The OPEC+ group of oil-producing countries has agreed on a drastic cut to the global supply. The speculation has helped oil reverse its recent declines. And that means it’s time to take another look at stocks of U.S.-listed energy companies that are favorably positioned to take advantage of higher prices.
The cartel agreed on Wednesday to reduce its output by two million barrels a day, according to news reports. William Watts explained why the actual production cuts by the OPEC+ group might not turn out as expected. Below is a screen of favorite energy stocks among analysts polled by FactSet, drawn from the S&P 1500 Composite Index
SP1500,
-0.13%.
The screen is followed by a longer-term look at oil prices and industry comments from Gabelli analyst Simon Wong. Oil-stock screen An easy way to play U.S. energy companies as a group is by tracking the 21 stocks in the S&P 500 energy sector, which you can do with the Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund
XLE,
+2.55%.
The large-cap sector is dominated by Exxon Mobil Corp.
XOM,
+4.51%
and Chevron Corp.
CVX,
+1.02%,
which together make up 42% of XLE because of market-capitalization weighting. The ETF isn’t quite as diversified as some investors might expect it to be. To dig deeper for a stock screen, we began with the 62 stocks in the S&P 1500 Composite Index, which is made up of the S&P 500
SPX,
+0.17%,
the S&P 500 Mid Cap Index
MID,
-0.91%
and the S&P Small Cap 600 Index
SML,
-0.73%.
We then narrowed …