Banks and oil stocks have taken a bashing both in the newspapers and the stock market in recent months. Investors may think they would do well to steer clear of both – why touch these sin stocks while sentiment is so low? But value investors know different. These contrarian stock pickers look for companies who are out of favour, picking them up on the cheap in the hope to make a profit when the stocks revert to their estimated fair value.
Morningstar stock analysts examine the assets of a company, the board that runs it and market conditions in order to calculate what they believe a company’s true value is. This is then displayed as a share price called the Fair Value Estimate. Companies are then assigned a star rating based on whether their current share price is greater or less than the analysts’ Fair Value Estimate.
A stock with one star is trading significantly over their fair value, and a stock with five stars could be described as significantly undervalued.
These three UK listed companies are currently trading at less than their fair value – thanks to various headwinds including a depressed oil price.
Tullow Oil (TLW)
London-based Tullow Oil is an independent oil and gas producer that targets oil in underexplored areas of the world. The company focuses largely on Africa; its key assets/acreages are in Ghana, Kenya, and Uganda. Beyond Africa, the company is also actively exploring in South America and the Norwegian portion of the North and Barents seas. This week it dropped out of the FTSE 100 index.
HSBC (HSBA)
London-based HSBC has about 6,600 offices in 80 countries and is among the largest banks in the world. It operates in Europe, Hong Kong, other Asia Pacific, the Middle East, North America, and Latin America. HSBC's commercial banking division accounted for slightly more than 37% of underlying pre-tax income in 2013. Global banking and markets and retail banking and wealth management accounted for 42% and 29%, respectively. In recent weeks the bank has been plagued by accusations of assisting UK citizens with tax evasion via its Swiss business.
REXAM (REX)
Rexam produces about 60 billion beverage cans each year and is the largest beverage-can manufacturer in Europe and Brazil. It also holds a 20%-plus market share in North America. Its focus will increasingly be on higher-margin specialty-can production in select markets and expanding its presence in India and the Middle East. We expect the company to be acquired by Ball in the first half of 2016 following regulatory review.