ConocoPhillips (COP) reported third-quarter earnings of $1.00 per share, above the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 93 cents. However, earnings per share were well below the year-earlier figure of $3.39. This pronounced fall was mainly due to significantly lower commodity prices and a steep decline in refining margins, which more than offset production improvements and lower costs. The Exploration and Production segment reported earnings of $978 million during the quarter, down nearly 75% year over year. The fall was mainly due to lower commodity prices, partially offset by higher volumes and lower operating costs. Daily production from the E&P segment (including Canadian Syncrude) averaged 1.79 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (MMBOE/d), up from 1.75 MMBOE/d in the year-ago quarter. The year-over-year increase in production from new developments in the U.K., Russia, Norway, Vietnam, China and Canada has more than offset the impact of normal ...

ConocoPhillips (COP) on Wednesday said it will increase its quarterly dividend by 6% to 50 cents per share (annualized rate of $2.00 per share) from the existing rate of 47 cents (annualized rate of $1.88). The increased dividend is payable on Dec. 1, 2009, to shareholders of record as on Oct. 30, 2009. The company intends to sell $10 billion of assets over the next two years. It has lowered its capex budget in 2010 in an effort to strengthen its financial position and improvement in balance sheet. Conoco expects to spend approximately $11 billion in capital projects during 2010, compared to $12.5 billion in 2009. The assets sale will occur across the company’s exploration and production (E&P) and refining and marketing (R&M) portfolio. The company will use the sale proceeds to reduce its debt level and meet its stated target debt-to-capitalization ratio of 20% to ...

ConocoPhillips (COP) recently received approval from federal officials to pull a collection of North Slope oil and gas leases into a new oil-field unit, a predecessor to development and production. For this purpose, the company partners with Anadarko Petroleum (APC). The leases are in the National Petroleum Reserve (Alaska) and on the western side of Alaska's North Slope. The new oil-field unit, named Bear Tooth Unit, includes 23 leases and approximately 105,000 acres, located northwest of the company’s Mooses Tooth Unit. The company said that both the units have sites of known oil discoveries. While production from the Mooses Tooth Unit is expected to commence sometime between 2012 and 2014, Bear Tooth would be online later. ConocoPhillips has recently relinquished a few leases that do not fit within its strategic plan based on the potential for commercial development. ConocoPhillips has significantly transformed its asset ...

“Work eight hours and sleep eight hours and make sure that they are not the same hours.”

– T. Boone Pickens

Inflation can do tricky things to markets. It creates distortions. In those distortions, an intrepid investor can find some big moneymaking ideas. I think we’ve got one opening up in oil and gas, and it is not without precedent in financial markets. In fact, it’s starting to look a little like the tail end of the 1970s in some respects.

In the spring of 1969, the Dow Jones industrial average stood at 969. By 1982, the Dow hit 1,071. That’s thirteen years of going nowhere. (We’ve had 10 years or so of going nowhere, though the ride between the poles has been anything but boring).

The problem is inflation makes that performance

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Recently, oil major ConocoPhillips (COP) and Australia’s Origin Energy Ltd., joint developers of a multi-billion dollar liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, chose a 230-hectare site for the venture’s processing plants. The 50-50 partnership, Australia Pacific LNG, zeroed in on Laird Point on Curtis Island near Gladstone in Queensland as the location of its proposed LNG plant.   The announcement of the site selection is being considered as a significant milestone in the development of the project, as the partners move towards the final investment decision (proposed for the end of 2010), followed by the first shipment to international markets (expected by the end of 2014).   In September last year, ConocoPhillips declared its plan to create a long-term Australasian natural gas business focused on coalbed methane production and LNG processing and sales in partnership with Origin Energy (Australia’s second-biggest electricity and gas retailer).   We believe that the ...

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – July 31, 2009 – Zacks Equity Research highlights Hanesbrands, Inc. (HBI) as the Bull of the Day and CEMEX, S.A. de C.V. (CX) the Bear of the Day. In addition, Zacks Equity Research provides analysis on ConocoPhillips (COP), ExxonMobil (XOM) and Chevron (CVX).

