Hap (Robert) Sneddon FCSI Marathon Petroleum MPC-N WATCH Apr 10, 2017

With refiners, from late summer to end of Sept, this sector goes through a process. They shut down refineries and move into producing heating oil. Mid July until end of Sept is seasonal strength. Watch inventories of gas and heating oil.

You can expect resistance on this at around $42. It is now at $38, so it is reaching a Sell target zone. If there is any further rally, he would Sell.

From a PE valuation standpoint, refiners tend to work together. You see spreads widen or narrow off the raw product of oil, into the different commercial products. This company has been a good performer over the years. Not having great visibility into the cycle and to the spreads, he would probably pass on making this a core holding.

Sells at 5x earnings and Goldman recommended it today.

When OPEC raises oil prices, it will hurt MPC's margin, but this is a cheap stock that's well run.

MPC is now trading at 8.2x times' Forward P/E. In the most recent quarter, MPC’s revenue declined 32% to $36.8B, beating estimates of $33.9B and adjusted EBITDA came down from $9B to around $4.5B; the decline was largely expected after high oil prices in 2022. The balance sheet is strong, with net debt of $17.1B and net debt/EBITDA of around 0.8x. Given the record cash flow generated from the oil tailwind in the last few years, the company has implemented one of the more aggressive share-repurchasing programs.  Going forward, MPC’s fundamentals and share price would be heavily affected by the movement in oil prices. However, we think MPC just had a solid quarter, and still looks cheap, while MPC is fully committed to buying back more shares. We would be comfortable buying in the context of the sector.
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He just bought it. Since 2021, they've bought nearly half their shares. Been buying aggressively and will buy another $5.9 billion. They're printing cash by generating so much cash flow. They increased their dividend by 10% with a forward PE of 11x.

Trump wants the oil price to come down to offset any inflation from tariffs. This is why investors have been selling oil shares.