The 52-Week-Low List: 3 S&P 500 Names On Tuesday
A very short list of market laggards raises questions about growth, value, and the discipline required to tell the difference.
As of Tuesday, August 4, just 3 S&P 500 stocks are trading at their 52-week lows. The largest name on this short list is NRG Energy (NRG), with a market value of about $24.2 billion, and its stock has declined 16.7% over the last month.
This small group of companies is falling while the broader S&P 500 has returned +2.7% over the same period. The central question is what separates these few names from the rest of the market. The full data follows.
Tuesday’s Full 52-Week-Low List
- Procore Technologies Stock Rides A 8-Day Winning Streak To A 36% Gain
- PTC Stock Rides A 8-Day Winning Streak To A 25% Gain
- 36 S&P 500 Stocks Hit 52-Week Highs On Tuesday
- The 52-Week-High List: 91 Small Cap Names On Tuesday
- 38 Mid Cap Stocks Just Made New 52-Week Highs
- S&P 500 Movers | Winners: PLTR, ZBRA, IT | Losers: APTV, NRG, CMG
Here are all 3 names, sorted by market capitalization, with returns over four windows:
| Tickers | Market Cap |
1D % Chg |
1W % Chg |
1M % Chg |
1Y % Chg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NRG | $24.2 Bil | -15.5% | -7.9% | -16.7% | -29.3% |
| ROL | $18.2 Bil | -1.0% | -3.1% | -11.5% | -33.7% |
| APTV | $10.2 Bil | -16.6% | -19.7% | -20.1% | -27.3% |
Does the steepest decline point to the most interesting fundamentals?
Aptiv (APTV) has the steepest one-month slide on the list, down 20.1%. While its stock is at a yearly low, the company’s revenue grew 5.3% over the last twelve months. It also has a free cash flow yield of 6.8%. The stock currently trades at 45.9 times trailing earnings.
A 52-week low is an alert, not a recommendation.
A stock hits a new low for a reason. That reason could be a temporary mispricing of a solid business, or it could be a sign of genuine deterioration in the company’s prospects. The disciplined investor uses a list like this not as a shopping list, but as a starting point for research. The first step is always to check the business itself, going beyond the stock chart.
A 52-week-low list tells you where the pain is; it does not tell you which of these declines are worth buying. That second question is what our Buy the Dip screen answers, every day: beaten-down names where the fundamentals still hold up.
Catching Falling Prices Is A Skill. Not Needing To Is A Strategy
Buying stocks at 52-week lows works brilliantly on the survivors and painfully on the rest, and nobody rings a bell to tell you which is which. The honest answer for most investors is to stop needing that call.
The Trefis High Quality (HQ) Portfolio holds roughly 30 businesses selected for the traits that make recoveries likely in the first place: consistent cash generation, strong margins, resilient balance sheets. It has a track record of outpacing a benchmark that combines the three major indices – the S&P 500, S&P Mid-cap, and Russell 2000. Watch the low list for information; let a disciplined basket do the buying.