Full analysis of all these stocks is available at http://at.zacks.com/?id=2676

Here is a synopsis of all five stocks:

Bull of the Day:

Hanesbrands, Inc. (HBI) management's business model requires only modest sales growth to create substantial EPS growth. Earnings are being driven by brand-building and cost-reduction initiatives.

Since the spin-off in September 2006, the company has reduced debt by $511 million, lowering interest expense from the post spin-off financial structure. However, management is reporting non-GAAP EPS, which excludes unusual actions, which may be distorting perceived earnings.

The Buy rating is maintained due

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ConocoPhillips (COP), along with Saudi Aramco, will resume bidding for the construction of a 400 thousand barrels per day (MBbl/d) refinery at Yanbu Industrial City in Saudi Arabia.Initial offers have been issued to various local and global contractors for early work, and major packages include a coker unit, crude facility, gasoline unit, hydrocracker, tank farm, offsite pipelines and high voltage electrical packages. These offers are expected to be awarded in November this year, while the remainder is due in the second quarter of 2010.The proposed refinery will be capable to process heavy crude supplied by Saudi Aramco, and is expected to produce high-quality, ultra-low sulfur refined products. The new refinery's capacity to process heavy crude would further boost COP's margin capture rates.In a situation when overall market conditions are favorable, a refinery construction -- which will be able to produce ...

The markets were up today led by energy stocks as oil settled at $72.68.  The Dow Jones was up 0.37% closing at 8770.92, with the S&P up 0.61% closing at 944.89.  The NASDAQ was up 9.29 closing at 1862.37.  Treasury prices were down as the yield closed at 3.862%.  Gold settled at $962.00 as the dollar continues to weaken against other currencies. 

In major news today, Bank of America [BAC: 12.97, +0.99 (+8.26%)] CEO Ken Lewis appeared at the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to talk about BofA’s acquisition of Merrill Lynch.  Lawmakers wanted to know from Lewis why a deal that was approved by shareholders in December with no government aid, wound up costing $20 billion dollars to taxpayers, for completion in January.  Lawmakers also questioned Lewis about knowing about losses at Merrill earlier then reported, as internal e-mails in the Fed suggested.  Some have speculated that Lewis

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The markets were up today, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average was rose 0.89%.  The NASDAQ was closed up 0.37% ending the day at 1652.21, while the S&P was up o.99% to close at 851.92.  The yield of the 10-year is currently at 2.921% as the price of the treasury rose.  Gold and crude contracts were up settling at $906.60 and $49.62 respectively. 

Shares of Apple [AAPL: 125.40, +3.89 (+3.20%)] were up over 3% today after it reported earnings after hours yesterday.  The price jumped today, as many investors saw the strength of Apple as they reported an EPS of $1.33 on revenue of $8.16 billion as opposed to the analyst’s estimated $1.09 EPS on revenue of $8 billion.  Net income was up over 20% this quarter as the Cupertino, Calif. company reported an increase in the sales of iPhones and iPods this quarter.  Apple saw their profit margin increase to

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Highlights include ConocoPhillips (COP), Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) and Chevron Corp. (CVX).Our downgrade of ConocoPhillips (COP) shares reflects the company's weakened competitive position relative to its super-major peers in the current tentative commodity-price environment. Given its OECD-centric asset portfolio, ConocoPhillips is forced to live with high natural decline rates and costs.While we believe that the company should benefit from the anticipated stabilization in oil prices, we see better investment opportunities in this space. Our preferred names remain Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) and Chevron Corp. (CVX), given their relatively defensive postures.ConocoPhillips stock is expected to outpace those 2, however, if oil prices start moving up again. We believe that the company's ability to bring its ROCE [returns on capital employed] in line with its super major peers will become increasingly difficult, given its need for increased capital outlays ...