NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- BP (BP) - Get Report shares are down 0.22% to $38.14 in trading on Thursday as falling oil prices, which are down for the third straight day of trading, take their toll on the oil sector today.

Industry standard Brent crude for April delivery is down 0.78% to $57.09 per barrel, while West Texas crude is also declining 2.18% to $47.12 per barrel in trading today. Crude for April delivery traded below $48 after falling 33 cents on the New York Mercantile Exchange for the first time in six weeks.

Oil prices have declined this week after a short rally on Monday as the dollar continues to gain strength in trading as investors anticipate the Fed raising interest rates in the wake of the latest release of the jobs report. 

Jobless claims fell again to 289,000 last week, a three week low that was better than the 305,000 new applications economists surveyed by Bloomberg forecast. As of February the U.S. unemployment rate is down to 5.5% and in the range of what the Fed has determined to be acceptable in a healthy economy.

TheStreet Ratings team rates BP PLC as a Hold with a ratings score of C. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation:

"We rate BP PLC (BP) a HOLD. The primary factors that have impacted our rating are mixed - some indicating strength, some showing weaknesses, with little evidence to justify the expectation of either a positive or negative performance for this stock relative to most other stocks. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its good cash flow from operations and largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures. However, as a counter to these strengths, we also find weaknesses including a generally disappointing performance in the stock itself, deteriorating net income and disappointing return on equity."

Highlights from the analysis by TheStreet Ratings Team goes as follows:

• Net operating cash flow has increased to $7,247.00 million or 33.85% when compared to the same quarter last year. The firm also exceeded the industry average cash flow growth rate of -11.94%.
• The current debt-to-equity ratio, 0.47, is low and is below the industry average, implying that there has been successful management of debt levels. Although the company had a strong debt-to-equity ratio, its quick ratio of 0.98 is somewhat weak and could be cause for future problems.
• BP, with its decline in revenue, slightly underperformed the industry average of 19.8%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues fell by 21.0%. Weakness in the company's revenue seems to have hurt the bottom line, decreasing earnings per share.
• Return on equity has greatly decreased when compared to its ROE from the same quarter one year prior. This is a signal of major weakness within the corporation. Compared to other companies in the Oil, Gas & Consumable Fuels industry and the overall market, BP PLC's return on equity significantly trails that of both the industry average and the S&P 500.
• The gross profit margin for BP PLC is currently extremely low, coming in at 8.97%. It has decreased from the same quarter the previous year. Along with this, the net profit margin of -5.95% trails that of the industry average.
• You can view the full analysis from the report here: BP Ratings Report