Top 5 Cheap Companies To Watch In Right Now

Gold is on the rise. The commodity has seen a dramatic surge over the past two months since hitting bottom in late June.

Investing in the metal itself or in a fund like SPDR Gold Trust Shares (NYSE: GLD) are both great ways to play this trend.

But considering the historic lows that we've seen in gold producers, even bigger gains could be made by investing in gold miners.

One of the easiest ways to do this is through the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (NYSE: GDX).

Right now, GDX is the cheapest it's been since 2008.

David Einhorn, the billionaire fund manager, is one of the biggest GDX shareholders. His hedge fund Greenlight Capital currently owns 8.8 million shares, making him the fund's fifth-largest institutional shareholder.  

Top 5 Cheap Companies To Watch In Right Now: Oracle Corporation(ORCL)

Oracle Corporation, an enterprise software company, develops, manufactures, markets, distributes, and services database and middleware software, applications software, and hardware systems worldwide. It licenses of database and middleware software, including database management software, application server software, service-oriented architecture and business process management software, data integration software, business intelligence software, identity and access management software, content management software, portals and user interaction software, development tools, and Java; and applications software comprising enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, enterprise performance management, supply chain management, business intelligence applications, enterprise portfolio project management, Web commerce, and industry-specific applications software. The company also offers customers with rights to unspecified software product upgrades and maintenance releases; Internet access to technical content; and Internet and telephone access to technical support personnel. In addition, its hardware systems products consist of computer server and hardware-related software, including the Oracle Solaris Operating System; and storage products, such as tape, disk and networking solutions for open systems and mainframe server environments. Its hardware systems support solutions include software updates for the software components. Further, the company offers consulting solutions in business and IT strategy alignment, enterprise architecture planning and design, initial product implementation and integration, and ongoing product enhancements and upgrades; cloud services, including Oracle Cloud Services and Advanced Customer Services; and education solutions comprising instructor-led, media-based, and Internet-based training in the use of its software and hardware products. The company was founded in 1977 and is headquartered in Redwood Ci ty, California.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Monica Wolfe]

  Oracle Corporation (ORCL)

  As of the close of the second quarter there were 39 guru owners of Oracle. During the past quarter there were 29 gurus buying shares of ORCL and there were 10 gurus making sells of their stake in the company. These gurus maintain a combined weighting of 76.74%.

• [By Douglas A. McIntyre]

  Logically, the first place Gates & Co. would look is at other big tech companies. Unfortunately, almost all the other chief executives are tied to Microsoft’s failures, or are founders of their own companies. So, leave out the CEOs of Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC), Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ)�and Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL), as if the heads of HP and Dell were not already dealing with their own problems. Other successful tech companies might include Oracle Corp.’s (NASDAQ: ORCL)�CEO and founder Larry Ellison, who is nearly as wealthy as Gates, or Marc Benioff, the founder and CEO of Salesforce.com Inc. (NYSE: CRM). Neither would ever abandon their successes for the uncertainty of Microsoft.

• [By Matt Thalman]

  Shares of IBM (NYSE: IBM  ) are down 1.3% today, perhaps because of the disappointing fourth-quarter results Oracle (NYSE: ORCL  ) posted yesterday. This is especially troubling because, as my colleague Alex Dumortier noted earlier today, the fourth quarter is historically Oracle's best in terms of sales. Investors may be concerned that this slowdown for Oracle will prove a trend for the� whole IT sector, includes Big Blue. Investors have been concerned about IBM growth prospects moving forward. The stock has struggled in 2013, rising only 1.85% year to date to make it the fourth-worst-performing Dow component of the year.

