The best stocks under $40 to buy today depend on today’s chart. The fact is, 99.9% of these cheap stocks will eventually be worth less than they are right now. That’s why I tell my students to build a watchlist every day.
The best traders watch more stocks than they trade. That’s essential for getting to know the charts of these stocks — these charts will give you valuable info about their future moves. If you study the patterns these stocks follow, you can find opportunities for the kind of small gains that can grow a small account fast.
Today I’ll show you how to build a watchlist for stocks under $40. Read on for the results!
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What Are the Best Stocks to Buy Under $40 in December 2023?
To find the best stocks to buy under $40 in December 2023 requires a top-level stock screener. I use the one in StocksToTrade — I helped design it, so it has all the tools and customizations I look for to create my stock watchlists.
Try StocksToTrade for 14 days and see how it helps your watchlist skills — only $7!
To find watch-worthy stocks under $40, I input the following criteria:
- Last Price ≤ $40
- Last Price ≥ $20
- Volume ≥ 100,000
When I run this screen in December 2023 and sort by percent change, it gives me the following top results:
Best Stocks Under $40 to Buy in December 2023
The best stocks under $40 in December 2023 are:
- Intellia Therapeutics Inc. [NASDAQ: NTLA]
- Trip.com Group Limited [NASDAQ: TCOM]
- Grayscale Bitcoin Trust [OTCQX: GBTC]
- Beam Therapeutics Inc. [NASDAQ: BEAM]
- Children’s Place Inc. (The) [NASDAQ: PLCE]
This is a watchlist — not a “buy list.”
I’m sharing this so you can see my process. If you want to see more NO-COST watchlists, you can sign up for my weekly watchlist here.
Read on for the best stocks that I’m watching today!
Intellia Therapeutics Inc. [NASDAQ: NTLA]
Intellia Therapeutics is a gene editing company focused on the development of CRISPR/Cas9-based therapeutics. CRISPR/Cas9 stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated protein 9 (Cas9), which is a revolutionary technology for precisely altering specific sequences of genomic DNA. Intellia is focused on using this technology to treat genetically defined diseases. It’s evaluating multiple gene editing approaches using in vivo and ex vivo therapies to address diseases with high unmet medical needs, including ATTR amyloidosis, hereditary angioedema, sickle cell disease, and immuno-oncology. Intellia has formed collaborations with several companies to advance its pipeline, including narrow-moat Regeneron and wide-moat Novartis.
Trip.com Group Limited [NASDAQ: TCOM]
Trip.com is the largest online travel agent in China and is positioned to benefit from the country’s rising demand for higher-margin outbound travel as passport penetration is only 12% in China. The company generated about 78% of sales from accommodation reservations and transportation ticketing in 2020. The rest of revenue comes from package tours and corporate travel. Prior to the pandemic in 2019, the company generated 25% of revenue from international business, which is important to its margin expansion. Most of sales come from websites and mobile platforms, while the rest come from call centers. The competes in a crowded OTA industry in China, including Meituan, Alibaba-backed Fliggy, Toncheng, and Qunar. The company was founded in 1999 and listed on the Nasdaq in December 2003.
Grayscale Bitcoin Trust [OTCQX: GBTC]
GBTC’s investment objective is for the value of its Shares (based on BTC per Share) to reflect the value of Bitcoin held by the Trust, less fees and expenses, to date.
Beam Therapeutics Inc. [NASDAQ: BEAM]
Beam Therapeutics Inc is a biotechnology company engaged in creating genetic medicines based on its base editing technology. This technology enables a new class of genetic medicines that targets a single base in the genome without making a double- stranded break in the DNA. The company’s portfolio comprises Gene Correction, Gene Modification, Gene Activation, Gene Silencing, and Multiplex Editing.
Children’s Place Inc. (The) [NASDAQ: PLCE]
Children’s Place Inc is a specialty retailer that sells accessories, footwear, and other items for children. The company has over a thousand stores in North America and also sells through its website and wholesale. It reaches more than a dozen other countries, with franchise partners operating stores, shops, or e-commerce sites. The company leases all of its retail stores, and most are located in malls. Children’s Place has one distribution center in the United States and one in Canada to support operations in those countries. It uses third-party providers to support operations in other countries. The company sources its product from well over 100 vendors, which are primarily located in Asia.
Which Is the Cheapest High-Potential Stock to Buy Right Now?
To find the cheapest high-potential stocks, you have to study their charts.
Take a look at the 1-year chart for Clean Vision Corp. [OTCPK: CLNV]:
See how many 100% spikes this stock had in the past year? Each one of these spikes was a trading opportunity — that’s the way I’ve made over $8,000 in total earnings trading this stock (click the link to see my individual trades).
However, that’s not a recommendation to “buy” this stock. See how it drops after every spike?
CLNV follows my 7-step pennystocking framework perfectly. This framework isn’t just for penny stocks though… You can also see its patterns play out in higher priced stocks like Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA).
This is the chart you have to commit to memory:
Remember this chart well, its the basis for my 7-step framework, @30DayBoot & @completepenny & you must study not to fall prey to greed/ignorance or you'll get wrecked like 90% of traders. It's VITAL to sell into excessive strength/hype, do not just hold & hope like most newbies pic.twitter.com/QsAGHsI6lp
— Timothy Sykes (@timothysykes) February 28, 2021
Stocks Under $40 FAQs
Just because a stock trades for under $40 doesn’t make it cheap. Read on for some more questions you might be asking…
Where can one find the list of companies’ stocks under $40?
Get a powerful stock screener like the one in StocksToTrade, and start building parameters. When I’m looking for tradable stocks under $40, I want their volume to be great enough for the stock to be liquid. This way I can enter and exit a position more easily.
What are high-volume stocks under $40?
A stock under $40 needs high volume for me to trade it. When I’m building my stock scan, I’ll typically look for stocks that have traded over 1 million shares so far that day.
The scanner I’m using in this article is set to look for stocks that have traded more than 50,000 shares. This will help you identify watch-worthy stocks — even if you’re looking in pre-market.
What are some great stocks under $40 for selling calls and puts?
I don’t trade options, but my former student Mark Croock has made more than $4 million mostly with this strategy! He’s done this by adapting my penny stock strategies to the world of options… If you’re interested in learning his risk-informed approach, check out “The Ultimate Options Trading Blueprint For Small Accounts” — it’s no cost for a limited time!
What is Tim Sykes’ favorite stock under $40?
I don’t have a “favorite” stock under $40 — I mostly trade penny stocks, which trade under $5. However, penny stocks will often run above the $5 range, which happened with the SPAC stock Ocean Biomedical Inc. (NASDAQ: OCEA). It still moved like a penny stock, so I was able to use my penny stock strategies in trading it… I made $517 in four conservative trades (click the link to see my individual trades).
What are the best stocks to buy under $40 that pay dividends?
I wouldn’t recommend any stocks to buy under $40 that pay dividends, or any dividend stocks at all. You have to hold stocks through their dividend date to receive payouts, and I am more of a trader than an investor. Dividend stocks are traditionally seen as less risky to hold than other stocks — but I think that every stock is risky to hold.
Plus, dividend stocks give away some of the value that would otherwise add to their share price. That means they see less growth than non-dividend stocks, which doesn’t make them great for trading either.
