7 Cheap Stocks Under $15 To Buy Now
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Cheap stocks let you diversify your portfolio, while still offering long-term growth potential
Cheap stocks are always popular and with good reason. Not everyone has a huge investment account and cheap stocks let you spread your money around. Instead of spending everything on one or two shares of a tech giant or an electric car company, you can take that same amount of cash and diversify.
Doing so makes investing more interesting. It also protects you from a catastrophic loss should one of those expensive stocks suddenly drop in value.
I’ve put together a list of seven cheap stocks that are well worth considering for your portfolio. They cover a diverse range of industries from tech to mining, so there’s something here for everyone.
- Adecoagro SA (NYSE:AGRO)
- Companhia Siderurgica Nacional (NYSE:SID)
- Himax Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:HIMX)
- National Energy Services Reunited Corp (NASDAQ:NESR)
- United Microelectronics Corp (NYSE:UMC)
- Wipro Limited (NYSE:WIT)
- Workhorse Group Inc (NASDAQ:WKHS)
Making these choice even more compelling is that fact that each earns an ‘A’ rating in Portfolio Grader. Just because it’s a cheap stock doesn’t have to mean it is risky or lacking in growth potential.
Cheap Stocks to Buy: Adecoagro (AGRO)
Adecoagro is a South American holding company with a focus on agribusiness. AGRO is involved in a range of related ventures including farming of food staples like rice and sugar, dairy products and the production of ethanol from sugarcane.
Several trends spell long-term growth for AGRO stock. Global food prices have been on the rise, and that trend is projected to continue. That’s good news for a company like Adecoagro that farms grains and other food products. In addition, the push to reduce carbon emissions is going to have an ongoing payoff for Adecoagro’s ethanol business. It will take decades before global vehicle fleets are converted to EVs.
But ethanol produces 46% less greenhouse gases than gasoline. That means Ethanol is going to be increasingly important as a way to cut vehicle emissions during the long transition to EVs.
AGRO stock is currently trading for $8.80 and has posted 118% growth over the past 12 months.
Companhia Siderurgica Nacional (SID)
Companhia Siderurgica Nacional is a company that’s poised to take full advantage of a post-pandemic economic boom. Brazil’s second-largest steel producer is also a large cement producer. One of Companhia Siderurgica Nacional’s strengths is its vertical integration. The company mines raw materials, refines them in its own processing facilities, produces the electricity for those plants and has a stake in the ownership of railway and port facilities used to distribute its products.
SID stock currently trades at $8.86, after posting impressive growth of 620% over the past 12 months. With China and other countries pushing demand for steel and cement, SID is one of those cheap stocks that is positioned for continued growth.
Cheap Stocks to Buy: Himax Technologies (HIMX)
Himax Technologies is one of my favorite cheap stocks in the tech sector. This Taiwanese company is a fabless semiconductor producer, with a focus on image processing technology. Its chips are in high demand for game consoles, TV’s, laptops, cars, cameras and basically any product that’s equipped with a display.
That’s pretty much everything these days. That demand isn’t going anywhere but up.
The biggest risk right now for Himax is that as a fabless semiconductor company, it contracts its designs out to other companies for production. We all know about the shortages currently affecting global semiconductor producers. That has impacted Himax as well.
Despite not being able to meet demand, HIMX stock is up 325% over the past 12 months. CNN Money analysts have a median price target of $17.50, so I’m not the only one who thinks there’s upside for HIMX. That’s only going to increase as the global chip shortage eventually eases.
National Energy Services Reunited (NESR)
Fossil fuel stocks are becoming cheap, but they are far more likely to be on a “stocks to sell” list these days than a recommendation list. So what is NESR stock doing on this list?
True, National Energy Services Reunited is deeply involved in the fossil fuel industry. However, this is not an oil production company. Instead, NESR works with various oil and gas producers in the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific regions. It provides a wide range of production services to help the fossil fuel producers get the most out of their wells.
Zero-emissions electric and hydrogen energy may be the future, but the use of fossil fuels isn’t going to end tomorrow. They will be phased out over decades. In the meantime, producers will be avoiding the expense of developing new oil and gas fields, instead using technology to extract everything possible out of existing developments. That trend is going to benefit National Energy Services Reunited for years to come.
Currently trading just around the $12 level, NESR stock has gained 144% over the past 12 months.
Cheap Stocks to Buy: United Microelectronics (UMC)
Himax Technologies is a chip maker facing shortages of its in-demand products due to its fabless approach. United Microelectronics is another Taiwanese chip company, but this one operates its own foundries. UMC is one of only a dozen global foundries that can make those chips fabless companies like Himax contract out. So this company is operating at full steam.
Naturally, UMC stock reflects the unprecedented demand. The company’s revenue grew 19.3% in 2020, despite the pandemic. Monthly sales have continued at or near double-digit YoY increases through 2021 as well. UMC shares were going for $2.61 at this time last year. Now trading around $11, that’s a 300%-plus return for investors over the past 12 months.
Cheap stocks don’t get much better than this.
Wipro (WIT)
Wipro is an IT consulting and business process services company based in India. With so many companies forced to have employees work from home because of the pandemic, IT services companies like Wipro have been booking record-breaking quarters. The best in a decade.
That spending is expected to continue as companies keep up their IT spending to better prepare themselves for staff who may work from home permanently — and to enable seamless operation during future pandemic or extreme weather events.
In addition, the strong U.S. dollar has meant that Wipro’s considerable U.S. business is helping to boost revenue through favorable exchange rates as well. In fiscal 2020, the U.S. market accounted for 59.1% of Wipro’s revenue. WIT stock has rewarded investors with 140% growth over the past 12-months.
Cheap Stocks to Buy: Workhorse Group (WKHS)
You may have seen Workhorse Group in the headlines lately, and not in a good way. WKHS stock plummeted 47% in a single day after the maker of commercial EV delivery vans lost out on a lucrative contract to replace the U.S. Postal Service’s fleet.
The loss sent investors running for the exits. However, as I’ve written previously, Workhorse Group’s loss is your gain. The USPS loss was a big one, but there are plenty of other big contracts coming up.
For example, the federal government operates a fleet of 645,000 vehicles. Thanks to President Joe Biden’s “Made In America” executive order, that fleet is going to be replaced by American-made EVs. That’s good news for Ohio-based Workhorse Group.
In addition, the global market for electric delivery vehicles is set to explode. From 129,000 units delivered in 2020, commercial EV sales are projected to hit over 2 million units by 2028. I consider the wallop WKHS stock took in February to be a buying opportunity. With shares now trading around the $12.70 level — less than a third of their early February high — this is a great option among cheap stocks.
Note: This article originally appeared at InvestorPlace.
On the date of publication, Louis Navellier had a long position in HIMX and UMC. Louis Navellier did not have (either directly or indirectly) any other positions in the securities mentioned in this article. InvestorPlace Research Staff member primarily responsible for this article did not hold (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.
Category: Stocks
