Oil and gas stocks cover everything from the companies that find and pump the oil to the refiners that turn it into fuel and the tanker owners that move it. They share one thing: their earnings are set by a commodity price they do not control. That makes the sector cyclical, generous with dividends in good years, and painful in bad ones. Below, our model ranks every US-listed oil and gas stock by score and momentum.
Upstream companies such as EOG Resources and ConocoPhillips find and produce oil; their profit follows the oil price closely. Downstream refiners like Marathon Petroleum, HF Sinclair and Par Pacific earn on the margin between crude and finished fuel — which can widen exactly when the oil price is falling. Integrated groups like Petrobras do both. And tanker owners such as Nordic American Tankers earn on freight rates, not on the oil price at all.
The oil price — but not for everyone. A producer wins when crude rises. A refiner can win when it falls, because its input gets cheaper. Knowing which part of the chain a company sits in matters more here than in most sectors.
Supply decisions. Production quotas and spare capacity move the price more reliably than demand does over short horizons.
Capital discipline. After years of overspending, many producers now return cash instead of drilling. That changes the shape of the investment: more dividend, less growth.
The long-term question. Demand does not have to disappear for valuations to fall — it is enough that the market expects it to.
No. Producers usually do, because their revenue is the oil price. Refiners can move the other way, since crude is their raw material — a cheaper input can widen their margin. Tanker owners follow freight rates, which have their own cycle.
Several pay high dividends in good years, but the payout follows the oil price and can be cut. A high current yield on a cyclical business is not the same as a safe one — check the payout ratio and the debt on the individual stock page.
Upstream is finding and producing oil; downstream is refining and selling it. They earn from different things and can move in opposite directions, so an oil portfolio built only from one part of the chain is less spread than it looks.
After every close. Score, momentum and price targets are recalculated automatically, so the order always reflects the latest trading day.