Out Fox The $treet

 Update - May 8, 2023 Berkshire not buying control of Oxy  confirms why the stock is capped here.  -Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.B) (NYSE:BRK.A) won't buy control of Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY), Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett said during Berkshire's annual meeting in Omaha on Saturday. -"We wouldn't know what to do with it," he said, adding that he's confident in OXY's management. -"We may or may not own more" of the stock in the future, he said. -In March, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) added almost 3.7M more shares to its holdings, bringing its stake in the petroleum producer to ~23.6%. Original article posted on March 19 OXY has fallen below $60 again leading to Berkshire Hathaway purchasing more shares. Energy prices have fallen to levels consistent with Q3'21 levels when the company earned far close to a $3 to $4 EPS stream. The stock isn't priced for lower earnings leaving OXY trading at ~20x '23 EPS targets. After multiple war...

Summary SolarCity reported Q4 earnings that missed analyst targets. A couple of negative trends continue to pop up. The stock isn't likely to gain traction without proper resolution of these negative trends. SolarCity (NASDAQ: SCTY ) remains good at installing new rooftop solar power systems at breakneck speed. The company though is slowly losing momentum in convincing investors that these systems make a good investment with the outlandish operating expenses. After another miss and more importantly continuing negative trends, investors don't appear so convinced that the growing solar deployments are adding the same value as proposed by the management team. Read the full article at Seeking Alpha. Disclosure: No positions mentioned. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

Summary Schlumberger generated substantial earnings growth despite severe weather. North America revenue saw a sequential increase. Oil services stocks sit near all-time highs. While the oil services firms had every excuse to turn in a weak first quarter, the initial results were very solid. Baker Hughes ( BHI ) solidly beat analyst expectations and Schlumberger ( SLB ) squeaked out a small beat. Read the full article at Seeking Alpha. Disclosure: Long HAL. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

After reporting earnings on Jan. 22, investors continue to sell off shares of Noble Corp  ( NYSE: NE     ) due to fears of a cyclical downturn in the previously robust offshore drilling market. The company is busy completing a newbuild program that will modernize the fleet while at the same time spinning off the older standard assets into Noble Spinco. The spinoff will help focus the company into two separate companies with different objectives to benefit shareholders, but the old assets might lose significant value in a cyclical downturn. The stock sold off on the news of an industry pause, but people appear to be missing the extreme valuation and the limited slowdown forecasted by management of Noble. In addition, the suggested pause probably has a different impact on companies with a young fleet of premium, high-specification rigs such as SeaDrill ( NYSE: SDRL     )  as opposed to companies with older fleets such as  Transocean ...

Anytime a legendary investor pounds the table that a stock is worth double its price, investors ought to take the time to review the prospects. In this case, Lee Cooperman of Omega Advisors continues to be bullish on the reorganization progress at SandRidge Energy  ( NYSE: SD     ) . With the stock trading in the $6 range, Cooperman recently repeated claims that his analysis values the company at over $10. SandRidge Energy is an oil and natural gas exploration and production company focused on the Mississippian formation in Oklahoma along with Gulf of Mexico and West Texas assets. The stock has long struggled due to Wall Street's lack of understanding of the deal made by the previous CEO Tom Ward. Read the full article here . Disclosure: No position mentioned. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

The huge gains by Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold ( NYSE: FCX     ) over the last few months probably caught a lot of investors off guard. The company is a premier natural resource company, with a global portfolio of copper and gold assets, and significant domestic oil and gas resources. Somehow, slumping commodity prices for copper and gold haven't crushed the stock. In addition, the purchase of energy assets (with debt) isn't holding down the stock. So what is pushing it higher? It was beaten during the early parts of 2013 due to a merger that took away the focus on copper production and byproducts. Ironically, the stock has done better than copper focused producer Southern Copper ( NYSE: SCCO     ). Looking at large energy producers such as Chesapeake Energy ( NYSE: CHK     ), you can see a shift in sentiment toward more complex energy producers that happen to be laden with debt. Read the full article here . Disclosure: No ...