Top 5 Cheap Companies To Watch In Right Now: International Business Machines Corporation(IBM)

International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) provides information technology (IT) products and services worldwide. Its Global Technology Services segment provides IT infrastructure and business process services, including strategic outsourcing, process, integrated technology, and maintenance services, as well as technology-based support services. The company?s Global Business Services segment offers consulting and systems integration, and application management services. Its Software segment offers middleware and operating systems software, such as WebSphere software to integrate and manage business processes; information management software for database and enterprise content management, information integration, data warehousing, business analytics and intelligence, performance management, and predictive analytics; Tivoli software for identity management, data security, storage management, and datacenter automation; Lotus software for collaboration, messaging, and so cial networking; rational software to support software development for IT and embedded systems; business intelligence software, which provides querying and forecasting tools; SPSS predictive analytics software to predict outcomes and act on that insight; and operating systems software. Its Systems and Technology segment provides computing and storage solutions, including servers, disk and tape storage systems and software, point-of-sale retail systems, and microelectronics. The company?s Global Financing segment provides lease and loan financing to end users and internal clients; commercial financing to dealers and remarketers of IT products; and remanufacturing and remarketing services. It serves financial services, public, industrial, distribution, communications, and general business sectors. The company was formerly known as Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co. and changed its name to International Business Machines Corporation in 1924. IBM was founded in 1910 and is based in Armonk, New York.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Mani]

  International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) is making the right kind of investments to position itself to win across key growth drivers including cloud, mobile, analytics and big data. All these mega-themes are expected to evolve in the next 3-5 years.

• [By Tim Brugger]

  International Business Machines (NYSE: IBM  ) and Italy-based commercial bank UniCredit have entered into a "multi-billion dollar, 10-year agreement," in which IBM will provide UniCredit with cloud-based infrastructure support throughout Europe, IBM announced today. Financial specifics of the long-term agreement were not disclosed.

• [By Benjamin Shepherd] The US health care industry is among the heaviest regulated in the nation. Most health care-related companies must answer to federal, state and, in many cases, local regulators.
  
  That regulatory burden will only grow more complex, as myriad new rules under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare,” come into effect over the next few months. In just 22 days, the first insurance exchanges are supposed to come online. On January 1, the individual mandate and changes in coverage standards become effective.
  
  Many health care businesses and organizations were dragging their feet in complying with Obamacare’s provisions, waiting to see how the Supreme Court would come down on the law. The court didn’t rule on Obamacare until June 2012, a decision in which it upheld the law almost in its entirety.
  
  Given that delayed decision, a study conducted by the Government Accountability Office this past June found that only 44 percent of key activities required for full compliance had been completed, particularly where health insurance exchanges were concerned.
  
  As a result, there’s a massive scramble underway to achieve minimum compliance levels with the law. But there’s a paucity of workers with the requisite knowledge of federal and insurance regulations required to help companies and state governments navigate the labyrinth of regulations.
  
  That’s creating a lot of work for consultancies such as Huron Consulting Group (NSDQ: HURN), which focuses almost exclusively on the health care sector.
  
  While the company also works in the legal, financial, education and life sciences arenas, it primarily helps hospitals, health systems and physician groups reduce costs, maximize reimbursements from both federal and private insurers and transition towards the value-based care mandated under Obamacare. In future years, reimbursements will transition towards rewarding health care organizations tha

Top 10 Insurance Stocks To Invest In Right Now: Ur Energy Inc(URG)

Ur-Energy Inc., an exploration stage junior mining company, engages in the identification, acquisition, evaluation, exploration, and development of uranium mineral properties. The company has 13 projects located in Wyoming and Nebraska, the United States; and 3 exploration projects located in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, Canada. Its landholdings cover approximately 90,000 acres in the United States and approximately 140,000 acres in Canada. The company was founded in 2004 and is headquartered in Littleton, Colorado.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By The Energy Report]

  JH: There are several companies that are in production that we follow in the U.S., such as Cameco Corp. (CCJ). Cameco produces at the Smith Ranch-Highland in the Powder River Basin. There's Uranium One, also in the Powder River Basin. There's Uranium Energy Corp. (UEC). A few near-term producers are rapidly coming online. Ur-Energy Inc. (URG) is one company we like in Wyoming.

