(Bloomberg) -- In a measure of how badly U.S. energy equities have fared this year, only one company in Standard and Poor’s 500 Energy Index has posted a year-to-date gain.
ConocoPhillips is up 3.9 percent this year through Monday’s close, while the other 29 members of the index are in negative territory. The gauge itself has dropped 25 percent so far in 2018 and is on course to have its worst year since the financial crisis.
The tumble in crude prices in the past several weeks is largely to blame, but even before the slump, energy was an unloved sector.
Conoco is doing its best to curry favor with investors wary of the industry’s reputation for overspending and poor returns. Earlier this month, the company said it planned to buy back $3 billion of shares in 2019, bringing investor payouts, including dividends, to half its cash from operations if oil averages $50 a barrel (although Brent dipped below $50 on Wednesday for the first time since July 2017).
©2018 Bloomberg L.P.
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