3 ‘Hated’ Stocks Poised For A Big Rebound Before 2015

This has been a bad month for Dan Hesse. The sharp plunge in Sprint (NYSE: S), which wiped out more than $10 billion in market value over the past month, cost him his job as the company’s CEO. And this embattled former executive isn’t alone. 

#-ad_banner-#Dozens of other companies saw their shares plummet over the past month in the face of dismal quarterly results and other setbacks. You can expect to find more executive departures in many of the upcoming board meetings — especially at  firms where problems surfaced during Q2 and will likely heed the call for a major business overhaul.

Yet, the outlook for some of the companies with falling stock prices doesn’t look so bleak. A select few possess the ingredients for a solid snapback in coming months, easing the pressure on the embattled management teams.  Here’s a look at three stocks that plunged at least 25% over the past month, but now appear poised to make up for lost ground before the year is out. 

1.    Insmed (Nasdaq: INSM)
This biotech stock had been building an impressive stock chart. It has set higher highs and higher lows for nearly a year as investors anticipated fast-track approval for the company’s new product, Arikayce. Yet in early August, the FDA told Insmed that it would need to provide more extensive testing data before receiving approval. 

The news sent shares plunging right back to levels seen when I profiled the company roughly a year ago on our sister site, ProfitableTrading.com. As I wrote then, “Insmed has developed Arikayce, which is an inhalable antibiotic that brings medicine right to areas where lungs are infected.”
 
The good news: there is no reason to believe that Arikayce won’t eventually be approved in the United States. The better news: European approval for Arikayce may come before the year ends.  Still, the setback is a clear negative, recently forcing the company to raise more money to complete further testing. With those negative catalysts now behind Insmed, shares are likely to move back into the mid-to-upper teens as the eventual U.S. approval of Arikayce comes back into focus.
 
2.    Maxwell Technologies (Nasdaq: MXWL)

The key catalyst behind growth stocks is, well, growth. And this maker of ultracapacitors was pounding out impressive growth from 2006 through 2011, as I noted in my profile of the ​company in 2012. Though growth stalled in 2013, analysts expected it to resume in 2014 and beyond.
 That revenue ramp will have to wait. Maxwell recently told investors that key customers were slow to place orders and that sales are expected to fall by 10% this year. Analysts expect a double-digit rebound in sales growth next year, but this is obviously now a “show-me” stock.
 
The reason to keep tracking this stock — which plunged 33% in the past month — is that ultracapacitors may play a significant role in the next generation of electric cars and buses. And Maxwell, after investing huge sums in R&D in recent years, is the best-positioned supplier for that trend. 
 

3.    SkyWest (Nasdaq: SKYW)
Serving as a regional air carrier is a tough business these days. Traffic is mostly derived from a
 hand-off system from the major airline carriers, and thanks to cost pressures and pilot shortages, industry profits have been elusive.  SkyWest is faring better than most, generating operating margins in the 5% range in recent years.  Yet, when management recently warned that the regional carrier would likely lose money in the second half of 2014, investors fled. This pushed shares down 25% over the past month despite expectations of a rebound into the black next year.
 
From this came an unusual outcome: shares now trade for around one-third of its tangible book value. In fact, the company’s cash balance is equivalent to its market value, which means that the fleet of airplanes that it owns, which are carried on the balance sheet for more than $2 billion, are assigned zero value.
As long as bankruptcy isn’t a concern, which it is not in this instance, then SkyWest merely needs to restructure its operation to shed money-losing routes and focus on money-making routes. And that is exactly what management is doing. It’s unclear when this stock will rebound. Investors likely need more details around the carrier’s retrenchment and path back to profitability.  But no matter the timetable for a turnaround, this asset play is now too compelling to ignore. 

Risks to Consider: These stocks lack imminent catalysts and could still drift even lower if the market heads south and investors avoid any firms with warts on them.
 
Action to Take –> As Warren Buffett and others consistently note, you can make great profits on stocks when they are hated, and these three firms surely are. But they are each facing a better year in 2015, which should set the stage for a second half rebound in 2014.

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