Energy Companies Are Still Posting Poor Returns

Contango Oil & Gas and Transocean are among the worst

Contango Oil & Gas Company (MCF) and Transocean Ltd (RIG) posted the lowest one-day returns on May 19, 2015. Returns that day were -11.54% and -5.86%, respectively, on the SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF (XOP) and the Energy Select Sector SPDR (XLE).

Diamond Offshore Drilling (DO) also posted a loss on May 19, coming in at -4.99%. As you can see in the above chart, the energy indexes also posted losses that day.

More institutional investors continue to lower their exposure to the energy sector

According to aggregate 13F data, aggregate shares held in Transocean on March 31 fell by 9.35%, compared to the previous quarter. More funds decreased or closed their positions in energy companies such as Transocean and Contango Oil & Gas rather than increase or initiate a new stake. For instance, Norges Bank sold all its 6,470,858 shares in Transocean and 263,803 shares in Contango Oil & Gas.

State Street Corporation lowered its holdings in Transocean by 4,217,067 shares. Shroder Investment Management Group lowered its holdings in Contango Oil & Gas by 303,756 shares. This signals a weak outlook for energy companies such as EOG Resources (EOG) that will likely hold back capital expenditures on new projects until oil prices continue to experience a sustained increase.

In the next part of this series, we’ll look at recent investment trends in oil-based ETFs.

Continue to Next Part

Browse this series on Market Realist:

• Part 2 - Investors in Oil ETFs Rush to Sell Holdings in April and May
• Part 3 - Transocean Beats 1Q15 Forecast but Is Still Plagued by Oil Woes