S&P 500 Stocks At 52-Week Lows: Monday’s Full List
A list of market laggards includes some of the largest consumer names, raising questions about value versus damage.
As of Monday, September 21, there are 17 S&P 500 stocks trading at their 52-week lows. The largest company on the list is T-Mobile US (TMUS), with a market value of about $178.8 billion. These lows arrive even as the S&P 500 has returned +1.7% over the last month.
The presence of several large, established companies on the list raises a core question. Are these businesses fundamentally impaired, or are their stocks simply marked down?
Every Name On The List
Here are all 17 names, sorted by market capitalization, with returns over four windows:
| Tickers | Market Cap |
1D % Chg |
1W % Chg |
1M % Chg |
1Y % Chg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TMUS | $178.8 Bil | -1.7% | -9.6% | -8.3% | -29.3% |
| PEP | $177.0 Bil | -0.1% | -5.0% | -7.8% | -4.2% |
| MCD | $175.8 Bil | -0.1% | -3.7% | -7.2% | -15.6% |
| LOW | $106.8 Bil | -0.8% | -3.6% | -12.1% | -27.2% |
| AON | $62.0 Bil | -1.6% | -6.7% | -17.4% | -16.8% |
| AZO | $46.2 Bil | -1.8% | -5.5% | -5.4% | -32.2% |
| PEG | $34.5 Bil | -0.7% | -2.3% | -6.3% | -11.7% |
| ZTS | $29.8 Bil | -0.1% | -3.2% | -4.9% | -50.6% |
| PCG | $28.5 Bil | -2.0% | -4.9% | -28.0% | -12.2% |
| ATO | $26.6 Bil | -1.3% | -3.4% | -6.6% | -0.3% |
| OTIS | $25.5 Bil | -2.7% | -5.0% | -7.1% | -24.7% |
| FISV | $24.7 Bil | -1.5% | -8.9% | -9.6% | -65.0% |
| NRG | $21.8 Bil | -0.4% | -4.8% | -10.5% | -36.3% |
| STZ | $20.5 Bil | -0.5% | -5.3% | -11.7% | -8.4% |
| CMS | $20.1 Bil | -1.0% | -3.2% | -7.3% | -4.9% |
| FIS | $18.2 Bil | -1.2% | -7.8% | -12.3% | -44.8% |
| ROL | $15.6 Bil | -0.2% | -8.4% | -11.1% | -41.1% |
Are these sale prices on growing businesses?
Some names on the list are not showing signs of a shrinking business. PepsiCo (PEP) trades at 16.9 times trailing earnings, and its revenue grew 5.6% over the last twelve months, and its free cash flow yield is 5.2%.
Similarly, McDonald’s (MCD) trades at 20.0 times trailing earnings, and its revenue grew 6.3% over the last twelve months, and its free cash flow yield is 4.4%. For these companies, the stock price weakness has not coincided with a decline in their reported top-line results.
So how should an investor read this list?
A 52-week-low list is a starting point for research, not a conclusion. A low can mark real damage to a company’s operations or a temporary disconnect between its price and its business value.
The disciplined move is to investigate the business fundamentals behind the stock price. The price is what you pay, but the business is what you own.
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 S&P 500, the S&P MidCap 400, and the Russell 2000. Watch the low list for information; let a disciplined basket do the buying.