Two beaten-down juniors: 1 buy, 1 hold

Article Excerpt

PEYTO EXPLORATION & DEVELOPMENT CORP. $4.00 (Toronto symbol PEY; Shares outstanding: 164.6 million; Market cap: $644.3 million; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk; Dividend yield: 6.0%; www.peyto.com) produces and explores for natural gas and oil in Alberta. Its production is 88% gas and 12% oil. In the quarter ended March 31, 2019, output fell 16.3%, to 87,703 barrels of oil equivalent per day from 104,793 a year earlier. Peyto shut down some of its producing wells while it waits for gas prices to move higher. Cash flow fell 30.0%, to $0.63 a share from $0.90. The lower production and reduced gas prices contributed to the decline. Peyto plans to spend $185 million on exploration in 2019. That’s down 17.4% from $224 million in 2018, and down sharply from $517 million in 2017. Still, this year’s spending, plus ongoing drilling success, positions Peyto to report rising output when gas prices rebound. The company’s long-term debt stands at $1.2 billion, or a very high 1.9 times its currently depressed…