Where The Selling Ran Deepest: 5 S&P 500 Stocks At 52-Week Lows
A small group of companies hits new lows, raising questions about the difference between a stock price and a business.
As of Tuesday, August 18, 5 S&P 500 stocks are trading at their 52-week lows. The largest company on the list is CRH (CRH), with a market value of about $62.3 billion. The presence of growing companies on a list defined by price weakness raises a central question: what is the relationship between a business’s performance and its stock’s performance? The full list of names follows.
Every Name On The List
The table below lists every stock at its 52-week low, largest first, with one-day, one-week, one-month, and one-year returns:
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| Tickers | Market Cap |
1D % Chg |
1W % Chg |
1M % Chg |
1Y % Chg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CRH | $62.3 Bil | -2.9% | -7.6% | -6.3% | -14.4% |
| MLM | $31.5 Bil | -2.9% | -5.6% | -5.6% | -13.8% |
| VICI | $27.7 Bil | -0.2% | -0.3% | -3.5% | -15.1% |
| NRG | $23.9 Bil | -5.6% | -3.5% | -11.2% | -21.3% |
| LII | $14.3 Bil | -1.2% | -4.6% | -23.0% | -29.8% |
Can a business grow while its stock price sinks?
Consider the contrast between two names on today’s list. Martin Marietta Materials (MLM) saw its revenue grow 14.8% over the last twelve months, even as its stock declined 5.6% over the last month. This stands against the market context, where the S&P 500 has returned +3.4% over the same period.
In another case, Lennox International (LII) experienced the steepest one-month slide on the list, down 23.0%. Its revenue also declined 2.1% over the last twelve months, showing an instance where price and business results moved in the same direction.
A low price is a starting point, not a conclusion.
A 52-week-low list is not an automatic shopping list. A stock at its weakest price of the last year can signal real business deterioration, or it can represent a healthy company whose shares are simply out of favor.
The disciplined move is to treat the price as an alert. The real work begins after, by examining the fundamental health of the business itself before deciding if the discount is an opportunity.
If any of these names tempt you, resist buying a price alone. Our Buy the Dip screen asks the follow-up question that matters: which marked-down stocks still have the growth and cash generation to recover.
Weakness Is Information. It Is Not An Instruction
A 52-week low tells you what the market thinks today. It does not tell you what to do, and acting on price alone is how value traps get bought. The missing ingredient is always the same: is the business still sound?
Asking that question across thousands of stocks, every day, is exactly how the Trefis High Quality (HQ) Portfolio is built: roughly 30 names that pass the quality screens, held with rules instead of nerve. 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. Let the low list sharpen your watchlist, and let the portfolio carry the risk.