NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Chesapeake Energy (CHK) - Get Report shares are down 4.94% to $15.40 in trading on Wednesday as falling oil futures prices take their toll on the oil sector today.

The natural gas and oil exploration company is falling as industry standard Brent crude prices for April delivery fall 1.39% to $60.17 per barrel. However, West Texas crude is gaining 0.53% to $50.79 today.

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Brent prices declined today after the U.S. Energy Information Administration released numbers showing that U.S. stockpiles of oil increased by 10.3 million barrels last week. The increase eclipsed analysts' two consensus estimates of a 3.7 million barrel rise and a 2.9 million-barrel rise.

The fall in prices calls into question the sustainability of the recent oil prices rally as the glut of supply on the market that has caused oil prices to fall over 50% over the past seven months continues to put pressure on prices.

"The main question is whether oil prices have started to bottom out, or whether it is too soon to make this call. We believe the latter," industry watcher ABN Amro wrote in a report today. 

TheStreet Ratings team rates CHESAPEAKE ENERGY CORP as a Hold with a ratings score of C+. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation:

"We rate CHESAPEAKE ENERGY CORP (CHK) 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 revenue growth, largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures and compelling growth in net income. However, as a counter to these strengths, we also find weaknesses including weak operating cash flow and a generally disappointing performance in the stock itself."

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

• The revenue growth came in higher than the industry average of 18.7%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues rose by 11.2%. Growth in the company's revenue appears to have helped boost the earnings per share.
• The debt-to-equity ratio is somewhat low, currently at 0.66, and is less than that of the industry average, implying that there has been a relatively successful effort in the management of debt levels.
• CHESAPEAKE ENERGY CORP reported significant earnings per share improvement in the most recent quarter compared to the same quarter a year ago. The company has demonstrated a pattern of positive earnings per share growth over the past two years. However, we anticipate underperformance relative to this pattern in the coming year. During the past fiscal year, CHESAPEAKE ENERGY CORP increased its bottom line by earning $1.83 versus $0.68 in the prior year. For the next year, the market is expecting a contraction of 80.0% in earnings ($0.37 versus $1.83).
• CHK's stock share price has done very poorly compared to where it was a year ago: Despite any rallies, the net result is that it is down by 28.99%, which is also worse that the performance of the S&P 500 Index. Investors have so far failed to pay much attention to the earnings improvements the company has managed to achieve over the last quarter. Turning toward the future, the fact that the stock has come down in price over the past year should not necessarily be interpreted as a negative; it could be one of the factors that may help make the stock attractive down the road. Right now, however, we believe that it is too soon to buy.
• Net operating cash flow has decreased to $829.00 million or 21.27% when compared to the same quarter last year. In conjunction, when comparing current results to the industry average, CHESAPEAKE ENERGY CORP has marginally lower results.
• You can view the full analysis from the report here: CHK Ratings Report