The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Diamondback Energy, EOG Resources, Marathon Oil, APA Corp and Hess Corp
For Immediate Release
Chicago, IL – March 8, 2021 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Diamondback Energy, Inc. FANG, EOG Resources, Inc. EOG, Marathon Oil Corporation MRO, APA Corporation APA and Hess Corporation HES.
Here are highlights from Friday’s Analyst Blog:
Oil Soars on OPEC+ Surprise: Energy Stocks Post Big Gains
U.S. crude prices rose by more than 4% on Thursday, and rallied to 23-month highs. The contract's multiyear peak came after major oil producers maintained their output cuts till the end of April contrary to expectations of a slight increase. The OPEC+ alliance will continue withholding production by around 7 million barrels per day (or about 7% of the global consumption) through next month. Moreover, OPEC-kingpin Saudi Arabia pledged to extend its voluntary supply curbs of 1 million barrels per day.
The group's reluctance to raise output helped the American benchmark gain $2.55 to end the day at $63.83 per barrel — hitting its highest since April 2019. Meanwhile, the international Brent crude futures settled at $66.74 per barrel, up $2.67, or 4.2% from their last close.
Oil Markets Bull Story Continues
The OPEC+ coalition's production restraint is not the only factor supporting the oil markets. The energy space has been rallying for the past few months on continued vaccine-related developments and their successful deployment around the world that offer hope for an earlier-than-expected pickup in the commodity's demand. Crude has been driven up further by easing coronavirus infections, signs of robust demand in the world's second-largest oil consumer, China, and the passage of the $1.9 trillion stimulus bill.
The renewed enthusiasm can be gauged from the fact that the Zacks Oil/Energy sector has gained 32.2% in the past six months, handily outperforming the S&P 500 Index's 12.3% appreciation.
Energy Stocks Take Off
The OPEC+ surprise pushed the Energy Select Sector SPDR — an assortment of the largest U.S. energy companies — up around 2.4% on Thursday to be at the top of the S&P sector standings. In fact, except for Energy, all the other S&P 500 sectors were in the red yesterday.
As a matter of fact, the top five gainers of the S&P 500 on Thursday were all energy firms — Diamondback Energy, EOG Resources, Marathon Oil, Apache and Hess Corp. Diamondback — carrying a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy) — was the top-performing stock with a gain of 9.16%, followed by EOG (6.63%), Marathon Oil (6.28%), Apache (5.37%) and Hess (4.66%).
You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
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Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.
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