STOCKS TELEGRAPH

Author: Zoha Fatim

  • Best Cryptocurrencies to Watch in 2021

    Best Cryptocurrencies to Watch in 2021

    With the pandemic starting in 2020, cryptocurrency stocks have seen a new interest as the world has started to see a larger appeal in digital currency and Bitcoin has been at the forefront of everyone’s mind. With the start of the new year, cryptocurrency stocks have gained a lot more traction and reached past the $20,000 and $40,000 marks in a short amount of time. Earlier, an investment of $1.5 billion was made by Tesla into Bitcoin, which once again gave it the boost it needed with it breaking its $50,000 high mark. Some of the best cryptocurrency stocks expected to keep rising this year are:

    Bitcoin (BTC)

    It’s hard to talk about cryptocurrency without mentioning the cryptocurrency giant Bitcoin which has been dominating the market since the start of 2009. BTC suffered in 2018 but it proved itself strong to recover and surge higher than $40,000 in the start of this year with a market cap larger than $1 trillion. Bitcoin also has the edge with being the biggest known name in the world of cryptocurrency which makes it attractive to new buyers. Bitcoin has also been the inspiration for Bitcoin creators to introduce new features like Bitcoin Cash.

    Stellar Lumens (XLM)

    Like Bitcoin, Stellar (XLM) has also made a big comeback this year after its previous struggles and has come through with new and interesting projects such as its most recent $5 million investment in Wyre, a dominant blockchain payment provider which let Stellar access to new currency pairs. XLM has even been preferred as the blockchain for Ukraine’s central bank. With the way Stellar has been dealing with savings and compliance accounts such as Wyre, it has seen 260 per cent more growth of its users and this could lead to it becoming a new Pay Pal company.

    Chainlink (LINK)

    Chainlink is an Ethereum platform which works between two parties engaging in a blockchain network and records the transaction into data blacks. While a lot of other platforms working these transactions need to use real data to execute smart contracts, Chainlink has come up with the innovative solution of using oracles to revive the needed data for the network while ensuring that the data stays safe for the smart contracts. With the confidence the platform has been gaining, it is become a top choice for cryptocurrency and decentralized finance is also contributing to this.

  • Look Out for these Fintech Stocks in 2021

    Look Out for these Fintech Stocks in 2021

    Fintech stocks are a broad category of stocks consist of stocks which are part technology and part finance. Fintech stock companies are largely companies which are applying newer technology models to their financial business models and offer a large potential for investment. Some of the services offered by companies under the fintech model are services such as online banking or mobile banking, financial software and services, payment processing, and person to person payments. With the pandemic, the growth and use of fintech companies has increased with the use of e-commerce and digital payments with the fintech group rising to 98th place out of 197 industry groups, according to IBD.

    Square Inc (NYSE: SQ)

    Since the last few years, Square Inc (SQ)‎ has evolved itself into a large-scale small business and separate financial network which has been processing card payments at an annualized mark of more than $100 billion. Square has been gaining major traction with bigger trading companies along with keeping its initial smaller based business clients and has been blooming as a small commercial loaning platform.

    Square has also been expanding its services with its Cash App which allows its more than 300 million active users, which generate more than $2 billion in revenue, to enjoy features such free trading, depositing through mobile phones, and using services such as those integrated with Credit Karma. And it also presents as a better option than Paypal because it has proven itself more open to trying new options as it started on cryptocurrencies in 2018 and have been profiting largely from it. The fintech stock has also bought 4,709 bitcoins at the price of $50 million, proving that it sees crypto currency as the future investment and economy.

    Green Dot Corporation (NYSE: GDOT)

    One of the oldest fintech companies is Green Dot Corporation (GDOT) ‎which is largely known for being the first to bring the prepaid debit card more than twenty years ago. Even now Green Dot is the biggest pre-paid debit card company in the world by its market capitalization. Some of its clients include Walmart, Google, and Uber. Ever since Green Dot sold off in March, its stock has grown more than 220 per cent.

    Green Dot also launched a new mobile bank to deal with the problems of those Americans which are struggling to find proper employment. The company has also been invested in providing economic solutions for the struggling class by using the rich industry. The company’s banking-as-a-service platform is in its early days and has a lot of potential as it is used by companies such as Apple and Uber. Green Dot presents as an innovative solution for companies by letting them use its banking infrastructure to fund their own projects and products.

    Paypal Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: PYPL)

    Paypal Holdings Inc (PYPL)‎ is a fintech global giant which has more than 300 million customers in more than 200 markets which use its platform all over the world. The company’s stocks hit a high of $244.01 a share recently and its share prices have increased more than twice year to date. It also seems more attractive in the market currently because it has announced that those American which will receive their first stimulus check through PayPal or even Venmo will have the benefit of automatically receiving their payments through Direct Deposit the next time which will allow the customers to receive their checks remotely.

    This presents as a huge attraction to investors and PayPal has proven itself as a reliable company to be depended upon during the pandemic. PayPal has repeatedly proven its performance and has even ranked $5.4 billion in total revenue. PayPal has also been invested in the pandemic high and has also been invested in cryptocurrency through Bitcoin. Since March it has gained more than 230 per cent.

  • Oil and Gas Stocks to Look Into

    The oil and gas industry consists of different companies which are involved in the exploration, transportation, extraction, and refining, of gas and oil products. These companies also include other services such as well maintenance and drilling. The past couple of years have been hard on the energy sector and the pandemic has only served to make the situation worse. Small companies have suffered more than the bigger companies and are deeply shale indebted. But the past few months have been an exercise in the companies trying to recover.

