Penny stocks are usually small-cap stocks, and small-cap stocks typically tend to perform the best during the early stages of the business cycle when the economy is recovering and growing fairly rapidly.
Multi-billionaire investor Ken Fisher has indicated that we are in the early stages of the business cycle, and I agree with him. I believe the U.S. economy got a huge boost from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which provided small- and medium-sized businesses with very large loans in 2020. The PPP lifted the U.S. out of the pandemic-induced recession. Then, the economy fell into a very shallow recession in the second and third quarters of 2022, driven by declines in government spending and drops in residential and nonresidential investment. The economy subsequently recovered, boosted by higher consumer spending and the tremendous strength of the labor market.
I believe unemployment has stayed so low largely because of the travel boom and the leftover, positive impact of the PPP. Last quarter, GDP boomed by a real, annualized rate of 4.9%, and the Fed expects GDP to jump at a real annualized rate of 2% during the current quarter. As more investors finally realize that we’re in the early stages of an economic recovery, penny stocks should surge.
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After a recent acquisition, Wallbox (NYSE:WBX) will have the largest network of electric vehicle chargers in Europe. The European EV market is growing quickly and is much more advanced than the U.S. Last quarter, EV sales ” in the top 5 European markets” jumped 49% versus the same period a year earlier.
And in 2022, in the EU, 21.6% of all new car registrations, or nearly 2 million vehicles, were EVs. As of last month, 5.5% of all vehicles on the road in Europe were EVs.
Given the high cost of gasoline in Europe and the EU’s continued strong support for EVs, EV adoption should continue to increase very quickly in Europe. And the latter trend will boost Wallbox’s financial results and WBX stock over the longer term.
Given the company’s explosive growth potential, the stock’s trailing price-sales ratio of 1.54 is extremely low, making it one of the best penny stocks to buy.
iCAD (ICAD)
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iCAD (NASDAQ:ICAD) uses artificial intelligence to detect significantly more breast cancer cases than traditional mammographies.
I believe that the company is on the comeback trail under its new CEO, Dana Brown.
On the company’s Q3 earnings call held on Nov. 14, Brown noted that iCAD had just completed the testing phase of its deal with Radiology Partners. As a result, it appears that iCAD has not yet recognized any revenue from the transaction with Radiology Partners, which offers “5% of all U.S. mammography screening,” Brown noted.
Also boding well for iCAD, the CEO reported that the company had obtained a major “subscription deal…with a prestigious multi-specialty academic medical center renowned for exceptional health care services and ranked as one of the top hospitals in the U.S.”
Typically, in healthcare, when one prestigious institution adopts a drug or technology, many more institutions follow suit.
Also noteworthy is that, as I’ve reported in previous columns, iCAD has signed a 20 year deal to utilize Alphabet’s (NASDAQ:GOOG, NASDAQ:GOOGL) AI technology. That deal alone should make iCAD’s offering very attractive to healthcare providers.
SoundHound (SOUN)
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SoundHound’s (NASDAQ: SOUN) technology “translates spoken inputs directly into conversational AI,” according to Seeking Alpha columnist Gary Alexander. Other similar platforms, conversely, change “speech to text, then translate that text into meaning.”
In addition to SOUN’s system speeding up the process of humans obtaining responses from AI-driven customer service representatives (CSRs), I believe that the product may produce more accurate results than the offerings that are currently in use. As we all know, the AI CSRs’ responses leave much to be desired. The old, famous game of “Telephone” shows that messages get distorted when they pass through multiple entities before their ultimate destinations.
And somewhat validating Soundhound’s technology and platform, the company has an impressive array of customers, including Oracle (NYSE:ORCL), Square (NYSE:SQ), Hyundai, and Stellantis’ (NYSE:STLA) Jeep unit.
Further, last quarter, its revenue climbed an impressive 19% versus the same period a year earlier to $13.3 million, while its EBITDA loss, excluding certain items, dropped to $7.3 million from $16.9 million in Q3 of 2022.
On the date of publication, Larry Ramer held a long position in ICAD. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.
Larry Ramer has conducted research and written articles on U.S. stocks for 15 years. He has been employed by The Fly and Israel’s largest business newspaper, Globes. Larry began writing columns for InvestorPlace in 2015. Among his highly successful, contrarian picks have been PLUG, XOM and solar stocks. You can reach him on Stocktwits at @larryramer.
