3 Cheap Stocks Under $3 to Consider Now

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In theory, investors shouldn’t care about the price of a company’s stock. What matters more than anything is the market cap. It’s an error to think a stock is cheap simply because its share price is in the low single digits. And investors should use extra caution when searching through low-priced stocks. Oftentimes, stocks that have fallen to trading for just a couple bucks end up going all the way to zero.

That said, some of the market’s biggest winners also come out of the sub-$5 stock category. Whether the company has a low share price due to falling from glory or just not being discovered yet, these low-priced players can sometimes rocket to crazy heights.

So, with the disclaimer that these sorts of companies tend to be of the high-risk, high-reward variety, let’s take a look at three cheap stocks under $3 that could fly in coming quarters.

Cheap Stock Under $3: J C Penney (JCP)

J C Penney Company (NYSE:JCP) got hammered on Wednesday for a near-8% loss. That decline dropped JCP stock well below the $3 threshold and put it squarely back in the potential bargain bin category.

JCP stock has been back in the news recently due to a management change. As InvestorPlace’sWilliam White wrote, JCP’s CEO, Marvin Ellison, quit the company to take the reins at Lowe’s Companies, Inc. (NYSE:LOW). While Ellison is clearly stepping into a nice position at Lowe’s, he also may have wanted to get away from JC Penney given recent results. JCP disappointed with its past holiday season, and this most recent quarter was a mixed bag, as revenues beat but earnings missed and the company offered soft guidance.

Despite the issues, J C Penney could still turn the corner. Analysts see the company finally returning to profitability over the next year. Forward earnings estimates put the stock around 18x earnings. If those earnings in fact occur, expect JCP stock to fly. Short sellers are betting against an astounding 41% of JCP stock’s float. That sort of massive short position is just asking for an explosion when the company delivers good news.

With Sears Holding Corp (NASDAQ:SHLD) closing dozens more stores and looking increasingly shaky, JCP stock can fly once it takes sales away from its rival.

Cheap Stock Under $3: B2Gold (BTG)

Canadian-based gold miner B2Gold (NYSEAMERICAN:BTG) gets no respect. The $2.67 share price does a lot to mask the company’s strength. Here’s why B2Gold deserves more attention.

Given its large share count, B2 has $2.6 billion market cap. That figure could go a lot higher in coming quarters. The company, unlike many sub-$3 gold stocks, is highly diversified. The company has more than half a dozen mines and development projects, spanning the globe from The Philippines to Colombia, Nicaragua and three African nations.

A major new mine opening this year will take B2’s gold production up by almost 50% while lowering their average cost per ounce nicely. Next year, B2Gold should hit 1 million ounces of annual production, elevating it into a pretty small group of mining companies to reach that size.

For now, BTG stock is still trading quietly. That’s probably due to gold, which has been trading flat around $1,300 per ounce for quite awhile now. However, with the risk in geopolitical tensions and a likely upcoming pullback in the dollar, gold prices, and thus BTG stock could start to move in a hurry. Analysts see B2’s earnings tripling this year, which, combined with favorable gold price movements, could send the stock flying.

Cheap Stock Under $3: Companhia Energtica de Minas Gerais (CIG)

Despite the ticker symbol, Companhia Energética de Minas Gerais (NYSE:CIG) has nothing to do with tobacco. Rather, it is one of Brazil’s largest utility companies.

Don’t let the $1.79 stock price confuse you, CIG’s share price doesn’t represent weakness. The company has a large outstanding share count, resulting in a $2.5 billion market cap to go along with roughly $7 billion in annual revenues. It leads Brazil in electricity distribution, and is among the top three utilities there in transmission and in generation.

What’s to like about CIG stock now? For one, it is down from a $2.60 peak in March to just $1.79 now. That sell-off has been driven by political troubles in Brazil and a sharp decline in their currency. Brazilian stocks, as a whole, are down close to a third since their January highs.

While macroeconomic fears are a concern for CIG stock, the company’s electricity business should fare better than most other Brazilian stocks in rough economic conditions.

The company is now selling at 13x trailing earnings, and earnings are expected to grow as Brazil continues to come out of an economic funk. On top of that, CIG stock paid 15 cents per share in dividends this year, amounting to an eye-catching 8% dividend yield. But please note that CIG pays a variable dividend, so there is no guarantee next year’s payment will be that large.

Regardless, there appears to be significant value compared to other utility stocks, especially with the stock selling well under book value. In addition, CIG stock could surge once investors want to buy back into Brazil.

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Source: Investor Place 

Sell Wall Street’s Favorite FANG Stock Before it Implodes!

