10 Best Cheap Stocks To Own For 2014

Updated from 10:23 a.m. EDT with comments from CEO Jamie Dimon's memo to employees

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Two former JPMorgan Chase (JPM) traders have been indicted for allegedly engaging in securities fraud in hiding trading losses from a botched derivative trade last year.

A federal court in Manhattan named Javier Martin-Artajo, who oversaw trading strategy for the synthetic portfolio at the bank's chief investment office in London, and Julien Grout, a trader who worked for him, in the indictment, according to Bloomberg.

The Department of Justice filed criminal charges against the traders in August. The charges included four counts of conspiracy, wire fraud, falsification of records and falsification of filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The indictment unsealed Monday added a fifth charge -- securities fraud -- which carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years. Bruno Iksil, the man behind the infamous "London Whale" trades, has not been charged in return for his cooperation. The Justice Department intends to show that the two traders named in the indictment along with other un-named co-conspirators artificially inflated the value of the securities and hid the true nature of the losses from senior management. Artajo and Grout, who live in Europe, have not surrendered themselves to the U.S. authorities. JPMorgan has not been criminally accused of wrongdoing. The bank, however, is facing multiple regulatory inquiries related to the trading losses. It is expected to shortly announce a settlement with multiple regulators that could exceed $700 million. The SEC may require the bank to admit that it had inadequate controls and failed to adequately supervise the traders. Chief Financial Officer Marianne Lake has said legal losses in the third quarter could top $1.5 billion, in the wake of a crescendo of legal lawsuits filed recently against the bank on a range of alleged violations. In a letter to employees Tuesday, CEO Jamie Dimon warned that there could be more legal woes ahead in the next few weeks but said compliance was the No. 1 priority for the entire bank. "If you don't acknowledge mistakes, you can't fix them and learn from them. So now, as in the past, we are recognizing our problems, rolling up our sleeves and fixing them," he wrote. JPMorgan has added 4,000 people to its control efforts (3,000 in 2013 alone) and has spent $1 billion on compliance efforts. It has increased spending in technology in the regulatory and control space by 27% in 2011. The bank is exiting non-core businesses including student lending and the physical commodities sales and trading businesses. In addition, the bank is also focusing on "building and open and more transparent relationship with regulators," the CEO said. "Never before have we focused so much time, effort, brainpower, technological power and money on a single, enterprise-wide objective. Make no mistake -- we are going to get this right," he wrote. Shares of JPMorgan were down 0.1% at $53.06 Tuesday afternoon. Analysts have remained positive in their outlook for the bank, maintaining that valuations remain cheap despite the litigation risk. RELATED STORIES: JPMorgan to Suffer $4B Compliance Hit in 2013: Report -- Written by Shanthi Bharatwaj New York. >Contact by Email. Follow @shavenk

10 Best Cheap Stocks To Own For 2014: S&P GSCI(GD)

General Dynamics Corporation, an aerospace and defense company, provides business aviation; combat vehicles, weapons systems, and munitions; military and commercial shipbuilding; and communications and information technology products and services worldwide. Its Aerospace group designs, manufactures, and outfits various large and mid-cabin business-jet aircraft; provides maintenance, repair work, fixed-based operations, and aircraft management services; and performs aircraft completions for aircraft. The company?s Combat Systems group offers tracked and wheeled military vehicles, weapons systems, and munitions. Its product lines include wheeled combat and tactical vehicles; battle tanks and infantry vehicles; munitions and propellant; rockets and gun systems; and axle and drivetrain components and aftermarket parts. This group also manufactures and supplies engineered axles, suspensions, and brakes for heavy-load vehicles for military and commercial customers. The company Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Rich Smith]

  The biggest of these contracts, a sizable $179.9 million, one-year award with the potential to swell to $899.5 million if the four "option-year" extensions are exercised, is to be split among 13 separate firms:

  Booz Allen Hamilton (NYSE: BAH  ) CACI (NYSE: CACI  ) Technologies Computer Sciences Corp (NYSE: CSC  ) General Dynamics (NYSE: GD  ) One Source Honeywell (NYSE: HON  ) Technology Solutions Engility Corp. Lockheed Martin Science Applications International Corp. URS Federal Services and four privately held firms.

  Under the awarded indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ), cost-plus-fixed-fee, performance-based umbrella contract, all 13 firms will be able to compete to perform task orders for the U.S. Navy, providing "integrated cyber operations services" to Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Atlantic.

• [By Rich Smith]

  The U.S. Department of Defense awarded multiple contractors shares in some 17 contracts Tuesday, valued at up to $1.3 billion in combined dollar value. Most of the funds awarded went to a series of 13 contractors working on a single cyber-defense project -- but there were a few other winners. Among them:

• [By Charles Mizrahi]

  General Dynamics (GD) offers segment diversification. Although the US government accounts for nearly two-thirds of the company's revenue, it has four operating segments, with no single division accounting for more than a third of total revenue.

