NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Marathon Oil Corp. are down by 1.21% to $29.27 in early afternoon trading on Wednesday, as some stocks within the oil and energy sectors fall along with the price of the commodity. Crude oil (WTI) is slipping by 1.85% to $52.54 per barrel and Brent crude is slumping by 1.92% to $62.32 per barrel this afternoon, according to the Bloomberg index. Oil is in the red today as some analysts believe its recent rebound was hyped up, Reuters reports. Exclusive Report: Jim Cramer's Best Stocks for 2015 In January, oil hit close to a six-year low of $45.19 per barrel. Oil began to sink in June 2014 due to a global over supply and continued to drop in November after OPEC said it had no plans to reduce its production output. Additionally, Marathon Oil is scheduled to release its 2014 fourth quarter earnings results after the market close this afternoon. Analysts are expecting the oil and gas exploration company to post earnings of 3 cents per share on revenue of $2.42 billion. Separately, TheStreet Ratings team rates MARATHON OIL CORP as a Hold with a ratings score of C. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation: "We rate MARATHON OIL CORP (MRO) a HOLD. The primary factors that have impacted our rating are mixed some indicating strength, some showing weaknesses, with little evidence to justify the expectation of either a positive or negative performance for this stock relative to most other stocks. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its reasonable valuation levels, good cash flow from operations and expanding profit margins. However, as a counter to these strengths, we also find weaknesses including a generally disappointing performance in the stock itself, unimpressive growth in net income and feeble growth in the company's earnings per share." Highlights from the analysis by TheStreet Ratings Team goes as follows: Net operating cash flow has slightly increased to $1,774.00 million or 7.84% when compared to the same quarter last year. The firm also exceeded the industry average cash flow growth rate of -16.12%. The current debt-to-equity ratio, 0.32, is low and is below the industry average, implying that there has been successful management of debt levels. Despite the fact that MRO's debt-to-equity ratio is low, the quick ratio, which is currently 0.67, displays a potential problem in covering short-term cash needs. The change in net income from the same quarter one year ago has exceeded that of the Oil, Gas & Consumable Fuels industry average, but is less than that of the S&P 500. The net income has decreased by 24.3% when compared to the same quarter one year ago, dropping from $569.00 million to $431.00 million. Reflecting the weaknesses we have cited, including the decline in the company's earnings per share, MRO has underperformed the S&P 500 Index, declining 13.55% from its price level of one year ago. Turning toward the future, the fact that the stock has come down in price over the past year should not necessarily be interpreted as a negative; it could be one of the factors that may help make the stock attractive down the road. Right now, however, we believe that it is too soon to buy. You can view the full analysis from the report here: MRO Ratings Report
Click to view a price quote on MRO. Click to research the Energy industry.
from Latest TSC Headlines http://ift.tt/1CJetAv
No comments:
Post a Comment