The 5 Cheapest Billion-Dollar Stocks

Although you can't get something for nothing, it is always nice to get something more for less. With that in mind, we took a look at which companies had the highest market capitalization in relation to the cheapest stock price. With a floor of $11 billion in market capitalization, we identified 19 stocks which were selling for less than $10. The largest maket cap was held by Banco Santander (SAN) at $58.27 billion and the smallest by Telecom Italia (TI) at $11.98 billion. Stock prices ranged from a low of $1.935 for Lloyds Banking (LYG) to a high of $9.99 for Aviva (AV). By sector, the largest group of single-digit billion-dollar cap stocks were Banks (seven), followed by Financial Services and Telecom which both had four. Manufacturing, Electronics, Insurance, and Information Technology had one each. We decided to determine which stocks delivered the biggest bang for an investor's buck in terms of a highly unscientific criteria of market cap divided by stock price. For context, showing just how arbitrary this system is, the largest market cap stock listed, Apple (AAPL), has $620.91 stock price and a market cap of $580.95 billion for a score of 0.94. The highest price stock, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A) has a price of $1,270.20 and a market cap of $209.58 billion for a score of 0.17. Far more typical of the general market is Exxon Mobile's (XOM) score of 4.68 and Microsoft's (MSFT) 8.40. On the bright side, none of the bargain names were on the Money Pit's list of stocks of companies. Lloyds Banking delivered, hands down, the biggest bang for the buck with a score of 17.36. The least -- or "worst" -- bang for the buck went to Telecom Italia at 1.34 and Aviva at 1.45.

The top-five billion-dollar bargain stocks: Lloyds Banking Price: 1.935 Market Cap: 33.59 Price/Market Cap 17.36 Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MTU) Price: 4.76 Market Cap: 67.33 Price/Market Cap 14.14 Bank of America (BAC) Price: 7.67 Market Cap: 82.62 Price/Market Cap 10.77 Banco Santander Price: 6.55 Market Cap: 59.45 Price/Market Cap 9.08 Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentina (BBVA) Price: 7.05 Market Cap: 34.57 Price/Market Cap 4.90