Oil Stocks Outperforming Oil

With the price of oil falling dramatically lately, oil stocks have begun to significantly outperform the commodity.  Below we highlight the historical ratio of oil stocks (S&P 500 oil & gas group) to the price of oil.  When the line is rising, oil stocks are outperforming oil, and vice versa when the line if falling.  As shown below, as oil made its meteoric run earlier this year, the ratio got all the way down to its lowest levels since the early 1990s.  As the commodity has fallen, however, the ratio has spiked to its highest levels since 2001.  Now that the ratio has broken above its trading range from the last few years, there really isn't a ceiling on how high it can go.  As we saw in the late 90s, oil stocks outperformed the commodity by a lot for a long time.

 

Comments

[Garuda]

Which oil stocks? Talking about XLE?

[San Fran Sam]

My question too. Just what are you taking the ratio of? XLE and WTI?

[Justin]

As it says in the post, we are using the S&P 500 Oil & Gas group to represent oil stocks.

[Tom Chechatka]

I'm willing to bet the better comparison of the present period is to post-Y2k years...

Given that the lender of last resort is "all in," hard assets seem certain to outperform paper assets over the long-term ... all things remaining equal ... which, itself, is an extraordinarily uncertain proposition.

[bbarberayr]

Also, you need to look at oil out a year or so to see what is really happening with oil. The front months are getting crushed for a reason which may or may not ever be known.

Take a look at the Dec, 2010 contract for example. This is down about 55% from it's high. The XLE is down 47% from it's high and given that the XLE never moved up to fully reflect the highs in the oil price, we aren't moving very much out of line.

[Bill M]

Please explain which stocks you are referring too..