Buy This Sub-$5 Now or Regret it Later

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- I loathe low-priced stocks. Why? Because I learned the hard way . . . repeatedly. And I'm still learning.

I pointed out a common theme in my own investing the other day in a review of lessons every investor should learn: By and large, low-priced stocks comprise my losing positions.

One of my three remaining low-priced holdings is Zynga (ZNGA).

Given the stock's hideous performance since going public, you really cannot call ZNGA anything but highly speculative. That said, it has quite a bit more going for it than other proverbial lottery tickets.

ZNGA data by YCharts

Zynga Has Mark Pincus

Like it or not, CEOs such as Pincus and companies that approach their spaces like Zynga represent the future.

Look and listen to the cerebral Pincus and you wouldn't guess that he's 46 years of age. Not that that's necessarily old; it's not. However, soon, we will consider a CEO over 50 at a tech, Internet/new media or retail company old. Guys like Pincus pull a Bob Costas; they defy aging. They'll be as sharp at 60 or 70 as they were when they founded the company or took the CEO gig.

If it wasn't for that evil (expletive ending in 'ing') disease called cancer, former Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs would illustrate this phenomenon perfectly.

Yahoo! (YHOO) made history this week, tapping an uninitiated 37-year old named Marissa Mayer as its CEO. If Best Buy (BBY) and Spencer Stuart, the search firm that placed Mayer, has any clue it will anoint 36-year old Stephen Gillett as its top dog.

I don't have to review the Amazon.com (AMZN)/Jeff Bezos way of running a company. The future big dogs of Wall Street, by and large, embrace it. Facebook (FB). Pandora (P). Question their focus on the long-term at the expense of the bottom line today and regret it later.

Like Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook and Bezos at Amazon, Pincus focuses on creating a solid user experience and building out a complete and organic ecosystem. It cannot happen overnight. And it cannot happen without considerable reinvestment in the business.

Zynga: Well-Positioned in Mobile

Pincus said something this week at a conference Fortune puts on every year. Investors should pay close attention:

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