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Best Stocks Under $40 to Buy Today

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Written by Timothy Sykes
Updated 11/28/2023 9 min read

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!

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:

[[[{“widget”:”scn-wdgt-01-dev”, “params”: {“top_price”:”40″,”bottom_price”:”20″,”bottom_volume”:”100000″}}]]]

Best Stocks Under $40 to Buy in December 2023

The best stocks under $40 in December 2023 are:

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:

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.



Author card Timothy Sykes picture

Timothy Sykes

Tim Sykes is a penny stock trader and teacher who became a self-made millionaire by the age of 22 by trading $12,415 of bar mitzvah money. After becoming disenchanted with the hedge fund world, he established the Tim Sykes Trading Challenge to teach aspiring traders how to follow his trading strategies. He’s been featured in a variety of media outlets including CNN, Larry King, Steve Harvey, Forbes, Men’s Journal, and more. He’s also an active philanthropist and environmental activist, a co-founder of Karmagawa, and has donated millions of dollars to charity. Read More

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* Results are not typical and will vary from person to person. Making money trading stocks takes time, dedication, and hard work. There are inherent risks involved with investing in the stock market, including the loss of your investment. Past performance in the market is not indicative of future results. Any investment is at your own risk. See Terms of Service here

The available research on day trading suggests that most active traders lose money. Fees and overtrading are major contributors to these losses.

A 2000 study called “Trading is Hazardous to Your Wealth: The Common Stock Investment Performance of Individual Investors” evaluated 66,465 U.S. households that held stocks from 1991 to 1996. The households that traded most averaged an 11.4% annual return during a period where the overall market gained 17.9%. These lower returns were attributed to overconfidence.

A 2014 paper (revised 2019) titled “Learning Fast or Slow?” analyzed the complete transaction history of the Taiwan Stock Exchange between 1992 and 2006. It looked at the ongoing performance of day traders in this sample, and found that 97% of day traders can expect to lose money from trading, and more than 90% of all day trading volume can be traced to investors who predictably lose money. Additionally, it tied the behavior of gamblers and drivers who get more speeding tickets to overtrading, and cited studies showing that legalized gambling has an inverse effect on trading volume.

A 2019 research study (revised 2020) called “Day Trading for a Living?” observed 19,646 Brazilian futures contract traders who started day trading from 2013 to 2015, and recorded two years of their trading activity. The study authors found that 97% of traders with more than 300 days actively trading lost money, and only 1.1% earned more than the Brazilian minimum wage ($16 USD per day). They hypothesized that the greater returns shown in previous studies did not differentiate between frequent day traders and those who traded rarely, and that more frequent trading activity decreases the chance of profitability.

These studies show the wide variance of the available data on day trading profitability. One thing that seems clear from the research is that most day traders lose money .

Millionaire Media 66 W Flagler St. Ste. 900 Miami, FL 33130 United States (205) 851-0506 This is for information purposes only as Millionaire Media LLC nor Timothy Sykes is registered as a securities broker-dealer or an investment adviser. No information herein is intended as securities brokerage, investment, tax, accounting or legal advice, as an offer or solicitation of an offer to sell or buy, or as an endorsement, recommendation or sponsorship of any company, security or fund. Millionaire Media LLC and Timothy Sykes cannot and does not assess, verify or guarantee the adequacy, accuracy or completeness of any information, the suitability or profitability of any particular investment, or the potential value of any investment or informational source. The reader bears responsibility for his/her own investment research and decisions, should seek the advice of a qualified securities professional before making any investment, and investigate and fully understand any and all risks before investing. Millionaire Media LLC and Timothy Sykes in no way warrants the solvency, financial condition, or investment advisability of any of the securities mentioned in communications or websites. In addition, Millionaire Media LLC and Timothy Sykes accepts no liability whatsoever for any direct or consequential loss arising from any use of this information. This information is not intended to be used as the sole basis of any investment decision, nor should it be construed as advice designed to meet the investment needs of any particular investor. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future returns.

Citations for Disclaimer

Barber, Brad M. and Odean, Terrance, Trading is Hazardous to Your Wealth: The Common Stock Investment Performance of Individual Investors. Available at SSRN: “Day Trading for a Living?”

Barber, Brad M. and Lee, Yi-Tsung and Liu, Yu-Jane and Odean, Terrance and Zhang, Ke, Learning Fast or Slow? (May 28, 2019). Forthcoming: Review of Asset Pricing Studies, Available at SSRN: “https://ssrn.com/abstract=2535636”

Chague, Fernando and De-Losso, Rodrigo and Giovannetti, Bruno, Day Trading for a Living? (June 11, 2020). Available at SSRN: “https://ssrn.com/abstract=3423101”