We recently compiled a list of the 10 Worst Affordable Stocks Under $10. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Sasol Limited (NYSE:SSL) stands against the other worst affordable stocks to buy under $10.

Can the Interest Rates Rise in the Long Run, Despite the Fed Cut?

Wall Street and the market are celebrating the Fed rate cut from last week. However, the shadows of uncertainty are still hovering over, especially with the upcoming elections. Fundstrat Global Advisors’ Co-Founder Tom Lee and Professor Jeremy Siegel are optimistic about the market going into a period of growth at least until the elections.

We recently discussed this point of view about how the market is expected to grow with the interest rates coming down. You can take a look at 10 Worst Performing Affordable Stocks Under $40, to read more about it. Here’s an excerpt from the article:

“Jeremy Siegel, professor emeritus of finance at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and Wisdom Tree chief economist, recently appeared on CNBC and expressed that he was pleasantly surprised by the Federal Reserve’s decision to make a 50 basis point cut. While talking about how the market is going to perform after the announcement, Professor Siegel said the market is going to be at an all-time high and there are not going to be any fluctuations as we have seen in the past few days.

The word “recalibration” holds significance here, the market has been 100% towards the target unemployment around 80% to 90% towards the inflation target and the Fed hasn’t moved the interest rate. Professor Siegel pointed out that the gap has been growing between the Fed Funds and the market conditions and they were thinking about a single cut by year-end until June. However, the latest announcement mentioned the Fed will cut rates at each meeting making a total of 6 cuts until June of next year. This will bring the Fed Funds rate down 200 basis points to 3.3%, which is where the professor thinks it should be.”

It is true that interest rate cuts help both growth and value stocks, but which ones are doing better? The current market trend shows the interest rate cut expectation and the announcement supported growth stocks more than the value stocks and also resulted in small caps becoming new favorites.

Talking about value stocks and how the market could be entering into a slower growth period, Vahan Janjigian, Chief Investment Officer at Greenwich Wealth Management, and Margaret Patel, Senior Portfolio Manager for multi-asset solutions at Allspring Global Investments discussed this in a recent CNBC interview. Janjigian expressed his cautiousness regarding the market even after the Fed cut rates. He believes that interest rates will go up in the long term. It is because the market is eventually going to get a more normalized yield curve, which he believes is good for the economy. If the yield curve continues to follow the upward trajectory, it will favor value stocks more than growth stocks.

Stated that the market moves in the direction Janjigian expects, we can see a sell-off for the stocks that are currently moving higher, including the tech and growth stocks. Moreover, he also pointed towards some of the biggest investment risks. He mentioned that the rising deficit, debt, and cost of servicing the debt are some of the biggest threats. Debt is also one of the reasons interest rates could potentially go up in the future, as the debt grows it can potentially push the market-determined interest rate higher.

It is important to note that Janjigian’s strategy is somewhat hedged, meaning he has stakes in both large and small-cap stocks, indicating that any market outcome will eventually benefit his portfolio.

Adding to this Patel is thinking along the same lines as well. She also believes that the upcoming quarter could be slower, mainly due to the delay by the Fed in lowering the rates. Patel expects the economy will continue to grow but at a slower rate of merely 1% to 1.5%. Talking about her popular stock picks, she prefers companies with sustainability and earnings levels above the market average.

Our Methodology

We used the Finviz stock screener to get a list of stocks under $10 that are trading at a discount to the market average (forward P/E is 23 according to data from WSJ) with earnings expected to grow this year. Using this criteria, we shortlisted 20 stocks and then selected 10 stocks that were most widely held by hedge funds. We ranked the stocks in descending order of the number of hedge funds that have stakes in them, as of Q2 2024. Please note that all data was recorded on September 22, 2024.

Why do we care about what hedge funds do? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).

Sasol Limited (NYSE:SSL)

Share Price: $6.85

Forward P/E Ratio: 2.86 

Earnings Growth This Year: 174.40% 

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 11

Sasol Limited (NYSE:SSL) is an international producer of chemicals and energy. The company has two main divisions Energy and Chemical, with Energy dealing in mining, gas, and fuel production. Whereas the Chemical division deals in manufacturing advanced materials, base chemicals, and other performance solutions. The company uses the proprietary Fischer-Tropsch technology to manufacture fuel from natural gas and coal. It is also one of the largest chemical and oil producers in the South African region.

Sasol Limited (NYSE:SSL) is valued cheaply, with a forward P/E at 2.86, around 82.80% discount to its sector. However, the company has faced macroeconomic challenges, with year-over-year turnover and margins going down 5% and 1% respectively. Moreover, earnings across all its major operations including mining, gas, fuel, and chemicals also took a hit and were down on a year-over-year basis. It is one of the worst affordable stocks under $10 with only 11 institutional investors having stakes in the company.

However, there is some silver lining for Sasol Limited (NYSE:SSL). While the market condition has been tough the company was still able to pull off a few positive highlights from its fiscal 2024 fourth-quarter results. Its productivity and sales volumes were up when compared to last year, with Mozambique gas production improving the most by 6%.

Moreover, management was able to reduce its capital expenditure by 2$ during the year, while improving the free cash flow generated during the second half of the year. Although the free cash flow was considerably down when analyzed every year. However, cash flow generation during the second half of FY24 was almost 100% more than the first half indicating a strong comeback.

White Falcon Capital Management made the following comment about Sasol Limited (NYSE:SSL) in its second quarter 2023 investor letter:

“Precious Metals Royalty basket (WPM, Sasol Limited (NYSE:SSL), TFPM): In the current macroeconomic environment, there are many ways to ‘win’ with gold. It is remarkable that even with record positive real yields, gold is flirting with all time highs. Why? Western central banks are increasing interest rates which means that they will have to pay more interest on the record levels of debt that their government’s owe. Where will the money come from to pay the higher interest expense? The answer is simple – more debt and more money printing! We believe the gold knows this! We believe that precious metals will protect real purchasing power and act as a hedge to the portfolio when macroeconomic uncertainty arises. Owning royalty companies at reasonable valuations gives us a high quality exposure to precious metals without project or cost inflation risks inherent in a mining company.”

Overall SSL ranks 2nd on our list of the worst affordable stocks under $10. While we acknowledge the potential of SSL as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for a promising AI stock that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.