Energy stocks: Devon Energy sharpens its focus on North America

Over the past decade, political upheaval around the world has caused many to worry about secure sources of energy supply. Some North American energy stocks have simply decided that overseas risk is not worth the trouble and expense. Devon Energy Corp., (New York symbol DVN; www.devonenergy.com) is one of them. Devon is one of the largest U.S.-based oil and natural-gas explorers and producers. Its production mix is 67% gas and 33% oil. In May 2011, Devon completed the sale of its Brazilian operations for $3.2 billion. It has now sold all of its international and Gulf of Mexico properties, which it saw as risky and expensive to develop. [ofie_ad] In all, the company has received over $8 billion in after-tax proceeds from these sales. It will use these funds to buy back shares, purchase properties and pay down debt. Since May 2011, it has bought back $2.5 billion of its shares; it plans to buy back $1 billion more by the end of the year. Devon’s long-term debt is $6.0 billion, but that’s just 22% of its market cap. As well, the company holds cash of $6.7 billion, or $16 a share.

Energy stocks: Devon looks to shale oil in Texas and oil sands in Alberta

In the three months ended December 31, 2010, this energy stock’s daily production averaged 2.6 billion cubic feet of natural gas and 220,000 barrels of oil. Higher production and rising oil and gas prices pushed up cash flow per share by 138.8%, to $3.82 from $1.60 Devon is now focused on its North American properties, which include conventional production, shale oil in Texas and oil sands in Alberta. The company will spend as much as $5.9 billion to explore and develop its properties this year. We analyze Devon Energy and other energy stocks in the latest edition of Stock Pickers Digest. Our assessment concludes with our clear buy-sell-hold advice on Devon. If you’re looking for stocks with the potential for gains of 50% or more in 6 months or less, you should subscribe to Stock Pickers Digest. The latest issue of Stock Pickers Digest gives you our full analysis, including clear buy/sell/hold advice, on 20 stocks that may be suitable for the part of your portfolio you devote to aggressive investing. What’s more, you can get this issue ABSOLUTELY FREE. Click here to get started right away.

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Blue Chip Stocks

Blue chip stocks are big, well-established, dividend-paying corporations with strong business prospects. These are companies that also have sound management that should be able to make the right moves to keep competing successfully in a changing marketplace.

Dividend Stocks

Dividend stocks make cash payouts that serve as a way for companies to share the wealth they’ve accumulated. These payouts are drawn from earnings and cash flow and paid to the shareholders of the company. Typically, these dividends are paid quarterly, although they may be paid annually or even monthly as well.

Value Stocks

What are value stocks?

One of the sweetest and most profitable pleasures of successful investing is to buy high-quality “value stocks” (or stocks that are reasonably priced, if not cheap, in relation to its sales, earnings or assets), then hold on to them as mainstream investors recognize the value and push up the share price.

Growth Stocks

Growth stocks are companies that are likely to have sales and earnings growth well above market average. Frequently they pay few, if any, dividends. Instead they typically reinvest any extra cash flow to promote further growth. Chosen wisely—according to Pat McKeough’s advice—high-quality growth-oriented stocks can be worthwhile additions to most well-diversified portfolios.

ETFs

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ETF is an acronym for exchange traded fund.. These exchange traded funds are used to track indexes as closely as possible, since investors cannot actually buy an index outright.

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Pat McKeough has been making investing for beginners simple—and profitable—by helping investors make big gains for more than 25 years. His advice to beginning investors is the same as it is for all investors: buy high-quality, mostly dividend paying stocks (or ETFs that hold these stocks) and evenly spread your investments over the five main economic sectors (Resources, Manufacturing, Finance, Utilities and Consumer). Pat also believes investors should avoid stocks in the broker/media limelight and focus on those with hidden or little-noticed assets.

Wealth Management

Wealth management is the practice of putting your savings to work so that it continues to grow over your lifetime and will also benefit your heirs. Wealth management encompasses many different areas of investing like long term investment planning and retirement planning.

AI Investing

Artificial intelligence (AI) is essentially the merging of today’s big computing with big data. This has resulted in breakthroughs in everything from creating machines to recognize faces with more accuracy than a human, to the development of chatbots able to collect, organize and simplify all the Internet has to say on any topic.

Spinoffs

One of the ways a company can try to unlock its own hidden value is by creating a separate company out of a corporate subsidiary. The parent company can either sell stock in the new company to the public, or spin it off—hand the stock out to its own investors.

Penny Stocks

A penny stock in general trades for under five dollars a share, and as the name implies, sometimes for pennies. Most of the time they’re young companies, or start-ups in speculative markets like mining or technology.

Mining Stocks

Mining stocks are investments in companies that produce or explore for minerals. Some of these minerals include uranium, coal, molybdenum (which is used in steelmaking), copper, silver and gold. They are affected by fluctuating commodity prices in addition to their own business and operating risks.

Energy Stocks

What are energy stocks?

Businesses that work in the extraction, refining and delivery of energy sources such as natural gas, oil, uranium and coal, are considered energy stocks.