10 Best Cheap Stocks To Own For 2014: 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 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 WALLSTCHEATSHEET.COM]

  Oracle has steadily increased revenue and earnings on an annual basis. The stock is trading at 16 times earnings, whereas the industry average is 26 times earnings. The stock is more resilient than most throughout the broader market, margins are high, there is a 0.70 yield, operating cash flow is strong at $13.72 billion, 80 percent of employees approve of CEO Larry Ellison, and analysts love the stock: 27 Buy, 15 Hold, 1 Sell.

• [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 10 Gold Stocks To Watch Right Now: First Busey Corporation(BUSE)

First Busey Corporation operates as the bank holding company for Busey Bank that provides various retail and commercial banking products and services to individual, corporate, institutional, and governmental customers in the United States. It accepts noninterest-bearing demand, interest-bearing transaction, savings, money market, and time deposits. The company?s loan portfolio includes commercial, agricultural, and real estate loans; individual, consumer, installment, first mortgage, and second mortgage loans; and commercial real estate, residential real estate, and consumer loans. It also provides money transfer, safe deposit, fiduciary, automated banking, and automated fund transfer services. In addition, the company provides asset management, brokerage, and fiduciary services, including financial planning, investment management, retirement planning, brokerage, and trust and estate advisory services to individuals; investment management, business succession planning, an d employee retirement plan services to businesses; and investment management, investment strategy consulting, and fiduciary services to foundations. Further, it offers pay processing solutions, such as walk-in payments processing for payments delivered by customers to retail pay agents; online bill payment solutions for payments made by customers on a billing company?s Website; customer service payments for payments accepted over the telephone; direct debit services; electronic concentration of payments delivered by the automated clearing house network; money management software and credit card networks; and lockbox remittance processing of payments delivered by mail. The company has 33 locations in Illinois, 7 locations in southwest Florida, and 1 location in Indianapolis, Indiana. First Busey Corporation was founded in 1868 and is headquartered in Champaign, Illinois.

10 Best Cheap Stocks To Own For 2014: Horace Mann Educators Corporation(HMN)

Horace Mann Educators Corporation, through its subsidiaries, operates as a multiline insurance company in the United States. The company underwrites and markets personal lines of property and casualty insurance, retirement annuity, and life insurance products. Its products include private passenger automobile and homeowner?s insurance coverage; tax-qualified individual and group annuities in fixed account and combination contracts; and individual and joint whole and term life insurance products. The company offers its products primarily to K-12 teachers, school administrators, education support personnel, and other employees of public schools and their families. It markets its products through its sales force, as well as through independent agents. Horace Mann Educators Corporation was founded in 1945 and is based in Springfield, Illinois.

10 Best Cheap Stocks To Own For 2014: Horizon Lines Inc.(HRZ)

Horizon Lines, Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides container shipping and integrated logistics services. It ships a range of consumer and industrial items, such as refrigerated and non-refrigerated foodstuffs, household goods, auto parts, building materials, and other materials used in manufacturing. The company offers container shipping services to ports within the continental United States, Puerto Rico, Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Micronesia. Its integrated logistics services comprise rail, truck brokerage, warehousing, distribution, expedited logistics, and non-vessel operating common carrier operations. Horizon Lines, Inc. also offers terminal services. The company operates terminals in Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico; contracts for terminal services in seven ports in the continental United States; and the ports in Guam, Yantian, and Xiamen, China, as well as Kaohsiung, Taiwan. In addition, it offers inland transportation services. As of Dec ember 20, 2009, the company owned or leased approximately 20 vessels and 18,500 cargo containers. Horizon Lines, Inc. serves consumer and industrial products companies, as well as various agencies of the U.S. government, including the Department of Defense and the U.S. Postal Service. The company was founded in 1956 and is based in Charlotte, North Carolina.

10 Best Cheap Stocks To Own For 2014: Gold Reserve Inc(GRZ)

Gold Reserve Inc., an exploration stage company, engages in the acquisition, exploration, and development of mining projects. The company was founded in 1956 and is based in Spokane, Washington.

10 Best Cheap Stocks To Own For 2014: Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold Inc.(FCX)

Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. engages in the exploration, mining, and production of mineral resources. The company primarily explores for copper, gold, molybdenum, silver, and cobalt. It holds interests in various properties, located in North and South America; the Grasberg minerals district in Indonesia; and the Tenke Fungurume minerals district in the Democratic Republic of Congo. As of December 31, 2010, the company?s consolidated recoverable proven and probable reserves totaled 120.5 billion pounds of copper, 35.5 million ounces of gold, 3.39 billion pounds of molybdenum, 325.0 million ounces of silver, and 0.75 billion pounds of cobalt. The company was founded in 1987 and is headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Rich Duprey]

  It's beginning to look like Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold's (NYSE: FCX  ) acquisition of oil and gas produce Plains Exploration was prescient. The prospects of an extended closure of its huge Grasberg mine means its drilling operations may be what allows it to survive.