For millennia now humans have known that a leopard cannot change its spots and a tiger cannot change its stripes. The same holds true when it comes to corporate behavior. . .Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) just can’t stop giving away your personal data for profit. Not surprising considering its corporate culture was laid down by Mark Zuckerberg, whose past was a preview to the present.

Even at Harvard, Zuckerberg was in the middle of a privacy scandal when he developed a “hot or not” app. Zuckerberg was called before Harvard’s administrative body in 2003 to face allegations he had violated other students’ privacy and made unauthorized use of photos. He agreed to take down “Facemash” and thereby avoided penalties that could have forced him to leave Harvard. If you’re interested, here’s a link to the 2003 story in the school newspaper, The CrimsonFacemash Creator Survives Ad Board.

Jump ahead to 2004 and you have this instant message he sent to a friend: “THEY ‘trust me’…dumb f***s,” after boasting that he had personal data, including photos, e-mails and addresses, of some 4,000 of his social network’s users. He offered to share whatever information his friend wanted to see.

That willful disregard for people’s data and privacy continues at Facebook with even more scandals. Here are the details. . . . .

Facebook Follies Continue

Facebook is under fire again for another instance of sharing personal data of users with more than 60 device-makers that had permission to make Facebook-branded apps. The users, of course, had no knowledge of this and did not give permission to use their data.

Many of these multiple data-sharing partnerships with dozens of device makers, such as Samsung, go back as far as 2010. These firms were given access to detailed data about Facebook users and all their friends including information on their work history, personal relationships and religious affiliations.

These deals (because they continued onward) seem to be in direct violation of Facebook’s 2011 agreement with the Federal Trade Commission in which it promised not to share users’ personal data with outside partners. But what makes this worse in the government’s eyes is the fact that four of these firms were Chinese and included Huawei Technologies that U.S. intelligence consider to be a security risk.

Related: You Won’t Believe Which Tech Giants Amazon’s Set to Destroy

The worst thing though about this latest Facebook scandal about its poor stewardship of people’s personal information is that it seems that it never learns from its own mistakes. . .it doesn’t change its stripes/spots.

As usual, when give the chance to be open and transparent, Facebook goes down the path of obfuscation. When the Cambridge Analytica story broke, Facebook did a lot of verbal gymnastics while pointing the finger at Cambridge, ignoring that it had left a whole series of data ‘barn’ doors wide open.

And that continues today. . .Facebook’s response to the data-sharing partnerships focused on the past. . .these relationships were set up years ago, blah, blah. But it does not explain why it did not end or even revise these data-sharing partnerships with smartphone manufacturers.

The company’s latest response to criticism tells me Facebook still isn’t interested in having the public understand exactly what it does. And it’s definitely not interested in becoming more transparent and holding itself accountable. For me, that makes Facebook rather repugnant and not a stock I would ever one. Instead, I would rather own a company that values privacy more highly – Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL).

Apple Goes After Facebook

In fact, Apple seems to be going after Facebook lately.

At the Apple developer conference, Apple unveiled iPhone, iPad and MAC software updates that will limit Facebook’s data collection. Apple’s default Safari browser will show a pop-up window asking users for permission before loading share buttons from social networks like Facebook and Twitter. This will give the user the power to decide whether to share web browser data with Facebook and others.

To give you some sense of the importance of this move, let me explain how the web works. Let’s say your at website Z, saw a story you liked and wanted to share it. Those website icons that allow to share that story are also part of Facebook’s massive data-harvesting system. When websites have those icons, they send information about people’s web activity back to Facebook, which uses the information to fill out the personal digital dossiers they have on billions of people in order to improve how it tailors the advertisements Facebook sells. Many Facebook users aren’t aware that it collects data about non-Facebook websites that people visit, even if they don’t click on any of those “like” or “share” buttons. This data harvesting unfortunately is standard internet practice.

Apple also showed off a new system that makes it more difficult to gather information about its users as they browse across the web. When people visit sites, the characteristics of their device can be used by advertisers to create a “fingerprint” to track them. Safari will share only a “simplified” profile to thwart this tracking. Last year, Apple also launched its ‘Intelligent Tracking System’ that made its more difficult for advertisers to follow users around the web.

Another step in its privacy ‘war’ with Facebook occurred earlier this year when Apple added a new privacy panel to its operating systems. That panel explained in plain language why, how, and what data is collected from Apple devices and by specific applications.

Add up all these measures and we’re talking about throwing a major wrench into the data gathering and harvesting for big profits machine that is Facebook today!

There a lot of reasons for liking Apple’s stock, but these moves regarding privacy is just one more in reason to own it.

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Source: Investors Alley