By one measure, some stocks are cheaper now than they were during the pandemic and, of those, Evercore ISI has published a list of beaten-down names that could be good opportunities. Before a social media post by President Trump gave relief to the markets Monday, investors had been positioned for grave outcomes, making many stocks unusually cheap. Now, the market has stabilized, at least temporarily, on hope that the situation in Iran isn’t as dire as initially expected, according to Evercore ISI. Evercore ISI’s head of equity, derivatives and quantitative strategy looked at stocks on the basis of their relative valuation. “The pain across stocks has … punished many stocks across sectors,” Julian Emmanuel said in a report on Monday. “While credit markets don’t even come close to reflecting the degree of stress that was evident in the Pandemic, 96 of 100 stocks in the S & P 500 are now trading below their Pandemic low valuation.” Evercore highlighted several stocks that it called the “Dogs of War,” saying that they “could be expected to outperform in the near term.” All are in the S & P 500, sell below their pandemic trough valuations, are rated outperform by the investment bank and have short interest in the upper 90 percentile relative to their two-year history. Here are five such stocks: One of the biggest stocks on the list is Netflix . It’s cheaper now than it was at its lowest point of the pandemic by about 39%. Software giant Adobe is another, with a 12-month forward P/E at a 63% discount to its pandemic low. Fintech company Block is close behind, trading 62% below its pandemic trough multiple. Semiconductor maker Advanced Micro Devices and financial technology provider Intuit are also on the list, trading at smaller discounts to their pandemic bottoms, but still 16% and 24%, respectively. —CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed reporting.
