We recently published a list of 7 Cheapest Penny Stocks to Buy Now. In this article, we are going to take a look at where OppFi Inc. (NYSE:OPFI) stands against other cheapest penny stocks.
What Does the Jobs Report Mean for the Stock Market
The Federal Reserve rate cut continues to be a hot topic for analysts especially with the new development that came in on October 4th with the Bureau of Labor Statistics releasing the job market report. One of the reasons why the Fed cut rates by 50 basis points was attributed to a weak labor market. It seems that the rate cut has worked but it also means that there might not be any urgency for the Fed to cut rates by another 50 basis points.
On October 4th Reuters reported the job market displayed significant resilience in September, with a notable increase of 254,000 non-farm payrolls and a drop in the unemployment rate to 4.1%. The United States Job gains increased the most in September when compared to the past six months. Moreover, on top of a higher than expected increase in non-farm jobs, wages also increased at a solid pace last month.
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell had already pointed out that the urgency to cut interest rates is not what the market demands at the moment. He mentioned that the committee does not feel the hurry to cut rates quickly.
These recent developments have paved the way for smooth 25 basis point cuts and also brightened the path for a soft landing scenario. In one of our recent articles on 8 Stocks Under $20 To Invest In Now, we discussed the soft landing scenario in detail and what it will mean for the stock market. Here’s an excerpt from the article:
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“Larry Adam, chief investment officer at Raymond James, says that the current market is exactly what a soft landing looks like. Adam recently appeared in an interview on CNBC to talk about how the lower interest rates will benefit the small caps in particular the Russell 2000. He believes that the bull market will continue while the economy inches towards a soft landing.
When it comes to small-cap stocks they get around 56% of their financing from the short end of the curve. The short end of the curve refers to the short-term interest rate on the yield curve, which typically represents the yields on bonds with shorter maturities, such as 2-year or 5-year Treasury notes. Whereas the large-cap companies get only 26% financing from these short ends of the curve. Therefore, Adam believes that as the Fed continues to lower interest rates it will help small caps meet financing needs.
He further pointed out that it is expected that the Fed will cut twice this year and another four times the next year. Another reason why he likes small caps is because the economy is going towards a soft landing. Adam emphasized that we have already seen that the rate cuts helped small caps outperform the large caps. Historically speaking whenever the economy has a soft landing it typically helps the small caps greater than the rest of the market.”
To talk about how the market will look like after this report, Jeremy Siegel, Wharton School professor of finance joined CNBC. He pointed out an interesting fact from the jobs report. Siegel mentioned that although 550,000 new jobs were added in the third quarter, hours worked were virtually flat.
Siegel expects third-quarter GDP to be around 2.5% to 3%. Moreover, the good news for the stocks is that the current job market figures are not inflationary but rather pointing toward productivity. Professor Siegel emphasized that he never thought the second cut would be 50 basis points and vouched for a series of 25 basis points cuts each quarter. This all points towards the soft landing scenario becoming more likely.
Is There More Room for Small Caps to Rally?
Now that we know that the economy is moving towards a soft landing rather than a recession, let’s see how the small caps are expected to perform under current circumstances. To talk about the expected performance of small caps in a slowing economy, Nancy Prial, Co-CEO & Senior Portfolio Manager at Essex Investment Management recently joined CNBC for an inverview. Prial thinks that this is the beginning of a multi-year bull cycle for small cap stocks. There are few basic underlying factors behind this claim including small caps being significantly under owned, in fact they are at record lows as a percentage of the total equity market. Moreover, the valuations of small caps are incredibly attractive and well below their large cap counterparts in the S&P 500.
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Prial thinks what we really needed to turn the situation around was the Federal Reserve interest rate cuts and the confidence that the economy is moving towards a soft landing. Another significant factor that was needed is the relative earnings growth for small cap stocks. Prial quoted that the earnings growth for these stocks are expanding and expects that by the end of the year small caps will be growing faster than the large caps.
