Individual stocks can rise 10%, 25%, or even higher in a
short period of time. And they can fall just as far, just as
quickly. For example, shares of storage products maker
STEC tumbled nearly 39% Wednesday after the
company warned that key customer
EMC (NYSE: EMC) would carry over inventory
into next year,
potentially affectingfirst-quarter sales and
earnings.
Big drops in share price can sometimes signal material
defects or new risks. But at other times, they're simply
pullbacks along with the larger pessimism facing the market
today. Fortunately, we have
Motley Fool CAPS, a great
resource to help us understand the larger picture behind big
price drops.
Is the sky falling?
CAPS contains more than just
the crowd's opinions. Its best-performing members' votes
count more in shaping each
company's ratingthan do the picks of their
poorer-performing peers. That way, investors can
intelligently use the collective wisdom of more
than 140,000 CAPS members to make better
decisions.
We'll use CAPS' handy
stock screening
toolto quickly zero in on companies whose share prices
have fallen at least 20% in the past four weeks and that have
a market cap greater than $100 million and a
betaof less than 3. If you want to run this
screen for yourself,
please do-- just keep in mind that the results will
update with the market.
Company
CAPS Rating
(out of 5)
4-Week
Price Change
Boyd Gaming (NYSE: BYD)
**
(30%)
Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU)
**
(21.5%)
Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE:
AMD)
** Continued... |