2 cheap UK stocks Hargreaves Lansdown investors have been buying! Should I join in?

Investors appetite has caught fire right in London Stock Exchange at the beginning of 2023. Here are two UK stocks that show pickers use Hargreaves Lansdowne have piled up in the past week.

Both of these English shares can be found in FTSE 100. Should I add it to my own investment portfolio?

Glencore

A giant commodity GlencoreChanges in the share price of GLEN in Euro for a long time are clearly visible on the page of the share price history of this company. . But at current prices, the business continues to offer excellent value.

This may explain why the UK stock was the second most bought on the Hargreaves Lansdown platform last week. Miners and traders have contributed 1.38% of all buy orders.

Today Glencore shares trade at a forward P/E ratio of 8.4 times. It also generated a profit of 6.2%. These numbers have me considering adding the stock to my own stock portfolio.

The short-term outlook for companies like this is uncertain as the Covid-19 crisis in China persists. The key to the future is still the possibility of meeting the demand for raw materials from the world’s largest importer of commodities.

But if I had the money, I would buy Glencore in the hope that the share price will rise in the next year. The business can generate huge profits due to factors like the green energy revolution and the building of large cities in emerging markets that are driving the demand for copper, iron ore and other important industrial metals.

Citi analysts, for example, think that the decarbonisation scheme will lead to 70% growth in copper consumption until 2023.

Rolls-Royce

Rolls-Royce (LSE: RR.) is another FTSE index stock whose shares are looking cheap at the moment. The machine manufacturer is trading at a price-to-earnings (PEG) ratio of just 0.1 for 2023.

Rolls-Royce was the third most bought British stock by Hargreaves Lansdown clients in the past seven days. It accounts for 1.26% of all purchase orders. This is probably because the earnings forecast is increasing.

City brokers now expect earnings here to grow nearly 480% annually by 2023. Another 75% increase is expected in 2024 as the aviation industry enjoys a steady recovery.

I believe there is a big risk to the current forecast, however. The outlook for travel demand remains uncertain as the global economy continues to improve. Activity in Rolls’ engine servicing operations could be disappointing while reducing airline profits as well as hampering new engine orders.

Companies are also struggling to generate profits in a high-cost environment. Olivier Andriès, CEO of an industry rival Saffronsaid “ongoing supply chain disruptions and rising inflation” remained a problem for the aerospace industry in the last update last year.

I am worried for Rolls coupled with the enormous debt. They owe £4bn as of September. Failure to generate meaningful profits will undermine efforts to pay for this.

Some stocks are cheap for a reason. And while Rolls-Royce’s share price seems low, I still think it poses too much risk for me right now.