Top 10 US Companies To Own For 2015

Top 10 US Companies To Own For 2015: Alon USA Energy Inc. (ALJ)

Alon USA Energy, Inc. engages in refining and marketing petroleum products primarily in the South Central, Southwestern, and Western regions of the United States. The company operates in three segments: Refining and Marketing, Asphalt, and Retail. The Refining and Marketing segment refines crude oil into petroleum products, including gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, petrochemicals, feed stocks, asphalts, and other petroleum products. It markets finished products and blend stocks through sales and exchanges with other oil companies, state and federal governmental entities, unbranded wholesale distributors, and various other third parties. This segment also markets motor fuels to distributors under the Alon brand; and licenses Alon brand name and provides payment card processing services, advertising programs, and loyalty and other marketing programs to licensed locations. The Asphalt segment is involved in the marketing of patented tire rubber modified asphalt products; and production of paving and roofing grades of asphalt comprising performance-graded asphalts, emulsions, and cutbacks. This segment sells paving asphalt to road and materials manufacturers and highway construction/maintenance contractors; polymer modified or emulsion asphalt to highway maintenance contractors; and roofing asphalt to roofing shingle manufacturers or other industrial users. The Retail segment operates retail convenience stores that offer various grades of gasoline, diesel fuel, food products, tobacco products, non-alcoholic and alcoholic beverages, and general merchandise primarily under the 7-Eleven and Alon brands. As of December 31, 2012, it had 298 retail convenience stores located in Central and West Texas, and New Mexico. The company was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Alon USA Energy, Inc. is a subsidiary of Alon Israel Oil Company, Lt! d.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Ben Levisohn]

  Alon USA Energy (ALJ) and Alon USA Partners (ALDW) are surging thanks to a Credit Suisse upgrade, even as refiners like Valero Energy (VLO), Phillips 66 (PSX) and Holly Frontier (HFC) stumble.

  Bloomberg News

  Analyst Edward Westlake and team explain their optimism for the Alon USA pair:

  ALDW: Accounting for the revised commodity forecasts (plus support from
  the self-help programs that the company is pursuing), our LT EBITDA rises by c4% on average. Granted that there is the possibility that ALDW will not be able to pay out a distribution in 4Q13/1Q14, we flag that for those willing to look past the near-term headwinds, the rolling 12 month forward potential yield starting in 2Q14 is 15% (and rises to c20% by 4Q14) – Certainly hard to overlook at these levels.

  ALJ: Accounting for the revised commodity forecasts (plus support from selfhelp
  programs), our LT EBITDA rises by c9% on average. ALJ could be worth up to c$15/sh (including the $2.25/sh expected contribution from the Bakersfield start-up – Delivery of this project is key). At current levels, the stock still provides c20% upside in the scenario where Bakersfield does not proceed (or c40% if it does). We raise our rating and target price to Neutral and $14/sh.

  Alon USA Energy has gained 11% to $11.34 and Alon USA Partners has risen 5.2% to $11.12, even as Valero Energy has dropped 0.5% to $40.12, Phillips 66 has dipped 0.4% to $65.09 and Holly Frontier has fallen 1.1% to $43.71.

• [By Robert Rapier] In last week’s issue I discussed the basics of the refining sector. Today I will provide an overview of four MLPs that hold refining assets.
  
  To review, the refining sector was very profitable in 2012 thanks to unusually high crack spreads, which for many US refiners are approximated by the price differential between Brent and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oils. For a more thorough explanation of th! is phenom! enon, please refer to last week’s issue.
  
  After years of trading at a $1 to $3 per barrel discount to WTI, Brent began fetching a premium a few years ago as a glut of crude developed in the mid-continent area of the US. In 2011 the Brent-WTI price differential increased to more than $25/bbl, and it remained historically high in 2012.
  
  But pipeline capacity started to catch up this year, and the share prices of refiners retreated as the glut began to dissipate and the Brent-WTI differential shrank. In Q3 2012, the Brent-WTI differential a veraged $17.43/bbl, but by Q3 of this year, the differential had fallen to $4.43/bbl. This promises bad news for refiners about to report Q3 earnings.
  
  Many analysts downgraded the refining sector in Q3, but as the differential fell below $5/bbl it was hard to imagine that the news could get much worse. With poor Q3 results largely priced in, the differential subsequently rose back above $10/bbl, signaling better refining margins moving into Q4.
  
  Refiners began to post earnings this past week, and as expected they were weak. Valero (NYSE: VLO) reported slightly higher revenues year-over-year, but net earnings fell more than 50 percent from a year ago. Nevertheless, they beat the extremely pessimistic expectations of analysts, and Valero shares rose on the news.
  
  Phillips 66’s (NYSE: PSX) refining unit actually posted a loss, but its chemical business turned in a solid quarter which more than compensated for the disappointing refining results.
  
  T he rest of the refine

source from Top Stocks For 2015:http://www.topstocksblog.com/top-10-us-companies-to-own-for-2015-2.html