Encana (ECA) Stock Lower Today on Decline in Oil Prices

Encana (ECA) stock is down today as oil prices fall.
By Amanda Schiavo ,

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Encana Corp. (ECA) - Get Report are down by 1.31% to $11.64 in mid-afternoon trading on Friday, as some stocks within the oil and energy sectors fall today due to the slump in the price of oil.

Crude oil (WTI) is slipping by 2.09% to $49.70 per barrel and Brent crude is retreating by 1.01% to $59.87 this afternoon, according to the index provided by CNBC.com.

Oil is in the red today as a strong jobs report pushed the dollar higher.

Data released from the Labor Department on Friday showed employers added 295,000 jobs to payroll and the unemployment rate fell to 5.5% for February.

Economists polled by the Wall Street Journal were expecting payroll to rise by 240,000 last month.

"This hawkish report is stoking the expectation for interest-rate hikes later in the year in the U.S., hence the dollar is rallying like a mad thing. This is providing gale-force headwinds for a crude move higher," commodity analyst with Schneider Electric Matt Smith told MarketWatch.

Separately, TheStreet Ratings team rates ENCANA CORP as a Hold with a ratings score of C. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation:

"We rate ENCANA CORP (ECA) 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 robust revenue growth, largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures and notable return on equity. 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:

  • ECA's very impressive revenue growth greatly exceeded the industry average of 18.7%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues leaped by 64.2%. 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 0.69, and is less than that of the industry average, implying that there has been a relatively successful effort in the management of debt levels.
  • ENCANA 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, ENCANA CORP turned its bottom line around by earning $0.31 versus -$3.79 in the prior year. For the next year, the market is expecting a contraction of 133.9% in earnings (-$0.11 versus $0.31).
  • ECA'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 31.49%, 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 $696.00 million or 25.56% when compared to the same quarter last year. In addition, when comparing the cash generation rate to the industry average, the firm's growth is significantly lower.
  • You can view the full analysis from the report here: ECA Ratings Report
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