Dallas, Texas 10/28/2013 (Financialstrend) – In the beginning of last week, J.P. Morgan had published a report which highlighted the reasons why it expects major end to end integrated, large cap oil majors to report solid 3Q operational and fiscal results. This report had rallied the stock of big oil producers and refiners through the last week. The S&P 500 index tracked, 28.62 billion market capitalized Hess Corporation (NYSE:HES) stock also benefited by the positive expectations from the sector. The stock price inched upwards during trading last week, only to shed part of the gains towards the end of the week to register a 1% dip during the week’s trading.
J.P. Morgan team had estimated that the integrated oil drilling and refining companies would post earnings increase in the range of 8% in comparison to previous quarter. This increase in earnings was being predicted in spite of continued weakness in the international price of crude oil in the past few months. The J.P. Morgan analyst had specifically named the stock of Hess along with Marathon Oil and Occidental Petroleum as companies which were likely to benefit from the current market dynamics.
As of close of business on October 25, the stock was trading at $83.2 per share up 0.13% over its previous day close. The last week’s dip in market value is an aberration when considered in context to its performance on the browsers over the past 12 months. Investors into the stock have seen the stock holding gain by 5.6% in the past month and by 60% in the past 12 months. The current valuations have taken the stock price within touching distance to its prior 52 week high price point of $85.15 per share. In addition to share holder return in the form of appreciation in market value, the refining company has also paid out 1.2% dividend yield in the past 12 months.