We recently compiled a list of the 10 Worst Performing Affordable Stocks Under $40. In this article, we are going to take a look at where IHS Holding Limited (NYSE:IHS) stands against the other worst performing affordable stocks under $40.

How’s the Market Performing after Fed Rate Cuts are Finally Here

The stock market has been anxiously waiting for the interest rate cut news. Analysts had been debating whether the Federal Reserve would make a 25-point or 50-point cut. The wait was finally over with good news for the market.

On September 18, the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee decided to cut the borrowing rates by the higher end of the expectation, which was 50 basis points. The rate cut indicated that inflation is moderating and that the labor market has weakened. This marked the first rate cut since the COVID-19 pandemic.

The decision was not unanimous as Fed Governor Michelle Bowman wanted a quarter-point cut. Moreover, the chairman Jerome Powell called the cuts to be a “recalibration”. One thing that the committee was confident about is the fact that inflation is moving sustainably towards the 2% mark.

Right after the decision the Dow Jones index jumped 375 points and then eased a little as the market digested the news. In one of our recent articles about 10 Worst Affordable Stocks To Buy Right Now, we talked about how Tom Lee, Fundstrat Global Advisors co-founder was confident that the market will perform positively both moving in and out of the announcement. Here’s an excerpt from the article:

"Tom Lee, Fundstrat Global Advisors co-founder, joined CNBC to talk about how the market is expected to perform moving into the fed rate cuts and after the announcement. Lee believes that one of the factors leading to confusion among investors is the election period. The market is expected to stay in a fluctuating environment for the next eight weeks until the elections are over. However, fed rate cuts are coming at a crucial time to give some positive for the market.

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 hadn’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.

Overall, the market and the economy seem to be heading towards a period of growth. The only foreseeable headwind is if the inflation picks up, however, analysts don’t see any signs of inflation picking up; rather they see all major industries doing well especially now that the rates have been cut.

Our Methodology

To compile the list of the 10 worst performing affordable stocks under $40, we used the Finviz stock screener. We first defined criteria to ensure we only got the worst performing affordable stocks. We selected stocks trading below the market average Forward P/E (i.e. 23.79 as per Wall Street Journal), with earnings expected to grow this year, average analyst median price target upside potential of at least 30%, and a year-to-date decline of at least 30%. Moreover, we also ensured that these stocks were trading below $40 and were widely held by institutional investors.

Once the criteria were defined, we then selected 10 stocks that fit our criteria and ranked them in ascending order of the Year-to-Date decline. Please note that all the indicators used to rank the list were recorded on September 18.

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).

20 Largest Telecom Companies in The World by Revenue

IHS Holding Limited (NYSE:IHS)

Share Price: $3.08

Analyst Upside Potential: 127.27%

Forward P/E Ratio: 5.08

Earnings Growth This Year: 18.50%

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 8

Year-to-Date Decline: 30.32%

IHS Holding Limited (NYSE:IHS) is a United Kingdom-based company that focuses on building and managing networking towers. As of June 2024, the company operated more than 40,000 towers in 3 continents and is also recognized as the 3rd largest independent multinational tower company by tower count.

Services provided by IHS Holding Limited (NYSE:IHS) include colocation, fiber connectivity, and small-cell connectivity. It is a critical player in providing mobile connectivity in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East.

The company has secured long-term partnerships with key players in its operational regions to ensure ongoing progress. It recently announced the renewal and extension of the partnership with MTN in Nigeria and across other African countries. As a result, the company has secured more than $12.3 billion in contracted revenue.

IHS Holding Limited (NYSE:IHS) has faced some headwinds from the overall macro environment, especially from the devaluation of Nigerian Naira which resulted in the revenue for the second quarter declining by 20% year-over-year. It is also one of the worst performing affordable stocks under $40 and has witnessed a 30.32% drop in share price on a year-to-date basis.

But that’s not it, while the revenue for the second quarter declined year-over-year it was still above analyst expectations by a margin of $428.4 million. IHS Holding Limited (NYSE:IHS) is now focused on value creation and operational efficiency. The CEO, Sam Darwish mentioned that group-wide they added 385 tenants, 1566 lease amendments, and built 207 new towers during the quarter. This resulted in overall growth of $111 million up 20.3% year-over-year.

Moreover, the company has been growing its towers, tenants, and lease agreements at a healthy compound annual growth rate of over 10% during the past 5 years. Wall Street is also bullish on the stock, 8 analysts have a strong Buy rating on the stock, with their 12-month median price target suggesting a 127.27% upside from the current level.

Overall IHS ranks 10th on our list of the worst performing affordable stocks under $40. While we acknowledge the potential of IHS 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.