Halcon Resources (HK) Stock Climbing Today as Oil Moves Higher
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Halcon Resources Corp. (HK) are up by 2.50% to $1.64 in early afternoon trading on Monday, as some energy stocks get a boost from the slight increase in oil prices, which is a result of the decline in the dollar.
Crude oil (WTI) is up by 0.56% to $46.83 per barrel and Brent crude is gaining by 0.29% to $55.48 this afternoon, according to the CNBC.com dollar index.
The dollar is down by 0.60% this afternoon, according to the Wall Street Journal index.
When the dollar declines oil becomes less expensive to those acquiring the commodity using foreign currencies, the Journal noted.
"At this point, the U.S. Federal Reserve...will have as much of a role in determining the path of crude oil as will Tehran and Riyadh," industry newsletter The Schork Report said, the Journal added.
Separately, TheStreet Ratings team rates HALCON RESOURCES CORP as a Sell with a ratings score of D. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation:
"We rate HALCON RESOURCES CORP (HK) a SELL. This is driven by a number of negative factors, which we believe should have a greater impact than any strengths, and could make it more difficult for investors to achieve positive results compared to most of the stocks we cover. The company's weaknesses can be seen in multiple areas, such as its generally high debt management risk, weak operating cash flow and generally disappointing historical performance in the stock itself."
Highlights from the analysis by TheStreet Ratings Team goes as follows:
- The debt-to-equity ratio is very high at 2.11 and currently higher than the industry average, implying increased risk associated with the management of debt levels within the company. Along with the unfavorable debt-to-equity ratio, HK maintains a poor quick ratio of 0.93, which illustrates the inability to avoid short-term cash problems.
- Net operating cash flow has decreased to $86.04 million or 15.90% when compared to the same quarter last year. In conjunction, when comparing current results to the industry average, HALCON RESOURCES CORP has marginally lower results.
- HK'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 58.43%, 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. Naturally, the overall market trend is bound to be a significant factor. However, in one sense, the stock's sharp decline last year is a positive for future investors, making it cheaper (in proportion to its earnings over the past year) than most other stocks in its industry. But due to other concerns, we feel the stock is still not a good buy right now.
- HALCON RESOURCES 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, HALCON RESOURCES CORP turned its bottom line around by earning $0.47 versus -$3.11 in the prior year. For the next year, the market is expecting a contraction of 106.4% in earnings (-$0.03 versus $0.47).
- Regardless of the drop in revenue, the company managed to outperform against the industry average of 19.6%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues fell by 16.3%. The declining revenue has not hurt the company's bottom line, with increasing earnings per share.
- You can view the full analysis from the report here: HK Ratings Report