If we look at the S&P 500 EPS growth rate estimates, the market is expected to grow more than 13% year-over-year during the fourth quarter and more than 15% next year. As Nancy Prial mentioned that small caps are expected to outperform the large caps in growth, she further clarified that the overall indices might not be able to perform above 15%. However, to capitalize on the earnings growth trend, investors have to be good stock pickers as she believes there are going to be a lot of small cap stocks that will post more than 15% to 20% growth next year. Within the small cap category, Prial likes the energy sector as she thinks it will be a main player in the data center and AI industry for the years to come.
Our Methodology
To compile the list of 7 cheapest penny stocks to buy now we used the Finviz stock screener. Using the screener we got a consolidated list of stocks trading under $5, with a forward price-to-earnings ratio under 24.35 (the market’s P/E ratio as per Wall Street Journal), and with earnings expected to grow this year. Once we had an aggregated list of stocks that fit our criteria we then ranked them based on the number of hedge fund holders in Q2 2024, sourced from Insider Monkey’s database. The list is ranked in ascending order of the number of hedge funds. Please note that the share prices mentioned in the article were recorded on October 7, 2024.
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).
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OppFi Inc. (OPFI): Expanding Financial Access for Millions of Americans
High rise office buildings used by the financial technology platform in Chicago.
OppFi Inc. (NYSE:OPFI)
Share Price: $4.47
Forward P/E Ratio: 6.01
Earnings Growth This Year: 45.10%
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 15
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OppFi Inc. (NYSE:OPFI) is a financial technology company that enables Americans to access credit from commercial banks. It allows people to access loans and credit products through its platform, who otherwise are not eligible for traditional loans. The company offers three main programs including OppLoans, where eligible applicants can apply for loans online through a mobile-friendly platform, the TurnUp Program helps users compare various credit products in the market, lastly, the SalaryTrap which allows borrowers to repay directly from their paychecks.
When it comes to the investment case for OppFi Inc. (NYSE:OPFI) two things stand out. First is its history of profitability, the company has been generating positive net income for the past 9 years. Second, the point of attraction is its addressable market which accounts for more than 60 million Americans with no bank accounts or access to traditional banking services.
Talking about profitability, OppFi Inc. (NYSE:OPFI) posted a record second quarter during the current year. Its net income increased 53.1% year-over-year to reach $27.7 million, indicating the record second-quarter income the company has ever generated. Its adjusted earnings per share also increased 53.3% during the same time. Both net income and EPS bested management’s expectations, resulting in a raised full-year guidance by more than 20%.
OppFi Inc. (NYSE:OPFI) is trading at a discounted valuation. It is trading at only 6 times its forward earnings with analysts expecting its earnings to grow by 45% during the year, thereby making OPFI one of the cheapest penny stocks to buy now.
Overall, OPFI ranks 6th on our list of cheapest penny stocks to buy now. While we acknowledge the potential of OPFI to grow, 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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READ NEXT:$30 Trillion Opportunity: 15 Best Humanoid Robot Stocks to Buy According to Morgan Stanley and Jim Cramer Says NVIDIA ‘Has Become A Wasteland’. Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
While most AI in financial services remains advisory, LUMIQ has built the layer that owns the decision — autonomous, auditable AI agents making regulated calls in production at leading banks, insurers, and capital markets firms. Today, LUMIQ serves clients across India, the United States, and Southeast Asia — leading institutions across insurance, banking, and capital markets.
NEW YORK and SINGAPORE, June 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — LUMIQ, an AI-native financial services company, today announced a strategic funding round to scale auto-decisioning for financial institutions across the United States and Southeast Asia. The round was led by Bajaj Finserv, one of India’s largest and most diversified financial services groups, with participation from existing investor Info Edge Ventures.
LUMIQ raises Strategic Funding to become AI decision layer for financial services
Right now, thousands of customers are waiting for a policy to be issued, a loan to be disbursed, a claim to be adjudicated, because somewhere an FSI employee is drowning in decisions, held back by the risk of getting it wrong. Today, when e-commerce delivers the same day, banks and insurers still decide in weeks. We built LiteCone to take that burden: AI decides the routine cases, completely and accountably, so humans spend their judgment on the one case that actually needs it. This round lets us bring that to every financial institution in the markets that matter most. Shoaib Mohammad, Co-founder and CEO, LUMIQ
From AI that assists to AI that decides
For decades, financial institutions have bought technology that made their people faster — faster data, faster scoring, faster copilots. The decision still landed on a human. LUMIQ is changing that. Through its LiteCone platform, the company deploys AI agents that read the file, apply the institution’s own guidelines, and reach the decision end to end — escalating only the cases that genuinely require human judgment. The output is not a recommendation. It is a decision, with full reasoning attached, cross-referenced to policy, and defensible under audit.
