $89.41 | $72.26 | $98.01 | 16.0 |
| Calgon Carbon | $16.46 | $13.28 | $18.20 | 22.2 |
| Scotts Miracle-Gro (NYSE: SMG ) | $49.96 | $39.99 | $60.62 | 19.5 |
Source: S&P Capital IQ and Yahoo! Finance.
Over just the past 10 days, Sinopec shares have gone as low as $33.18 and as high as $43.00. It announced earnings late last week that were roughly flat with the previous year's quarter. As management explained it:
The Group proceeded actively with various tasks, leading to increases in sales volumes and unit prices of products of the Company. As a result, operating income of the Company increased. However, international crude oil prices fluctuated at high levels, resulting in an increase in operating costs; the prices of domestic refined oil products were not adjusted adequately and timely enough; and the competition was further intensified for petrochemicals.
Looking through the list, two other names pop out: PolyOne and Olin, which have P/E ratios well under 10. Note that their forward P/E ratios are also under 10, PolyOne just barely. You can check out PolyOne's latest earnings news here. And I recently took a look at Olin's initial numbers here.
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