While most of Wall Street focuses on large-cap and mega-cap stocks, as they provide a degree of safety and liquidity, many investors are limited in the number of shares they can buy. Many of the biggest public companies, especially the technology giants, trade in the hundreds, all the way up to over $1,000 per share or more. At those steep prices, it is difficult to get any decent share count leverage.
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Many investors, especially more aggressive traders, look at lower-priced stocks as a way not only to make some good money but to get a higher share count. That can really help the decision-making process, especially when you are on to a winner, as you can always sell half and keep half.

Skeptics of low-priced shares should remember that at one point Amazon, Apple and Netflix traded in the single digits. Nvidia, which has exploded higher on AI semiconductor chips, traded under $10 for years. One stock we featured over the years, Zynga, was purchased by Take-Two Interactive. Cogent Biosciences, which we featured last March, has tripled since then.

We screened our 24/7 Wall St. research database looking for smaller cap companies that could offer patient investors some huge returns for the rest of 2023 and beyond. While these five stocks are rated Buy and have a ton of Wall Street coverage, it is important to remember that no single analyst report should be used as a sole basis for any buying or selling decision.

Adaptive Biotechnologies

Cathie Wood has bought almost 10 million shares of this stock for her ARK Genomic Revolution fund. Adaptive Biotechnologies Corp. (NASDAQ: ADPT) is a commercial-stage company that develops an immune medicine platform for the diagnosis and treatment of various diseases.

The company offers immunoSEQ, a platform and core immunosequencing product that is used to answer translational research questions, as well as to discover new prognostic and diagnostic signals. It also provides clonoSEQ, a clinical diagnostic product for the detection and monitoring of minimal residual disease in patients with multiple myeloma, B cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia and chronic lymphocytic leukemia, as well as available as a CLIA-validated laboratory developed test for patients with other lymphoid cancers.

In addition, Adaptive Biotechnologies offers a pipeline of clinical products and services that are used for the diagnosing, monitoring and treatment of diseases, such as cancer and autoimmune disorders. It offers products and services for life sciences research, clinical diagnostics and drug discovery applications. The company has strategic collaborations with Genentech for the development, manufacture and commercialization of neoantigen directed T cell therapies for the treatment of a range of cancers and with Microsoft to develop diagnostic tests for the early detection of various diseases from a single blood test.

Piper Sandler has a $14 target price on Adaptive Biotechnologies stock. The consensus target is $11.88, and shares last traded at $6.16 on Friday.

This little-known health care company has been battered and offers an incredible entry point, and Wood owns over 20 million shares. Cerus Corp. (NASDAQ: CERS) operates as a biomedical products company that focuses on developing and commercializing the Intercept Blood System, a proprietary technology for controlling biological replication that is designed to reduce blood-borne pathogens in donated blood components intended for transfusion.
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The Intercept Blood System for platelets and plasma is designed to inactivate blood-borne pathogens in platelets and plasma donated for transfusion. The Intercept Blood System for red blood cells inactivates blood-borne pathogens in red blood cells donated for transfusion. And the Intercept Blood System for cryoprecipitation uses its plasma system to produce pathogen-reduced cryoprecipitated fibrinogen complex for the treatment and control of bleeding, including massive hemorrhage associated with fibrinogen deficiency, as well as pathogen reduced plasma, cryoprecipitate reduced.

The company sells platelet and plasma systems through its direct sales force and distributors in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and elsewhere.

Cantor Fitzgerald has set a $9 target price, while Cerus stock has a consensus target of $5.75. The shares closed on Friday at $1.79.

Holley

Do-it-yourself car enthusiasts know this old-school company well. Holley Inc. (NYSE: HLLY) designs, manufactures and markets automotive aftermarket products for car and truck enthusiasts in the United States, Canada, Europe and China.

The company’s products include carburetors, fuel pumps, fuel injection systems, nitrous oxide injection systems, superchargers, exhaust headers, mufflers, distributors, ignition components, engine tuners, automotive performance plumbing products and exhaust products, as well as shifters, converters, transmission kits, transmissions, tuners and automotive software. It also offers wheels, chassis and suspension products, helmets, head and neck restraints, seat belts, firesuits, and electronic control and monitoring systems.

The company sells its products under the Holley, Holley EFI, APR, MSD, Flowmaster, Powerteq, Accel and Simpson brands to retailers directly, as well as through distributors and online channels.

Last fall, the stock was added to the small-cap Russell 2000, which is a huge advantage as index funds that replicate the index in its entirety have to buy the shares. In addition, the company posted stellar second-quarter results, and forward guidance for the rest of 2023 was solid.

Truist Financial’s target price is $10, and the consensus target is $9.22. Holley stock closed on Friday at $5.81.

This electric vehicle (EV) company could be in the sights of a larger car maker. Lucid Group Inc. (NASDAQ: LCID) is an automotive company focused on the design, development, customer experience, sale and service of EVs, as well as electric powertrains for Formula E and energy storage systems, starting with its Air sedan, to be followed by additional models through 2030.
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The company’s vehicles are manufactured off of Lucid Electric Advanced Platform (LEAP), a skateboard architecture that will underpin numerous models, and offered to consumers through a direct sales and service model.

While the EV industry has become a do-or-die proposition, Aston Martin recently announced it would be taking up with Lucid Motors for future battery EV development and stepping away from Mercedes-Benz’s EV technology.

Lucid stock has a $10 target price at Needham. The consensus figure is $7.90, and the shares closed at $6.02 on Friday.

908 Devices

This is another ARK portfolio stock that also has the potential to be a huge winner. 908 Devices Inc. (NASDAQ: MASS) provides various purpose-built handheld and desktop mass spectrometry (Mass Spec) devices to interrogate unknown and invisible materials in life sciences research, bioprocessing, industrial biotech, forensics and adjacent markets. It operates in the Americas, Europe, the Asia Pacific and elsewhere.

908 Devices products include:

• MX908, a handheld, battery-powered and Mass Spec device that is designed for rapid analysis of gas, liquid and solid materials of unknown identity
• Rebel, a small desktop analyzer that provides real-time information on the extracellular environment in bioprocesses
• Maven and Trace C2, an online device for bioprocess monitoring and control
• ZipChip solution, a plug-and-play, high-resolution separation platform that optimizes Mass Spec sample analysis

The $20 SVB Leerink target price compares with a $17 consensus target. Both are well above the $7.21 close for 908 Devices stock on Friday.

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These are five stocks for aggressive investors looking to get share count leverage on companies that have sizable upside potential. While not suited for all investors, they are not penny stocks with absolutely no track record or liquidity, and major Wall Street firms have research coverage.

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