3 Keys to Cheap Stocks with Big Upside Potential

[Zacks | Our Research. Your Success.] Weekday Wisdom [Brian Bolan - Editor] 3 Keys to Cheap Stocks with Big Upside Potential By: Brian Bolan September 9, 2020 --------------------------------------------------------------- Low-priced stocks are the things that investment dreams are made of. We have all fantasized about buying a stock in the single digits and watching it soar higher. Too often, however, investors never realize that dream. For any number of reasons, investors often buy a low-priced stock only to sell it at an even lower price. This common practice is really quite curable. The mistakes investors make when dealing with low-priced stocks have simple answers. Most of the time you already know what the answers are; it is the execution that is hard. I want to share some of these common problems and give you the solutions so that you can become a better investor. Beware Buying the Bottom Everyone wants to get something for nothing, and if you can't do that then paying as little as possible is the next best alternative. I mean let's face it, who wouldn't want to buy at the 52-week low and then sell at the 52-week high? The problem is, sometimes the bottom you see, is not at all the bottom. Usually, stocks making new 52-week lows are not the stocks you should be buying. The market is telling you that this stock is consistently worth less and less when it appears on the list of the 52-week lows. Bottom feeding is fine for some species, but investors that want to see good returns in a reasonable amount of time should avoid stocks at their "perceived" bottom. Always look for confirmation that the bottom is in and the stock is recovering. Adjust Your Risk Profile Buying a low-priced stock sometimes seems like a riskless or a very limited-risk venture. The stock is in the single digits and how much more can it go down? The answer to this one is always the same thing. Any and every stock can go down 100% from where it closed the day before. Rarely does this happen, but the point is you have to think about returns more in percentages than stock prices. A $7 stock going to $3.50 is a loss of 50% and that is a hard-to-swallow number. The solution to this problem is position sizing. You must know how much of your portfolio should be dedicated to low-price stocks and not put all your eggs in one basket. This is an issue that is unique to every investor, as everyone has a different amount of investable dollars, and most have a different time horizon as well. Proper position sizing will allow you to withstand short-term loss and also encourage long-term success. More . . . [Low-Priced Stocks with Sky-High Potential]( Zacks is now revealing its top stock recommendations priced under $10 per share. Each is a high-quality company with prospects for gains of 2X and even more. Recently, our recommendations have closed returns as high as +142.9%. Strong earnings growth, plus other Zacks' indicators, mark our rare Under $10 stocks for sustained growth. Look into them today, and then ride the potential profits high and long. [See Top Stocks Under $10 Now »]( Don't Double-Down Many investors believe that the stock they pick is destined to succeed. I mean, they did their research (sparse as it may or may not be) and came up with the idea, so it probably has some merit, right? This sort of confirmation bias leads many investors to double-down on a bad idea. When an investor buys a stock at $8 and then doubles-down at $6, the problem only becomes a bigger one when the stock slips to $5. Now you have twice as many shares losing more money with every tick! The discipline to cut losers and let winners run is something that even the most seasoned professional has trouble with. Assess the amount that you are able to withstand in a pullback and stick to those limits. Often times, small-priced stocks have a way of really falling out of bed when there is trouble...and no one wants that. My Best Advice for Making Big Profits with Low Priced Stocks Be patient with your investments. Low-priced stocks generally need more time than their bigger brethren. A healthy dose of patience will go a long way for a low-price stock portfolio. Leverage the Zacks Rank to help find stocks that analysts see earning more money. The Zacks Rank looks at earnings estimate revisions of the models from all the covering analysts and compares it to all stocks in the Zacks universe of coverage. When an analyst at Needham or William Blair moves numbers higher, the Zacks Rank helps you know when estimate increases are the most meaningful. Assessing risk is a difficult task and something only you can do. One way to limit risk is to spread the exposure to several low-priced stocks. Instead of going "all in" and buying 10,000 shares of a single-digit stock, spread that out among several names. A larger portfolio will spread the risk out across several names, giving you a better chance to succeed. Position Yourself for Profits Now One of the easiest ways for you to avoid costly mistakes and position yourself for substantial profits with single-digit stocks is to see the recommendations we're holding in our [Zacks Stocks Under $10]( portfolio. We select a diverse group of companies on the verge of big upward moves and get in when the Zacks Rank and other proven indicators point to success ahead. Then we ride them long and high. For example, we've recently closed out positions with gains such as +109.4%, +117.8% and +142.9%.¹ Now is a great time to look into Stocks Under $10. Despite the big run up in the markets, there are still plenty of stocks that trade in the single digits. And I've got my eye on a few promising names. The profit potential is impressive – and you can still jump in early. One more thing. Get started today and you are also welcome to download our just-released Special Report, 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. From our proven list of 220 Zacks Rank #1 Strong Buys, our team of experts handpicked these 7 for immediate breakout. But a word of caution: Your chance to download this bonus report ends Sunday, September 13. [See our Stocks Under $10 and download the Special Report now »]( Best, [Brian Bolan - signature] Brian Brian Bolan is our aggressive growth expert and the editor of [Zacks Stocks Under $10]( portfolio. ¹The results for the companies listed above are not (or may not be) representative of the per-formance of all selections made by Zacks Investment Research's newsletter editors and may represent the partial close of a position. This free resource is being sent by [Zacks.com](. 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