Hewlett-Packard and other DJIA stocks under $20

By Dian Vujovich

With only five months left in this trading year, thought it was time to take another look at which stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average are trading under 20 bucks a share. One big surprise: Hewlett-Packard.

I don’t know what brand your home printer is but mine is one of Hewlett-Packard’s workhorse models. The thing, an HP Photosmart model, never ceases to amaze me. Or ceases up. I like that.  So, when I looked at the closing prices of the 30 stocks that make up the DJIA on Friday, Aug. 3, 2012, and saw HPQ at 18 bucks and change, it caught my eye.

Mind you, I’m not touting the stock and haven’t a clue as to where the company is going under Meg Whitman’s reign. All I do know is that over the past 52-weeks the stock has traded as high as 34 bucks a share, as low as $17.41 and closed Friday at $18.26, according to Yahoo Finance. Additionally, of the analysts following the stock, five considered it a “strong buy”, four as a” buy”, 16 considered it  a “hold” and none—as in zero– recommended selling it.

I’m figuring at this level the stock’s price is attractive and definitely worth some research of your own if you’re prone to be a value buyer.

But HPQ wasn’t the only stock in that index selling under $20. It was only one of four. The others included, in alphabetical order, Alcoa, AA. It closed Friday at $$8.37 a share and  not all that far off of its 52-week low of $7.97. AA had traded as high as $12.93 during that same time period.

Then, Bank of America Corporation, BAC. If you’d bought it at its low of $4.92 you’d be a happy camper. If you’d purchased shares at its 52-week high of $10.10, well…Friday’s close was $7.43 which was  kinda, sorta, almost right in the middle.

And then there is Cisco, CSCO. The company closed at $$16.35 a share on Friday. It’s trading range for the past year: $13.30 to $21.30.

No matter what’s going on within the economy or  in politics these days whether at home or abroad, one thing is for sure: Wall Street always has something to offer investors who can distinguish the forest from the trees.