Today’s 3 Best Stocks: O’Reilly Automotive Inc (ORLY), Apollo Group Inc (APOL) and More

Finally, oil refiner Tesoro Corporation (NYSE:TSO) pulled an about-face, rising 2.7% on the day, despite missing Wall Street’s profit expectations in the fourth quarter. For the quarter, Tesoro reported an adjusted profit of $1.34, as compared to the $1.46 the Street had expected. Investors seemed okay with ignoring the miss because of Tesoro’s comments that it was able to use heavy crude oil discounts on the West Coast to its advantage. It noted that heavy California crude traded at an $11 per-barrel discount to Brent crude compared to just a $1 per-barrel discount last year. Investors appear pretty confident that these advantageous margins will continue to benefit Tesoro, at least in the interim.

The article Today’s 3 Best Stocks originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Sean Williams.

Fool contributor Sean Williams has no material interest in any companies mentioned in this article. You can follow him on CAPS under the screen name TMFUltraLong, track every pick he makes under the screen name TrackUltraLong, and check him out on Twitter, where he goes by the handle @TMFUltraLong.The Motley Fool owns shares of F5 Networks. Motley Fool newsletter services have recommended buying shares of Teredata and F5 Networks.

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