The price of oil has been trending lower over the last seven months with the price putting in a series of lower highs since peaking at $66.60 in April.The price spiked in September when the attacks occurred on Saudi Aramco's production facilities, but have since fallen back down as the production interruption was minimal. With oil trending lower, many big oil companies have seen their stock prices trend lower with the price of oil and ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) is one of those companies.

Oil & gas exploration company EOG Resources (NYSE: EOG) is set to report earnings next week and analysts expect the company to report earnings of $1.13.The company sports a return on equity of 18.1% and a profit margin of 23.9%, both of which are slightly above average. Despite what seem to be decent fundamentals, the company doesn’t score very well with Tickeron’s Fundamental Ratings.

Shares of Pioneer Natural Resources received an upgrade from Mizuho Securities analyst, who also hiked his price target on the stock. Mizuho analyst Paul Sankey upgraded his rating to “buy” from “neutral” on the hydrocarbon exploration company’s shares, and raised his price target to $191 from $168 – representing a more than 50% upside  from Wednesday's close price of the stock. Sankey indicated that the company is focusing on sustainable free cash flow growth and has made major progress on cost cuts this year.

Oil producer Hess Corp. (NYSE: HES) is hitting several different support points on its chart and it got a bullish signal from the Tickeron Trend Prediction Engine on September 30.Now the stock is down at the lower band and actually dipped slightly below it on September 30. Yet another possible positive sign for the stock is the fact that the daily stochastic readings are in oversold territory and made a bullish crossover on October 1.

Oil exploration and production company ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) has been trending lower for the last year and a rally over the last two months may have investors feeling optimistic.However, there are a number of indicators that may prevent the rally from continuing and those indicators come from all angles—fundamental, sentiment, and technical analysis. Let’s look at the technical side first.

Tickeron’s SMR rating for PDC is 80, indicating weak sales and an unprofitable business model.SMR (Sales, Margin, Return on Equity) rating is based on comparative analysis of weighted Sales, Income Margin and Return on Equity values compared against S&P 500 index constituents. Sales growth for PDC has been pretty good for the last few years, but analysts expect sales to decline by 21% for 2019.

PDC Energy announced that it is acquiring SRC Energy in a deal valued at $1.7 billion, including debt. As part of the all-stock acquisition, SRC shareholders will receive a fixed exchange ratio of 0.158 PDC shares for each share of SRC common stock, implying a value of $3.99 per SRC share based on PDC's closing common stock price on Aug. 23. PDC will also be assuming approximately $685 million in debt, as part of the acquisition.The combined entity is expected to advantage from "complementary assets" in the Delaware Basin - a geologic basin in West Texas and southern New Mexico famous for holding large oil field deposits. Following the deal’s closure, PDC shareholders will own about 62% of the combined company, and SRC shareholders will own around 38%.  

. The Tickeron Fundamental Analysis Overview shows several negative factors for the stock.Furthermore, the PEG ratio is (7.7) for PE, as compared to the industry average of (1.0). The most recent quarterly report saw earnings decline by 18% on a year over year basis and analysts expect earnings to decline by 3% for the year as a whole. The Tickeron Valuation Rating of 97 indicates that the company is significantly overvalued in the industry.

Oil is in the crosshairs as the prospect of confrontation brews between the U.S. and Iran.At least, that’s how Iranian officials would have it.

Continental Resources announced a new share repurchase program and dividend, sending its shares up +14% Tuesday. The oil & natural gas exploration company will embark on a $1 billion share buyback program from the second quarter of 2019, and will continue through 2020. The company also announced a quarterly dividend of 5 cents per share, payable on November 21, to shareholders of record on November 7.On an annualized basis, the dividend will distribute about $75 million to shareholders. Chairman and CEO Harold Hamm perceives the current value of Continental Resources’ equity to be “unreasonably low” – something that makes share buybacks using excess cash an opportune strategy, as indicated by Hamm.

Crude oil prices tumble as China signals it could play the rare earths card in its trade war with the U.S., adding to concerns that an ongoing standoff could hurt crude demand; U.S. WTI -2.6% to $57.60/bbl, Brent -1.9% to $68.80/bbl.

Crude oil prices surged as high as 2% on Thursday as tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia continue to escalate over Saudi-led coalition’s launch of air strikes on Iran in retaliation of the latter’s attack on Saudi’s oil infrastructure. U.S West Texas Intermediate crude settled 85 cents higher at $62.87 per barrel, gaining 1.4% and closing at the highest level in two weeks.Likewise, Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil prices, also surged 85 cents or 1.2%, to close at $72.62 touching its highest level in three weeks. The Saudi-led air strikes in Yemen were launched after the Iranian-aligned movement admitted their drone attacks on two Saudi oil pumping stations earlier in the week.

The American Petroleum Institute reportedly shows an increase of 8.63M barrels of oil in U.S. stockpiles last week, vs. the previous week's build of 2.8M barrels.

Oil prices rose sharply Tuesday morning on reports of a drone attack at oil pumping stations in Saudi Arabia.

Oil futures were mixed on Monday, with U.S. crude edging lower, as investors and traders fretted over global economic growth prospects amid a standoff in Sino-U.S. trade talks. 

It also brought the stock down to the lower rail of an upwardly-sloped trend channel and it caused the daily stochastic readings to move in to oversold territory. The lower rail and the 50-day moving average seem to be acting as support at this time and now the stochastic readings have made a bullish crossover.The last time the stock was set up like this was on March 8 and the stock rallied by over 22% in the next three weeks. In addition to the support and stochastics crossover, the Tickeron AI Trend Prediction tool generated a bullish signal for Devon on May 6.

Occidental Petroleum's recent jaunt to Omaha aboard a corporate jet presaged a $10 billion investment from Warren Buffett, and now the plane has traveled to the hometown of oil major Royal Dutch Shell. 

Chesapeake Energy (NYSE: CHK) -6.4% pre-market after falling short of Wall Street expectations for Q1 earnings and revenues; pre-market trading is active, with volume topping 600K shares at 7:30 a.m. 

Oil prices tumbled by more than 2 percent on Monday after U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday said he would sharply hike tariffs on Chinese goods this week, risking derailing months of trade talks between the world’s two biggest economies. Read More...

Oil prices fell on Wednesday after U.S. crude inventories in the United States soared more than expected to their highest since September 2017 as production hit a record high. Read More...