Top 5 Cheap Companies To Watch In Right Now: S&P Smallcap 600(PH)

Parker Hannifin Corporation manufactures fluid power systems, electromechanical controls, and related components worldwide. Its Industrial segment offers pneumatic and electromechanical components, and systems; filters, systems, and instruments to monitor and remove contaminants from fuel, air, oil, water, and other liquids and gases; connectors that control, transmit, and contain fluid; hydraulic components and systems for builders and users of industrial and mobile machinery and equipment; critical flow components for process instrumentation, healthcare, and ultra-high-purity applications; and static and dynamic sealing devices. This segment sells its products to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and their replacement markets in the manufacturing, transportation, and processing industries. The company?s Aerospace segment provides flight control systems and components, including hydraulic, electrohydraulic, electric backup hydraulic, electrohydrostatic, and electro -mechanical components for precise control of aircraft rudders, elevators, ailerons, and other aerodynamic control surfaces. It also provides electronics thermal management heat rejection systems, and single-phase and two-phase heat collection systems for radar, ISAR, and power electronics. This segment markets its products primarily to OEMs in the commercial, military, and general aviation markets, as well as to end users. Its Climate and Industrial Controls segment offers systems and components primarily for use in the mobile and stationary refrigeration, and air conditioning industry; and in fluid control applications in various industries, such as processing, fuel dispensing, beverage dispensing, and mobile emissions. This segment serves OEMs and their replacement markets. Parker-Hannifin Corporation markets its products through direct-sales employees, independent distributors, wholesalers, and sales representatives. The company was founded in 1918 and is headquartered i n Cleveland, Ohio.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Mani]

  Parker-Hannifin Corporation (NYSE:PH) has significant opportunities to expand its operating margins, especially within the Aerospace segment where significant longer term business has already been won, and aftermarket opportunities should increase.

• [By Charles Mizrahi, President and CEO, Hampton Investors, Inc.]

  Parker Hannifin (PH) generates strong revenue from its aerospace division, while its primary industrial segment is lagging.

  Overall, we like the company's balanced portfolio. PH had solid order rates this past year with backlog of $3.6 billion between its industrial and aerospace segments.

Top 5 Cheap Companies To Watch In Right Now: Capstone Turbine Corporation(CPST)

Capstone Turbine Corporation develops, manufactures, markets, and services turbine generator sets and related parts for use in stationary distributed power generation applications. Its stationary distributed power generation applications include cogeneration combined heat and power (CHP), integrated (CHP), resource recovery, and secure power, as well as combined cooling, heat, and power; and its products are used as battery charging generators for hybrid electric vehicle applications. The company primarily offers microturbine units, subassemblies, and components. It also provides various accessories, including rotary gas compressors with digital controls, heat recovery modules for CHP applications, dual mode controllers that allow automatic transition between grid connect and stand-alone modes, batteries with digital controls for stand-alone/dual-mode operations, power servers for multipacked installations, and protocol converters for Internet access, as well as frames, ex haust ducting, and installation hardware. Further, it remanufactures microturbine engines; and provides after-market parts and services, scheduled and unscheduled maintenance, and factory and on-site training services. The company?s microturbines can be fueled by various sources, including natural gas, propane, sour gas, landfill or digester gas, kerosene, diesel, and biodiesel. It primarily sells its products directly to end users, as well as through distributors in North America, Asia, Australia, Europe, the Russian Federation, and South America. Capstone Turbine Corporation was founded in 1988 and is based in Chatsworth, California.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Tyler Crowe]

  But to focus simply on renewables for distributed power would do some other parts of the industry a disservice, because companies such as Capstone Turbine (NASDAQ: CPST  ) are proving that localized generation of natural gas can be just as efficient as a big centralized utility plant. This one-two punch of renewable power as the primary energy source with localized natural gas generation as a backup for when solar or wind can't generate power could be a big threat to the utilities sector.