With the S&P 500 grinding near record highs, contrarian investors are sifting through the rubble of cyclical names for asymmetric setups. Stocks trading under $10 often signal trouble, but they can also flag operational turnarounds the market has stopped tracking. One legacy industrial fits that mold right now: a household-name tire maker that has quietly hit its highest segment operating margin in more than seven years while its share price has been cut in half.
With that in mind, here is one stock trading under $10 where the headline numbers and one key operating metric tell two very different stories.
Goodyear Tire & Rubber (NASDAQ: GT)
Goodyear Tire & Rubber (NASDAQ:GT | GT Price Prediction) develops, manufactures, and sells tires and related services worldwide from its Akron, Ohio headquarters, with operations spanning the Americas, EMEA, and Asia Pacific.
Shares closed the most recent session at $5.96, down 31.96% year-to-date and 47.77% over the past year, with a 52-week range of $5.43 to $12.03. For a retail investor, that puts Goodyear deep in beaten-down territory, well below its $10.45 book value and trading at just 0.584 times book.
Fundamentals show a company in transition. Market cap sits near $1.75 billion, with a forward earnings multiple of roughly 8 and an EV/EBITDA of 9.11. Wall Street currently carries 1 Strong Buy, 3 Buy, 5 Hold, and 1 Sell ratings with an average price target of $7.46, implying meaningful upside from current levels. First-quarter FY26 results, reported in May, showed adjusted EPS of -$0.39 against a -$0.4261 estimate and revenue of $3.881 billion, both beating expectations.
The bull case rests on one metric the market is overlooking: Q4 2025 segment operating margin of 8.5%, up 80 basis points year-over-year and the highest level the company has achieved in more than seven years. That margin expansion is being driven by the Goodyear Forward transformation plan, which delivered $1.25 billion in cumulative benefits through Q4 2025 and reached a $1.5 billion run-rate, exceeding the original commitment by roughly $150 million. Layered on top: $2.3 billion in divestiture proceeds from the OTR tire, Dunlop, and Chemical business sales, primarily redeployed to reduce debt. Tires remain a non-discretionary replacement purchase, and any stabilization in rubber and petroleum input costs flows directly to the bottom line.
The key risk that cuts against the thesis is real and visible. Americas replacement tire volumes fell 23.2% in Q1, and CEO Mark Stewart warned that “increased pressure on industry demand and higher raw material costs stemming from the conflict in the Middle East require that we continue to take meaningful actions to strengthen our cost structure.” WTI crude surged from $57.97 in December 2025 to $100.32 by April 2026, pressuring rubber and synthetic input costs. Management is responding with further restructuring, including a potential closure of the Fayetteville, North Carolina facility by end of 2027.
The setup leaves Goodyear as a classic cyclical contrarian candidate: weak near-term demand and commodity headwinds are obscuring a structural margin reset and aggressive deleveraging.
A low share price by itself never makes a stock cheap, and Goodyear’s sub-$10 quote reflects genuine cyclical pressure and a balance sheet that took non-cash hits during the transformation. Investors should weigh the margin progress and the $1.5 billion run-rate cost program against tariff exposure, import competition, and raw material volatility, then do their own research before deciding whether GT fits their portfolio.