I Am the Kind of Shopper Always Looking For Bargains %page

I Am the Kind of Shopper Always Looking For Bargains

Posted by Sophie Egge on July 18, 2011 Leave a comment (0) Go to comments

And I’m no different when it comes to buying stocks So are there any stocks going for under $1 a share? In fact, are there any bargains to be had at all? I am the kind of guy who will stand outside a store looking at the shirts, see something that I really like, look at the price and then decide that I don’t really want it after all. I can’t get myself to buy a shirt for $50 when I know that can get virtually the same shirt for $12.

When it comes to stocks In many ways, the per-share price of a stock, by itself, is practically meaningless. Just because one stock is trading for $100 a share while another is trading for $1 a share doesn’t tell you anything about which stock is more expensive. To get real value from a per-share price, you need more information. For instance, if you knew what a company’s earnings were, you could use the per-share price to arrive at the price-to-earnings ratio, or P-E ratio. The P-E ratio is one tool used to gauge how expensive a stock is.

The value of the company You can even multiply the per-share price with the number of shares a company has outstanding to figure its total value, or market capitalization. You can get an idea of how valuable a company is using the market capitalization. Knowing a company’s value is useful because stocks of companies with similar market values often behave somewhat similarly.

Are there $1 shares? But you’re not asking why the per-share price, in itself, isn’t all that useful. You want to know if there are any stocks trading on the New York Stock Exchange that can be bought for $1 a share or less. And the answer is yes. Currently, there are two stocks on the NYSE that trade for $1 or less: BankAtlantic Bancorp (BBX) and real-estate company Grubb & Ellis (GBE). You can read more about these stocks by clicking on their ticker symbols. I actually bought shares in Sirius when they we about 40 cents in the middle of the recession.

Many $1 shares If you broaden the search, and include all major U.S. exchanges, the universe gets even bigger. Currently, there are 123 stocks trading on major U.S. exchanges that sell for $1 or less.

Bargain hunting The word ‘hunting’ is a dead give-away: Hunting means exactly that. You have to sit over the financial pages or in front of your computer and hunt for these cheap shares. And you will find them.

Then you have to be lucky After you have found these shares and then researched them to see if the company really exists and is in business you have to decide how many shares you are going to buy and of course how much money you are going to invest. Then the luck part starts; the company has to stay in business, keep making a profit and hopefully the price of the share will rise.