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The results in production speak clearly. At a leading life insurer, LUMIQ’s LEO agent decides 75–80% of underwriting cases with zero human touch, reduced policy issuance cost by roughly 25%, and compressed turnaround from days to under eight minutes — running 24×7 with complete auditability. Across its client base spanning insurance, banking, and capital markets in India, the US, and Southeast Asia, LUMIQ now processes millions of decisions annually.
LiteCone turns a real financial-services role into a working AI agent in weeks. Every agent we deploy is consistent, explainable, compliant, and auditable by design — not as an afterthought. This capital lets us go deeper on the platform and broader across roles. And through our cloud and AI lab partnerships, institutions will increasingly find LiteCone already embedded in the platforms they run today. Vaibhav Dobriyal, Co-founder and Chief Product Officer, LUMIQ
This round funds four priorities: expanding go-to-market in the US and Southeast Asia; deepening LiteCone’s decisioning capabilities; extending the agent workforce across more financial-services roles; and building a partnership ecosystem with cloud hyperscalers, AI labs, and core banking and insurance platforms so LiteCone is embedded where institutions already run.
LUMIQ’s investors backed the round for the same reason its customers adopt LiteCone: agents already deciding in production, with auditability and control built in.
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As a financial-services group, we know how much rests on getting regulated decisions right, at speed and at scale. LUMIQ has built AI agents that decide in production with auditability and control built in, the capability the industry has been moving toward. We are proud to lead this round and to support the team’s expansion across the US and Southeast Asia. Lakshmi Iyer, Group President – Investments & CEO, Bajaj Alternates
Our conviction is grounded in what LUMIQ has already built. Their AI agents aren’t just built for the future. They are operating in production today, at speed. This combination is rare, and its value will only compound as the company scales globally. Girish Jhunjhunwala, Fund Manager – PE and VC Investments, Bajaj Alternates
Financial services is one of the hardest categories to crack — regulated, risk-averse, and unforgiving of hype. LUMIQ has put agentic AI into live financial-services workflows and earned the trust of large institutions across the US, Southeast Asia and India. That is how a category-defining company in financial-services AI gets built, and we are proud to keep backing the team as they scale globally. Kitty Agarwal, Partner, Info Edge Ventures
LUMIQ’s goal is to lead one category: auto-decisioning at production scale for financial services. Agents that act, not assist, and never compromise audit, compliance, or predictability.
About LUMIQ LUMIQ is an AI-native financial services company. Through its LiteCone platform and a growing workforce of production AI agents, LUMIQ turns real financial-services roles — insurance underwriter, credit underwriter, claims adjudicator — into agents that are consistent, explainable, compliant, and auditable. The company pairs deep domain expertise across banking, insurance, and capital markets with frontier AI. LUMIQ employs over 350 AI and data specialists, and has offices in New Jersey, Singapore, and Delhi NCR (India).
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Web: www.lumiq.ai
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View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/lumiq-raises-strategic-funding-to-become-the-ai-decision-layer-for-financial-services-302805280.html
Consumer confidence has plunged among traditionally optimistic younger adults amid fears for their personal finances and the wider economy, figures show.
GfK’s long-running Consumer Confidence Index remained unchanged at an overall score of minus 23 in June.
However, the analyst said this was was “misleading as, beneath the surface, there are new signs that confidence is weakening”.
Source: GfK
Neil Bellamy, consumer insights director at GfK, said: “The biggest fall this month is among those aged 16 to 29, traditionally one of the most optimistic groups.
“Here confidence has dropped 11 points over the past month to minus two, the lowest level seen for two years, driven by large falls in views on both their own personal finances and the wider economy.
