In recent articles, I’ve covered some TSX stocks that traded near 52-week lows. These days, it’s hard to find stocks that fit that description, as we’re in the midst of a major market rally that has seen the S&P 500 Composite Index rise 100% in just over a year. Most stocks are, if anything, near all-time highs. But as I showed in my past coverage on this topic, it is possible to find stocks trading near 52-week lows. Namely, in sectors like gold mining, which have been beaten down due to low commodity prices.
In fact, you can do better–or if you prefer, worse–than that. It’s actually possible to find TSX stocks that today trade near all-time lows. Most of them are pretty obscure names, but they do exist. One, in fact, is actually a pretty trendy stock this week. In this article I’ll explore three TSX stocks trading near all-time lows, starting with an energy company that is truly in the gutter, and moving on to tech and cannabis names.
Baytex Energy
Baytex Energy (TSX:BTE)(NYSE:BTE) is a Canadian energy stock that trades for $3.14. This is more than 1,000% up from its all-time low–yet is still fairly close to it on a very long time frame. BTE’s all-time high of $57 was set way back in 2011. So even though this stock has been rallying, it is still far closer to its all-time low than its all-time high.
Why is BTE down so much over 10 years? It comes down to two main factors:
- Debt: Baytex Energy has a lot of debt on its balance sheet, which results in heavy interest expenses that make profits hard to obtain.
- Oil prices: BTE needs high oil prices to make a profit and even with this year’s bullishness in oil, we’re still nowhere near early 2010s price levels.
Between these two factors, BTE has a hard time making money, hence its stock price collapsing over the past decade.
Facedrive
Facedrive (TSXV:FD) is another stock that is much closer to its all-time low than its all-time high. The high of $54.50 was set in February and trades for about $2.4 at writing. This stock is up significantly from its all-time low of $1.30 but, again, is much closer to the low than the high. Facedrive is a bit murkier than Baytex energy.
Its earnings reports generally show high revenue growth–as much as 1,000%–but the company’s mission is vague. It is involved in many different businesses and its financial statements are hard to access. Some have accused the company of running some kind of stock promotion scheme. Overall, this stock does not seem super trustworthy and I’ll be avoiding it.
Hexo
Last but not least we have Hexo (TSX:HEXO)(NASDAQ:HEXO). This is a cannabis stock that is selling off along with its sector. There isn’t much going on here except sector-wide momentum. Investors are souring on cannabis stocks, which are still failing to deliver profits nearly three years post-legalization. People had hoped that U.S. federal legalization would provide some growth fuel, but it doesn’t look like that’s happening.
There isn’t much to say about this stock in particular but it’s noteworthy for being the one stock on this list that is truly at it’s all-time low instead of just relatively near it. On the day of this writing, it closed at US$1.92 on the NASDAQ–its lowest price ever on that exchange.