• [By Roberto Pedone]

  One integrated mining player that insiders are buying up a huge amount of stock in here is Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold (FCX), which deals in the mining of copper, gold and molybdenum. Insiders are buying this stock into weakness, since shares are off by 17.5% so far in 2013.

  Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold has a market cap of $27.5 billion and an enterprise value of $50.2 billion. This stock trades at a cheap valuation, with a trailing price-to-earnings of 9.95 and a forward price-to-earnings of 8.92. Its estimated growth rate for this year is -23.9%, and for next year it's pegged at 27.8%. This is not a cash-rich company, since the total cash position on its balance sheet is $3.29 billion and its total debt is $21.22 billion. This stock currently sports a dividend yield of 4.3%.

  A director just bought 517,350 shares, or about $14.82 million worth of stock, at $28.64 per share.

  From a technical perspective, FCX is currently trending below both its 50-day and 200-day moving averages, which is bearish. This stock has been downtrending over the last five month, with shares dropping from its high of $33 to its recent low of $26.07 a share. Shares of FCX recently formed a double bottom chart pattern at $26.04 to $26.07 a share. Following that bottom, this stock has trended higher to $30.14 a share, but it just failed to hold above its 50-day at $28.60 a share.

  If you're bullish on FCX, then I would look for long-biased trades as long as this stock is trending above some near-term support levels at $27 to $26 and then once it takes out its 50-day at $28.60 a share with high volume. Look for a sustained move or close above its 50-day with volume that hits near or above its three-month average action of 17.31 million shares. If we get that move soon, then FCX will set up to re-test or possibly take out its next major overhead resistance levels at $30.14 to $32 a share.

• [By David Smith]

  There's enough going on at Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold (NYSE: FCX  ) , the world's biggest publicly traded copper producer, that its management undoubtedly resembles a proverbial cat in a sandbox these days. But the key question regarding the big mining -- and now oil and gas -- company is whether its shares should be bought, sold, or ignored.

• [By Matt DiLallo]

  Gold investors weren't the only ones having a rough year. Other commodities such as silver and copper have been sinking this year as well, sending top stocks such as Silver Wheaton (NYSE: SLW  ) and Freeport McMoRan (NYSE: FCX  ) down by double digits. Again, looking at the chart, you can see a pretty big correlation between falling commodity prices and the subsequent fall in the price of each stock.

10 Best Cheap Stocks To Own For 2014: Majesco Entertainment Company(COOL)

Majesco Entertainment Company develops and markets video game products primarily for family oriented mass-market consumers. The company publishes video games for various interactive entertainment hardware platforms, including Nintendo?s DS, DSi, and Wii; Sony?s PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable; Microsoft?s Xbox 360; and personal computers. It also publishes games for various digital platforms consisting of mobile platforms comprising iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch, as well as online platforms, including Facebook. The company sells its products primarily to retail chains, specialty retail stores, video game rental outlets, and distributors. The company was founded in 1998 and is based in Edison, New Jersey.

10 Best Cheap Stocks To Own For 2014: 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]

  What:�Shares of Capstone Turbine (NASDAQ: CPST  ) skyrocketed 13.59% as the company announced that it had signed a major supplier deal with private real estate and investment firm Related Companies. Shares of Capstone haven't been this high in over a year.

• [By Dan Caplinger]

  Beyond the fundamentals, though, news plays an important role in short-term stock movements. Outside the Dow, microturbine producer Capstone Turbine (NASDAQ: CPST  ) soared 8.8% after receiving its second large order in the past week. After getting word of a purchase from real-estate and investment firm Related Companies on Tuesday, Capstone got an order today from Southern California Gas to buy three of its C65 uninterruptible power-source units for use at the gas company's data center. Given the relatively small size of the business, which sports sales of only about $122 million over the past year, orders like this have a material effect on Capstone and also draw the attention of other prospective buyers.

• [By Selena Maranjian]

  Fisher reduced its stake in lots of companies, including Capstone Turbine (NASDAQ: CPST  ) and Nokia (NYSE: NOK  ) . Capstone is a smallish company, making low-emission microturbines used in power generation. Its top line has been growing by double digits over the past few years, and it's poised to profit from huge interest in shale oil, but it remains in the red. Still, it has recently announced a bunch of promising deals and some think the many folks short the stock will end up burned.

10 Best Cheap Stocks To Own For 2014: Sprott Resource Lending Corp.(SILU)

Sprott Resource Lending Corp., a natural resource lender, provides bridge and mezzanine financing to precious and base metal mining, exploration, and development companies, as well as energy companies worldwide. The company was formerly known as Quest Capital Corp. and changed its name to Sprott Resource Lending Corp. in September 2010. Sprott Resource Lending Corp. was incorporated in 1980 and is based in Toronto, Canada.