We recently compiled a list of the 12 Hot Oil Stocks to Buy According to Hedge Funds. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Energy Transfer LP (NYSE:ET) stands against the other hot oil stocks.
The United States of America is currently producing more oil and gas than any other country in the history of the world, with no signs of a slowdown. The country’s oil production has surged by almost 50% in the last ten years, reaching just over 13.45 million barrels per day in October 2024.
READ ALSO: 12 Best Fortune 500 Dividend Stocks to Buy Right Now
These numbers could now pump even higher after President Donald Trump has held up the oil industry as a centerpiece of his broader economic mission, with claims that ‘we will drill, baby, drill’. The president has also signed executive orders declaring a national energy emergency and withdrawing from the landmark 2015 Paris climate agreement, the international pact to fight global warming. Trump has also swept aside the freeze on LNG export permits and signed orders to promote oil and gas development in Alaska, though the industry is unlikely to expand there anytime soon.
These aggressive steps have raised concerns of higher US output in a market that is already widely expected to be oversupplied this year. As per the International Energy Agency’s recent market outlook, growth in the global demand for oil is expected to slow down in the coming years as energy transitions advance, putting downward pressure on prices. The US Energy Information Administration stated earlier this month that it expects Brent crude oil prices to fall 8% to average $74 a barrel in 2025, then fall further to $66 a barrel in 2026.
So it still remains to be seen whether the US oil majors will answer the President’s call and shell out the big bucks required to heavily boost their production. Instead, companies appear to have shifted their focus from aggressive growth to keeping their shareholders happy through fat dividends and generous share buybacks. Despite the falling oil prices, more and more fossil fuel companies are returning a bigger chunk of their profits to shareholders, signaling a clear priority shift away from reinvestment in oilfield development. Several oil bigwigs have even resorted to borrowing to make sure they leave their shareholders satisfied, as revealed by Bloomberg that four of the world’s five oil ‘supermajors’ saw fit to borrow $15 billion to fund share buybacks between July and September 2024.
Therefore, according to a recent survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, only 14% of oil and gas executives plan to significantly increase capital spending this year, while more of them have plans to cut spending instead of ramping it up. But this doesn’t mean that America’s oil and gas sector doesn’t stand to win with Donald Trump in the Oval Office, especially since it poured more than $75 million in donations to his campaign. The American Petroleum Institute, the most powerful oil lobby in the United States, has outlined a wishlist of 70 policy actions it is seeking from Republicans, including issuing a new 5-year offshore leasing program and repealing environmental standards on vehicle emissions.
Methodology:
To collect data for this article, we used a stock screener to pick oil stocks that have gained over 20% in the last 12 months, as of the close of January 18, 2024. From this group, we picked the 12 companies with the highest number of hedge fund investors, according to Insider Monkey’s database of Q3 2024. The stocks are arranged in ascending order of the number of hedge funds invested in them. Following are the Hottest Oil Stocks to Buy According to Hedge Funds.
At Insider Monkey we are obsessed with the stocks that hedge funds pile into. The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).
An aerial view of an oil rig at sunrise, emphasizing the power of the natural gas transportation industry.
Energy Transfer LP (NYSE:ET)
Gain Over Past 12 Months: 47.35%
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 29
Energy Transfer LP (NYSE:ET) is one of the largest and most diversified midstream energy companies in North America with approximately 133,000 miles of pipelines transporting oil and gas products.
Energy Transfer LP (NYSE:ET) remains focused on expanding its transportation and processing footprint in the Permian basin and acquired WTG Midstream Holdings in a $3.25 billion deal last year. The company also announced the formation of a JV with Sunoco LP last summer, combining their respective crude oil and produced water gathering assets in the Permian Basin. These, combined with several other expansion projects to enter service this year, should supply ET with a healthy stream of incremental income in the coming quarters.
Energy Transfer LP (NYSE:ET) announced last month that its unit has entered a 20-year LNG sale and purchase agreement with oil and gas major Chevron, putting its long-delayed Lake Charles export terminal another step closer to becoming a reality. The company’s LNG business is also expected to significantly benefit from President Donald Trump’s recent order to reverse a pause on permits for new LNG projects that former President Joe Biden put in place in early 2024.
Energy Transfer LP (NYSE:ET) has also recently highlighted strong interest from power generation firms and data center operators in natural gas pipeline projects, driven by the surging power demands from the expansion of AI infrastructure. Moreover, to support its operations and increase system reliability, the company has started construction on eight 10-MW natural gas-fired electric generation facilities, which are expected to come online this year.
Energy Transfer LP (NYSE:ET) announced a quarterly dividend of $0.3225 per share in October 2024, marking the 12th consecutive quarterly dividend increase, and firmly placing it in our list of the Top 20 Dividend Stocks of 2024.
Patient Capital Management stated the following regarding Energy Transfer LP (NYSE:ET) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:
“Energy names disappointed in the quarter following commodity prices lower throughout the period. We took the opportunity to add to our highest conviction ideas. We look to names that have idiosyncratic opportunities and are attractive in a variety of different commodity price environments. Many see risk to energy prices over the next year as supply is expected to outstrip demand by 1.3mb/d even before assuming any incremental OPEC supply comes onto the market. With commodities, consensus is rarely right. We assess companies on through cycle returns and normalized prices. From this perspective, we see a handful of attractive opportunities, including Energy Transfer LP (NYSE:ET), Seadrill, and Kosmos.
Our ownership of Energy Transfer began in 2019 with the belief that the limited supply of new pipelines would provide attractive pricing opportunities over the long-term. At the same time, the company was paying us an attractive dividend (10% yield over the period). So far this investment thesis has largely played out, but we continue to see an attractive long-term setup for the name given our belief that natural gas will be a key ingredient to bridge us to a net carbon neutral world.”
Overall ET ranks 8th on our list of the best hot oil stocks to buy according to hedge funds. While we acknowledge the potential for ET as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than ET but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stock To Buy Now and Complete List of 59 AI Companies Under $2 Billion in Market Cap
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
