2 cheap UK shares I’m thinking about buying in April!

These cheap shares both trade at a price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) well below the benchmark value of 10 times. So I will buy today and look to continue for years.

Pan African Resources

Buying gold stocks can be a good idea as the price of the yellow metal rises. Pan African Resources (LSE:PAF) is one of the mining stocks on my radar because of its incredible value.

At AIM the stock trades at a forward P/E ratio of only five times. The dividend yield of PT.SAN shares is 5.5%.

The price of bullion in the last few hours rocketed back over $2,000 per ounce level. With these key technical levels breached – and concerns about US and European banks continuing to rise – new record highs may be on the way.

Having exposure to gold can be a good idea for investors at any time, in fact. It can protect individual wealth when a crisis suddenly breaks out and the prices of safer assets like UK stocks collapse.

Lending gold-yielding stocks can sometimes be a turbulent business. Production problems can be common and earnings can take a big hit. Indeed, power supply problems have affected Pan African Resources’ own production in recent months.

But I believe the potential benefits of buying this South African miner outweigh the risks. It has several exciting growth projects in its portfolio. And last week it closed funding for the development of Mintails gold assets, a project the business says will “significantly” contributed to the group’s output over the next two decades.

Kape Technologies

UK stocks specializing in IT services lack the scale and consumer recognition of their US counterparts. Kape Technologies (LSE:KAPE), for example, is a small fish compared to its digital security rivals NortonLifeLock, IBM, and Microsoft.

But the level in which the cyber protection sector is growing still makes UK companies worth serious attention in my book. Analysts at McKinsey & Company estimate that the global market could eventually be worth between $1.5trn and $2trn, up from $150bn today.

The excellent new trade in Kape represents a great opportunity here. The number of paying customers on the books is expected to grow by 12% in 2022 to 7.4 million. This helped revenue rise to a better-than-expected $623m from $230.7m a year earlier.

The latter’s success explains why IT experts are the subject of a takeover bid by Unikmind, a company owned by majority shareholder Teddy Sagi. The offer of 285p per share was rejected but the new approach may only be a matter of time.

City analysts expect Kape’s strong annual earnings growth record to continue into 2023. It makes the business trade at the lowest P/E ratio of just 5.5 times.

At this rate I think AIM companies are probably too cheap to miss. In fact, if I had the money to invest, I would add it to my own UK stock portfolio.