Nearly two years after being spun off from Williams Companies ( NYSE: WMB     ) , WPX Energy ( NYSE: WPX     ) is finally seeing decent stock gains. The large natural gas producer has been pushing toward drilling for oil, but ironically a massive natural gas find places this stock on a path to huge reserve growth. Compared to other natural gas producers such as Range Resources ( NYSE: RRC     ) and Southwestern Energy ( NYSE: SWN     ) , the stock trades at sub-par multiples. Due to the massive well in the Niobrara shale called the 'beast,' it could finally be back on a growth trajectory. Read the full article here . Disclosure: No positions mentioned. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

As the Mexican government moves to reform the slumping energy industry, a whole slew of firms in the US stand to benefit. According to a Merrill Lynch report  , analysts estimate that Mexico spent about $8 billion on drilling and completion (D&C) services in 2012 and expect that number to jump another $2.5 billion in the next two years. Merrill Lynch lists a slew of stocks that will benefit from the hydrocarbon surge in Mexico. The firms include the typical large oil service and equipment providers, as well as offshore drilling specialists. Remember that a prime reason for the decline in oil output from Mexico has been a lack of expertise in drilling complicated offshore wells. While this might be a scenario where a rising ship raises all boats, a few stocks stand out to benefit the most. Read the full article here . Disclosure: Long WFT. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

On first thought, the announcement of the resignation of the CEO at SandRidge Energy (NYSE: SD ) appears nothing to get excited about. Even if the market can blame Tom Ward for the stock weakness over the last few years, losing the founder of the company can’t be a good thing. The interesting part of this news is that the market has another prime example to follow. Not only did more » Disclosure: No positions mentioned. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

Prior to June 5, Helmerich & Payne (NYSE: HP ) was seen as a solidly run contract drilling firm with a small dividend. The company made a surprising announcement that it would dramatically increase the yield making the stock interesting for the yield now. Or maybe it wasn’t that surprising considering the expected influx of cash and a strong balance sheet. The company operates primarily as a contract drilling firm with more » Disclosure: No positions mentioned. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

While investors remain focused on surging domestic oil production, the market is missing that global oil prices remain high. With Brent trading over $100, the deepwater drillers provide attractive investment options with PE ratios below 10. Some of the leading drillers include Ensco (NYSE: ESV ) , Noble (NYSE: NE ) , and Atwood Oceanics (NYSE: ATW ) along with speculative Pacific Drilling (NYSE: PACD ) .  Other investors may prefer the high yielding SeaDrill Limited or more » Disclosure: Long ATW. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

Another company hoping to benefit from abundant and cheap supplies of natural gas in North America is Westport Innovations, Inc. (WPRT) . As previously noted, Clean Energy (CLNE) and Cheniere Energy (LNG) are also exploring ways to benefit from the current market dynamics favoring the users of the fuel. Westport is a global supplier of proprietary solutions that allow engines to operate on clean-burning fuels such as compressed natural gas (CNG), liquefied natural gas, hydrogen, and renewable natural gas (RNG) fuels. Westport expects to end 2012 with greater than 50% revenue growth, though the company expects to still generate losses even into 2013. All signs point to a strong future as US and China demand surges, yet the stock continues to show weakness. Read the full article at Seeking Alpha. Disclosure: Long CLNE. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

On Friday, Warren Buffett let it be known on Bloomberg that Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK.A) had sold shares in ConocoPhillips (COP) in favor of Phillips 66 (PSX) . Okay, it was actually one of his deputy stock pickers that made the move, but in essence it still has his support. Dividends This move is interesting considering the recent split from ConocoPhillips and the announcement that Phillips 66 would have less than half the dividend yield of its big brother. The $.20 quarterly dividend will only amount to a 2.2% yield. Maybe this shouldn't be a huge surprise as Buffett has long avoided paying dividends at Berkshire. The market though loves dividend paying stocks, and ConocoPhillips has one of the juiciest yields at nearly 5%. Read the full article at Seeking Alpha. Disclosure: Long COP. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

MLPs or Master Limited Partnerships make for interesting investing dilemmas right now. On one hand, the dividend yields on popular MLPs such as Magellan Midstream Partners, L.P. (MMP) at 4.5% are a lot more lucrative than Treasury yields. The rate on the 10 year at 1.44% is paltry in comparison to this MLP. On the other hand, the yields for most MLPs are at multi year lows from surging stock prices. Magellan Midstream Partners is a publicly traded partnership that primarily transports, stores and distributes petroleum products. The partnership owns the longest petroleum products pipeline system in the country, with access to more than 40% of the nation's refining capacity, and can store 80 million barrels of petroleum products such as gasoline, diesel fuel and crude oil. Read the full article at Seeking Alpha. Disclosure: No positions mentioned. Please review the disclaimer page for more details.