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5 Top New Value Stock Calls From Jefferies

You can feel it every day, this market is getting tired. While the global macro picture has gotten better, and earnings have been mostly solid for the quarter, tech misses notwithstanding, the uphill struggle seems evident. This is the perfect time for aggressive growth investors to look to value stocks for a rotation. A new report from Jefferies highlights five top picks for this week.

Value does not mean upside is capped. It means that on a price and valuation basis, the odds may be stacked a little more in your favor. All five of these stocks are rated Buy at Jefferies and have more than a touch of a contrarian play attached to them.

Chevron

This stock is very solid story for investors looking to stay long or enter the energy sector. Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) sports a sizable dividend, and has a solid place in the sector when it comes to natural gas and liquefied natural gas. Some Wall Street analysts estimate the company will have a compound annual growth rate of over 5% for the next five years, and the stock trades at a modest valuation discount to some of its mega-cap peers.

Chevron management is aggressively pursuing cost saving initiatives, and has already completed over 2,200 supplier engagements with 700 more in progress. Cost savings and improving investor sentiment may be a key for the mega-cap integrated as it has struggled mightily over the last year. The Jefferies team concedes that the oil market could be oversupplied for longer than most thought, but they do see crude rallying from here, and they expect more solid improvement after this quarter.

Chevron is a company focused on current major projects, and probably not in the market for a major deal at this time, so cash levels and debt on the books should stay consistent.

Chevron investors are paid a large 4.61% dividend. The Jefferies price target for the stock is $125. The Thomson/First Call consensus target is $110.70. Shares closed Tuesday at $93.90.

ALSO READ: 4 Top Jefferies Growth Stock Picks to Buy Now
Frontier Communications

This is a rural local exchange carrier that the Jefferies team upgrades to a Buy. Frontier Communications Corp. (NASDAQ: FTR) offers broadband, voice, video, wireless Internet data access, data security solutions, bundled offerings, advanced business communications for medium and large businesses, and specialized bundles for residential customers, small businesses and home offices in 28 states. Frontier’s approximately 17,800 employees are based entirely in the United States. Wall Street analysts note that the company has taken broadband share in almost 80% of operating markets last year.

The company got final approval in May for an $8.5 billion acquisition of Verizon’s wireline operations that were providing services to residential, commercial and wholesale customers in California, Florida and Texas. The sectorwide overhang is the $8 billion bond deal the company has to complete to fund the purchase. In anticipation, bond investors have widened out the bond at Frontier and across the sector, which has in turn pressured the stocks.

The Verizon assets should be accretive and help the company grow free cash flow, and they could help them begin to grow the dividend again.

Frontier investors a paid a massive 8.38% dividend. The Jefferies price target is $6 and the consensus target is $6.70. Shares closed on Tuesday at $4.87.

Intel

This top chip company has been in the doghouse on Wall Street all year, and the recent very positive earnings report has certainly helped to lift the pall hanging over the company. Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) is regarded as having among the highest shareholder cash returns at approximately 8%, but it has lagged high-growth specialty chip stocks. The iconic chip giant had a stellar 2014 on the tailwind from continued personal computer (PC) sales, but this year has been a far different story. Despite the positive second-quarter earnings report, the stock is down a gigantic 18.4% year to date.

ALSO READ: 4 Top Integrated Device Chip Makers to Buy Now

Intel purchased chip rival Altera for a massive $16.8 billion. Some on Wall Street viewed the deal pessimistically, citing its high cost, aggressive growth assumptions on the part of Intel and the increase in debt. Others feel the addition will help Intel start to move away from PC dependence. The Jefferies team notes that Intel’s pending acquisition of the company would put it into the traditional fabless market of programmable logic devices, but ultimately by 2020 50% of Altera’s product line could be manufactured at Intel facilities.

Intel investors are paid an outstanding 3.34% dividend. The Jefferies price target is $36. The consensus target is posted at $33.87. Shares closed Monday at $28.72.

Rio Tinto

This is a combined value and contrarian play for investors to consider. Rio Tinto PLC (NYSE: RIO) is involved in the mining and production of aluminum products, including bauxite, alumina and aluminum; copper, gold, silver and molybdenum; diamonds, borates, salt and titanium dioxide feed-stocks, as well as high purity iron, metal powders, zircon and rutile; thermal and coking coal and uranium; and iron ore. The stock has been extremely weak over the past two years due to falling iron ore prices, but at current levels the Jefferies team sees a value case.

In fact, the Jefferies analysts believe that while iron ore demand may remain a problem, they expect a restocking driven demand recovery in China, and believe that their current demand estimates are ahead of the Wall Street estimates. The stock remains a top pick because of the company’s low-cost operations, strong free-cash-flow and what they believe is a fully covered and solid dividend.

ALSO READ: 5 Merrill Lynch Stock Picks With Huge Cash Flow

Rio Tinto investors are paid an outstanding 5.23% dividend. The Jefferies price objective for the company is set at $53, and the consensus is at $48.48. The shares closed Tuesday at $39.99.

Steel Dynamics

This company is the top steel pick at Jefferies now. Steel Dynamics Inc. (NASDAQ: STLD) is one of the largest domestic steel producers and metals recyclers in the United States based on estimated annual steelmaking and metals recycling capability, with annual sales of $8.8 billion in 2014, over 7,700 employees and manufacturing facilities primarily located throughout the United States (including six steel mills, eight steel coating facilities, two iron production facilities, over 90 metals recycling locations and six steel fabrication plants).

The company’s $1.65 billion acquisition of Severstal’s Columbus, Miss., facility last fall was a big hit with Wall Street analysts. In fact, many think the acquisition could prove to be accretive on a near- and long-term basis and has added to the company’s already solid revenue base.

Steel Dynamics investors are paid 2.5% dividend. The Jefferies price target is $25, and the consensus is set at $24.15. The stock closed Tuesday at $19.39.

ALSO READ: With Natural Gas Demand Growing, 4 Preferred Stocks to Buy

These are solid value and contrarian plays for investors to consider now. While the thesis could take longer to play out, most of the downside in the stocks is already represented in current pricing. That is not the case with much of the current stock market.

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