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“More broadly, there are now no demographic groups with a positive confidence score, including higher-income households earning £50,000 or more, who have slipped back into negative territory as of June.
“Confidence remains subdued and vulnerable to further economic or political uncertainty.”
Sourve: GfK
Overall, confidence in personal finances over the coming year remained flat at minus two, four points lower than this time last year.
The measures of both personal finances and the economy over the previous 12 months were both slightly down, by two points and three points respectively, “reflecting the sense that things have been extremely tough over the last year for so many”, GfK said.
The only measure to increase was expectations for the wider economy over the next 12 months, up two points to minus 36 but still eight points below this time last year.
The major purchase index, an indicator of confidence in buying big ticket items, remained at minus 20, four points lower than June last year.
“Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!” said Donald Trump on social media after he announced the signing of an interim peace deal with Iran on Sunday. Under the agreement – which Iran acknowledged included a 60-day negotiating period for a final deal – the president said that following retrieval of mines, there would be a “toll free opening” of the Strait of Hormuz.
But many of the finer details remain “unclear”, said The Guardian. There are questions over the “exact timing of the reopening of the maritime route, who will oversee safe passage and whether any conditions will be applied”.
Financial markets have welcomed the announcement, but further volatility could yet hit people’s pockets.
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Have oil prices changed?
The price of oil fell to about $83 (£62) per barrel following Sunday’s announcement, its “lowest since the early days of the war”. Then on Tuesday it dipped below $80. In February, before the first missiles struck Iran, each barrel cost around $73. The price peaked at around $120 at the height of the conflict.
Prices are expected to fall in the wake of a prolonged ceasefire, and there are “real grounds for optimism”, said Politico. Damage to oil-specific infrastructure has been “limited”, meaning it could take “as little as six weeks to resume outflows”.
“So that’s the energy crisis sorted, right?” Not so fast.” A combination of damage to wider infrastructure and the continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz has meant roughly 12 million fewer barrels of oil have been produced each day. And they “won’t magically reappear on the market even if the pact holds”.
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Will this continue?
The “first big test” of the deal will be whether shipping companies will have enough “confidence” to return the use of the strait to pre-war levels, said The New York Times. If successful, this will free the 250 tankers and 330 cargo ships trapped in the Gulf, according to the BBC, and transport oil around the world. Oil and gas producers in the Gulf nations would then need to re-establish “wells, refineries and other infrastructure”.
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Even if all of that were to materialise, European and Asian countries who have historically depended on oil from the region “will face a long wait”. Processing oil takes considerable time. “It is unlikely that the prices of gasoline, diesel and other fuels will return to pre-war levels anytime soon.”
What about inflation?
Despite air fares “surging” and fuel costs “tipping higher”, UK inflation remained at 2.8% in May, said The Independent. This was a “surprise” to economists, who had widely predicted a rise to 3% and “perhaps even beyond” due in part to the war in Iran.
Remaining at this level could imply that the “cost-of-living squeeze will not play out as badly as had been anticipated” earlier this year, even if the “Iran war sent energy costs spiralling”. However, prices are set to rise again later in 2026, leaving savers to make sure their investments are earning an interest rate “well above the rate of inflation”.
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What does this mean for consumers?
Food prices in the UK look to be rising more slowly. Should the Strait of Hormuz open freely, fertiliser, which has “soared in costs” and put pressure on farmers, could fall substantially, said the BBC. Jet fuel has already seen a “small fall in price”, with Northwest Europe jet fuel trading at $1,033 (£780) per tonne, compared with $831 pre-conflict and around $1,840 at its peak.
How will businesses be affected?
Beneath the “encouraging headlines” about inflation control, there is a “hidden crisis for businesses”, said The Telegraph. The Iran war triggered one of the largest energy shocks in history, meaning businesses were “swallowing soaring costs to spare shoppers”.
“Input rises” for producers climbed by “8.7% year on year in May”, larger than the 7.9% in April and the highest in more than three years. On the bright side, this means the economy may avoid a dreaded “wage-price spiral”, but conversely lower margins could lead to increased pressure on the employment market.
