5 Stocks Down More Than 50% From Their Record Highs to Buy Now

There is a particular kind of quiet that settles over a stock after it has fallen 60% or 70%. The analysts who used to argue about it move on. The people who bought at the top stop checking. Nobody at a barbecue brings it up. Meanwhile, the company is still shipping cans of SPAM, still installing refrigerators in grocery stores, still selling batteries at the checkout line, because the business never knew what the chart was doing.

That quiet is where this list comes from. The five consumer goods companies below have each lost more than half their value from their record highs, and in every case the market had its reasons. But each of them is doing something concrete right now, away from the quarterly earnings scrum, that could change the story: buying a billion-dollar chicken business, reinvesting a tariff refund, or betting the next decade on backpacks.

Whether those moves work is an open question. That they are happening while almost no one is paying attention is the opportunity.

Image source: Getty Images.

1. Hormel Foods is buying growth it could not grow

Hormel Foods (NYSE: HRL) trades around $23, nearly 60% below its 2020 record, when pantry-loading sent SPAM sales through the roof. The years since have been a grind of weak pork and turkey markets and a leadership shuffle that ended in late October, when John Ghingo, the company's president, became CEO.

The move that matters and that makes this company a buy right now came on Sept. 30. Hormel agreed to pay about $1.055 billion for Brakebush Brothers, a century-old Wisconsin maker of value-added chicken for restaurants with roughly $1.2 billion in annual sales. Chicken is the protein Americans keep buying more of, and Hormel has been underweight in it for years.

The deal should close this quarter and add to adjusted earnings by fiscal 2028. The risk is debt: Hormel is borrowing to do this, but I see the acquisition leading to great sales.

2. Helen of Troy raised guidance while nobody was watching

Helen of Troy (NASDAQ: HELE) owns OXO kitchen tools, Hydro Flask bottles, Osprey backpacks, and Olive & June nail products. The stock peaked near $266 in January 2021 and now sits around $28, a drop of about 89%. Tariffs on Asian-made goods and a long stretch of bloated inventory did most of the damage.

On Oct. 8, the company raised its full-year adjusted earnings outlook to $3.60 to $4.15 per share, up from $3.25 to $3.75, and said sales grew across all three of its home and outdoor brands. It also received $26.9 million in tariff refunds and reinvested most of it in the business rather than banking it, which is what a management team does when it thinks demand is coming back. At roughly seven times that guidance, the market still treats this as a melting business, even though debt is down more than $220 million year over year.

3. Energizer Holdings is sneakily becoming an auto care company

Energizer Holdings (NYSE: ENR) is about 50% below its 2018 high, trading near $24. Everyone knows the bunny, but the interesting part of the business now sells refrigerant and car-care products under the Armor All and A/C Pro brands. Auto care sales grew more than 10% in the most recent quarter on new distribution, while batteries held roughly flat.

The company is also finishing Project Momentum, a multi-year effort to close older plants and consolidate production, and expects the cash costs of that program to drop sharply next year, freeing up money for the 5.6% dividend and debt reduction.

4. Freshpet is still adding refrigerators

Freshpet (NASDAQ: FRPT), the maker of refrigerated dog food, is down about 62% from its late-2021 peak of roughly $187. Management raised its 2026 sales growth outlook to 10% to 12% in August and has said it no longer needs to raise outside capital, a milestone for a business that spent a decade burning cash to build kitchens and install branded fridges in grocery stores.

What I keep coming back to is the fridge itself. Once a grocery store gives Freshpet a plug and four feet of floor space, that real estate is hard for a competitor to take back, and the company has said it spends $20 million to $25 million a year installing them. Management has also told investors it is only about 40% of the way into the households it thinks it can reach, according to Investing.com.

A business can be out of favor and still be early. The anxiety is that a dog owner who loses a job does not stop feeding the dog, but may stop paying $3 a day to do it.

5. Yeti Holdings wants its next billion from bags

Yeti Holdings (NYSE: YETI) is about 60% below its 2021 high. At its Sept. 17 investor day, the cooler and drinkware company set a goal of building bags and soft coolers into its next billion-dollar product line, reaching $1 billion in international sales, and generating $1.2 billion to $1.4 billion in cumulative free cash flow through fiscal 2030.

The bag goal is the part worth sitting with. Yeti Holdings became a $100 stock in 2021 because a cooler turned into a tumbler, then into a status object, and then a wave of cheaper tumblers made the brand feel less special. Betting on backpacks and duffels is management admitting the drinkware boom is over and trying to do the trick again with a different product.

That is either a real second act or an expensive way to find out there isn't one. The fact that the company plans to buy back stock at these prices while it tries suggests it believes the first possibility.

Micah Zimmerman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Freshpet and Yeti. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.