Energy giant Exxon Mobil is Friday's IBD Stock Of The Day. XOM stock scored a powerful weekly gain after it reported record profits in the second quarter.
Exxon Mobil and Dow Jones oil stock Chevron topped earnings estimates Friday. Both companies reported profits hitting new highs for the quarter. Shell did the same Thursday, also clobbering earning predictions.
XOM stock rose Friday, helped by a 3% advance in U.S. crude oil futures, to around $100 per barrel.
The Irving, Texas, based multinational is diversified across much of the petroleum industry spectrum. Operations range from exploration and production of crude oil and natural gas to refining and marketing fuels and petrochemicals. Exxon is one of the largest publicly traded companies in the energy sector.
Exxon Mobil earnings soared 276% to $4.14 per share in the second-quarter. Sales spiked 70% to $115.7 billion. The company said this increase was primarily driven by a tight supply and high demand for oil, natural gas and refined products.
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"Earnings and cash flow benefited from increased production, higher realizations, and tight cost control," CEO Darren Woods said in a statement.
XOM's capital spending was $4.6 billion in the quarter and $9.5 billion to date in 2022. The company said capital expenditures are in line with its full-year guidance of $21 billion to $24 billion.
Exxon Mobil reports compressed markets across most of its business segments, including refined products such as gasoline, Woods said during the Q2 earnings call.
"We clearly see the tightness in supply and refining with a closure rate during the pandemic that was three times the rate of the 2008 financial crisis," Woods said.
Any significant new supply, however, is still some ways off.
"Given the long investment cycle times, growing supply will not happen overnight," he said.
XOM Stock: Aggressive Buy Point
XOM stock rose 4.3% to 96.61 in Friday's stock market trading, as shares headed for a third day above their 50-day line. Exxon Mobil is in consolidation with an official buy point of 105.67, according to MarketSmith analysis. XOM stock is 9% below the 105.67 buy point in a seven-week cup base. Aggressive investors could use the stock's break above resistance at 93.24 as an early entry.
Oil stocks have consistently outperformed the market throughout 2022. Exxon Mobil shares are up 57% year to date, and both XOM and CVX have now posted back-to-back strong profit reports. That growth owes largely to the inflated price of crude oil, as well as gasoline at the pump, which on Friday averaged $4.25, according to AAA data.
Exxon Mobil ranks ninth in the Oil&Gas-Integrated industry group. XOM stock has a 97 Composite Rating. It has a 96 Relative Strength Rating, an exclusive IBD Stock Checkup gauge for share price movement with a 1 to 99 score. The rating shows how a stock's performance over the last 52 weeks holds up against all the other stocks in IBD's database. The EPS rating is 78.
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