Investing

10 Well-Known Large Stocks That Do Not Know It's a Raging Bull Market

Jon C. Ogg

Published: September 26, 2018 5:01 pm

Last Updated: January 11, 2020 5:16 pm

There are bull markets, and then there are big raging bull markets. After more than a nine-year-run from the V-bottom during March of 2009, it’s pretty evident what this stage of the bull market is. Hint: the S&P 500 is up 335% from that V-bottom low.

One analogy that investors need to consider is that the stock market is really a market of stocks. Many of those stocks go on sale due to price drops, but some stock prices keep seeing the price of their shares drop. And some of the price drops begin to feel like a roller-coaster ride that has jumped off the tracks.

24/7 Wall St. routinely tracks the companies that are either hitting 52-week lows or are rather close. It turns out that some companies have seen their stock price drop so much that there is no way that their high-paid corporate executives could even know they were in the midst of the greatest bull market of our lifetime.

We have reviewed here 10 companies that simply have no idea that this is a bull market. Some of the reviews may seem tongue-in-cheek or insulting, but sometimes that is all a company deserves. Who knows, maybe their executives are looking at their stock charts upside down and think things are just fine. They are not.

Some of the companies here might even want an apology, but they shouldn’t hold their breath waiting for one. Here are 10 companies that are preventing their investors from knowing that this is the most raging bull market any modern-day investor has ever seen.

AutoNation

AutoNation Inc. (NYSE: AN) is feeling the lack of love in a peak-auto theme, and losing CEO Mike Jackson in his planned retirement may not help matters. What is odd here is that AutoNation shares hit a 52-week low of $42.20 on Wednesday, and the stock was actually up almost 1% at $42.90 shortly ahead of Wednesday’s close.

AutoNation is down roughly one-third from its 52-week high of $62.02. Its sales have leveled off in the past two years, and that sales growth is expected to average about 1% this year and next. Maybe its new CEO should consider paying a dividend after all.

Ford

Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) just cannot find any love, even with a dividend yield north of 6% due to its cratering share price. The stock seems to drift lower and lower by the week. Ford was maintained as Equal Weight at Barclays on Wednesday, but the firm lowered its target price to $11 from $12 in the call.

Ford stock was down 2.1% at $9.39 on Tuesday, and it was down almost 1% more at $9.31 late on Wednesday. This is versus a 52-week range of $9.22 to $13.48 and with a prior consensus analyst target price of $10.84. Wasn’t Ford moving to almost all trucks and SUVs supposed to be a good thing for its profitability metrics?

GE

General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) has been sliding ever lower, with analyst concerns over its turbine sales just the latest fiasco here. CEO John Flannery probably wishes he never took on this impossible job at this point, and nothing he or the company is doing seems to help. GE shares were actually up 1.3% at $11.40 late on Wednesday, but it had earlier hit a multiyear low of $11.22.

GE shares are now down over 50% from the 52-week high of $25.05, but imagine how bad it has been for those who owned it north of $30 in recent years under the Jeff Immelt regime. GE is still under the $100 billion market cap level.

Lam Research

Lam Research Corp. (NASDAQ: LRCX) hit a 52-week low of $147.82 on Wednesday after UBS downgraded its rating to Neutral from Buy. The firm also slashed its target price to $170 from $220. Lam Research shares were last seen right at $150, down over 36% from its all-time high of $234.88.

Newell Brands

Newell Brands Inc. (NYSE: NWL) hit yet another 52-week low earlier this week, and the few analysts who try to defend it from time to time keep getting reminded that they should be avoiding falling daggers. Monday to set a new 52-week low of $20.15, and now the 52-week range is even lower at $20.14 to $43.99. Newell’s patched-together structure is one that has started to feel like the Sunbeam strategy that imploded two decades ago.

NXP Semiconductors

NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NASDAQ: NXPI) continues to disappoint, and semiconductor investors no longer care that it was being valued at far higher prices when it was a buyout target. Despite a drop of 1.4% to $85.30 late on Wednesday, the stock now has a 52-week low of $84.36. That’s down almost one-third from its 52-week high of $125.93, and the investing community doesn’t trust that the $109.06 consensus price target from Thomson Reuters will not be coming further down, like the rest of the chip stocks. NXP now has a mere $26 billion market cap.

Owens Corning

Owens Corning (NYSE: OC) was supposed to be a storm-chasing winner from the hurricane, but that hasn’t worked out well for the building products company. It currently has a market cap of just $6 billion, but that’s because its $55.35 share price late on Wednesday is down from the 52-week high of $96.52. Owens Corning has a mere 1.4% dividend yield as well.

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Rite Aid

Rite Aid Corp. (NYSE: RAD) probably wishes it could go back in time and convince regulators and everyone else that it had to merger so it would not implode. Rite Aid has a mere $1.3 billion market cap, which greatly understates its nearly 2,500 stores and its old $21 billion in revenues figure.

Rite Aid’s stock price was up 4% after an article talked up its importance on Wednesday, but the reality is that it may never be able to get back up to where it was. Even with a 4% gain to $1.27 late on Wednesday, Rite Aid’s 52-week range of $1.23 to $2.55 compares to an $8.00 and higher share price at the end of 2016.

Snap

Snap Inc. (NYSE: SNAP) is making its investors think the name changed to Snapped. Despite the founders of Instagram leaving Facebook, investors still have a management team that is less than five-star, and they are inside a company in which they literally have no vote whatsoever. No matter what management does, they cannot be booted out unless they leave voluntarily or change their bylaws.

Snap shares were down 0.4% at $9.01 on Wednesday right before the closing bell, in a 52-week range of $8.67 to $21.22. It’s hard to imagine that this ad-supported model still has an $11.5 billion market cap.

Whirlpool

Whirlpool Corp. (NYSE: WHR) must make its executives feel like they are being forced to endure the dreaded swirlies each day they show up to work. After hitting a 52-week low of $119.82 on Wednesday, the stock was down 1% and just barely above the $120 mark in Wednesday’s final minutes of trading.

Whirlpool has a $7.75 billion market cap, now that its shares are down 37% from the 52-week high of $190.73. Does its 3.7% dividend yield help matters? Apparently not.