Bargain or Trap?

It happens all too often: What seems like a bargain turns out to be a bad deal in disguise. If you've ever shelled out money for something you didn't need, bought shoddy merchandise because it cost less, or overspent on something you could have gotten cheaper elsewhere, you've been lured into wasting your money.
Don't take the bait. Try our nine-question quiz to see if you can sniff out the true bargains and avoid the traps.

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2 Surprising Bargain Stocks for Value Investors

Ouch! I was prepared for some volatility when I invested in a skin-care company that relies on direct selling. But I really didn’t expect to get skinned alive so soon after I bought the stock. For those of us who consider ourselves value investors, however, suffering through what we hope are temporary setbacks is just part of the game.
Perhaps I should back up and explain. In mid July, I bought 148 shares of Nu Skin Enterprises (symbol NUS), which sells skin creams and other anti-aging products. At $67.80, the stock had already been cut in half since the start of the year and was selling at 11 times projected year-ahead earnings. The shares looked cheap. Unfortunately, they got much cheaper, falling to as low as $43.50 after Nu Skin reported disappointing second-quarter results. The stock closed at $48 on August 7.
Nu Skin, based in Provo, Utah, uses multilevel marketing to move its products. Like Herbalife (HLF), which uses a nearly identical business model, Nu Skin has suffered through and survived numerous investigations into its sales practices.