Barron's Picks And Pans: Coca-Cola, Kroger, Shopify And More

This weekend's Barron's presents 11 cheap blue-chips in a pricey market.

Other featured articles name cheap stocks that are cheap for a reason and how to play stocks that are mired in controversy.

Also: the prospects for a TV station operator, an e-commerce play, a grocery store chain and consumer goods giant.

"Blue Chips on Sale: 11 Cheap Stocks in a Pricey Market" by Jack Hough takes a look at Bank of America Corp BAC and several other companies that have low price-to-earnings ratios, solid profits and decent growth, even while the stock market is hitting new highs.

Lawrence Strauss' "A TV Stock That Can Win No Matter Who Wins the 2020 Election" points out that broadcasting company Gray Television, Inc. GTN has outlets in a number of markets that should benefit from political ad spending in 2020.

In "A Company That's Thriving as an Antidote to Amazon," Tae Kim suggests that for hundreds of thousands of merchants trying to sell their wares online, Shopify Inc SHOP has become a viable alternative to the e-commerce colossus.

Large regional banks like Regions Financial Corp RF didn't have to have their capital plans reviewed by the Federal Reserve this year, according to "Regional Banks Join the Dividend Party" by Lawrence Strauss. That didn't stop many of them from announcing new dividend increases.

In Jack Hough's "Beware These 'Radio Shack' Stocks: They're Cheap for a Reason," see why Barron's believes the time may have come and gone for GameStop Corp. GME, J C Penney Company Inc JCP and a number of other companies.

See also: CNBC: 13 Women CEOs Have Taken Companies Public So Far In 2019

"5 Extreme Stocks: Great for Traders, Tougher for Investors" by Al Root says that controversy about a stock like Tesla Inc TSLA sometimes leads to higher volatility and weaker returns. But that could also set up such stocks to gain as controversy fades.

In "Kroger Stock Has Slid This Year, and One Director Is Loading Up on Shares," Ed Lin examines why a Kroger Co KR board member has loaded up on shares of the supermarket operator even though the stock has taken a pounding so far this year.

The valuation of The Coca-Cola Co KO remains compelling and investor concerns are still overblown. So says Paul Farrell's "Coke Is Still Undervalued." See why the stock offers a clearly superior long-term growth outlook compared with its peers.

Also in this week's Barron's:

Barron's Mutual Fund Quarterly

How pay-to-play in funds hurts investors

Lee Iacocca: "The Last Emperor of Detroit"

Investors push back on corporate debt issuers

Whether the stock market points to Trump's reelection

Whether Christine Lagarde is what the ECB needs

At the time of this writing, the author had no position in the mentioned equities.

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