    Renewable Energy Group Inc (NASDAQ: REGI)

    Renewable Energy Group (REGI) ‎company is a biodiesel production company which creates biodiesel and renewable diesel with the help of it 13 bio refineries and a processing facility. It uses biomass feed stocks for manufacturing renewable diesel and biodiesel, such as cooking oils, animal fats, and distilled corn oil. The stock has seen a profitable time during the pandemic with its stocks having gone 100 per cent up in the last six months and a total of 215 per cent up over the previous year due to its consistent performance even since the outbreak of the virus.

    According to the recent earnings call, the small-cap company sold 176 million gallons of renewable diesel and biodiesel in the recent quarter with a revenue of $576.05 million, which was $21.5 million higher than the estimated consensus by Wall Street.

    Phillips 66 (NYSE: PSX)

    Phillips 66 (PSX)‎ is one of the lowest cost producers in the oil and gas industry and this is due to its large-scale operations. It is amongst the top refining companies and it has operations in both Europe and the United States. Its talents lie in manufacturing specialty goods such as lubricants and business distribution of refined products. It also has significant stakes in two of the limited master partnerships, DCP Midstream and Phillips 66 Partners, and also in chemicals through its joint venture with Chevron on CPChem.

    While the year has been difficult for Phillips 66 with the demand for refined products lowering this year affecting its performance, Phillips 66 still remains an attractive stock to invest in asit has a reduced share price right now and the 7.7 per cent dividend yield this year. And with the world reopening next year, the stock prices are expected to improve as the demand for refined products will be higher. Phillips 66’s financial profile has also been strong with its investment grade balance sheet and financially flexible situation.

    Apache Corporation (NASDAQ: APA)

    Apache Corporation (APA)‎ is a Houston based company which is a major player in the Permian Basin with its high technology and impressive discoveries. Most recently, Apache Corp discovered the Kwaskwasi-1 well which contains 912 feet of net oil and unstable oil/gas condensate pay. This year, Apache Corp was one of the first companies to initiate deep spending cuts after the crash of oil prices in March and it lowered its 2020 capex from $1.6-$1.9 billion to $1-$1.2 billion and also managed to lower its dividend by 90 per cent, from $0.25 per share to $0.025 per share.

    The company also stated that it would utilize excess cash to pay down its debt and also keep a positive cash flow as until the WTI prices continued to stay more than $30 per barrel. This appears to satisfy its investors as the shares of Apache Corp went up by almost 70 per cent in the last month.

  • Shipping Stocks Worth Looking Into

    Shipping Stocks Worth Looking Into

    The shipping industry consists of companies which transport cargo all over the world, including anything and everything. These companies transport commodities through any means of transport, whether by land, air, or sea, regardless of what the word ‘shipping’ implies. But many of the shipping companies within the industry have been heavily impacted by the pandemic and have underperformed. While the stocks in the shipping industry have suffered this year, they are expected to improve next year with the situation of the virus coming to an end. Some of the shipping stocks worth considering right now are:

    Nordic American Tanker Ltd (NYSE: NAT)

    Nordic American Tankers Ltd., is a Norwegian shipping company which owns as well as charters oil tankers for the purpose of transportation services worldwide. The company also announced two new building contracts with Samsun Heavy Industries this year in which financing has been secured for the promised delivers of two suezmaxes by 2022.

    In the third quarter of this year, Nordic American reported performance by the Time Charter Equivalent (TCE) was $25,000. In terms of revenue, Nordic American also showed the strongest average daily performance per vessel in many years. The company also paid $60 million, 41 per cent, in dividends this year.

    International Seaways Inc (NYSE: INSW)

    International Seaways Inc., owns and also operates ocean travelling shipping vessels and it primarily deals in transporting crude oil and other petroleum products for its customers worldwide. In the second quarter for this year, the net income for International Seaways was $64.4 million which is a big improvement over last year’s second quarter’s net losses of $16.5 million.

    In the third quarter for this year, the net income for International Seaways was $14 million and reflects the impact of a $12.8 million impairment charge. TCE’s revenues for the third quarter were $94 million and it has also paid a regular quarterly cash dividend of $0.06 per share and announced it the same as payable in December as well.

    Matson Inc (NYSE: MATX)

    Matson Inc., is a United States owned logistics and transportation company which provides its services all though North America, South Pacific, Japan, and China. Matson also offers domestic and international intermodal rail service for both regional highway service and also for long hauls. It is also a supplier for third party logistics and supply chain offerings.

    For the third quarter this year, Matson reported a net income of $70.9 million which included it at $1.63 per diluted share. Matson’s consolidated revenue for the nine months until September of this year was at $1,683.2 million which is higher than that of the previous year.

    A.P. Moller – Maersk

    A.P. Moller – Maersk is an integrated logistics and transports bases company in Denmark which operated tankers, oil drilling rigs, container vessels, and supply ships. It operates in more than 130 countries with more than 76, 000 employees. Other than that, Maersk also explores the world for oil and gas sites and produces it as well.

    For the third quarter of this year, Maersk reported an 82.1 per cent year over year increase in profit from its continuing operations and this was largely the result of its rising land based logistics revenue which led to it having a stronger recovery in the market.