Here's Why You Should Add Murphy Oil (MUR) In Your Portfolio

Murphy Oil Corporation’s (NYSE:MUR) stable financial position, cost-saving initiatives and low-cost asset development are expected to boost its performance in the long term.

Let’s focus on the factors that make Murphy Oil a profitable pick.

Zacks Rank and VGM Score

Murphy Oil currently sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Our proprietary VGM Score is based on research that has proven that stocks with the best value, growth and momentum characteristics outperform the market. V stands for Value, G for Growth and M for Momentum. Murphy Oil has a VGM Score of B.

Earnings Surprise History & Price Movement

The company has a four-quarter positive earnings surprise of 37.39%, on average.

Shares of Murphy Oil have gained 14.6% in the past six months against the industry’s decline of 8.2%.

Growth Projections

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Murphy Oil’s 2020 earnings is pegged at $1.23 per share on revenues of $2.99 billion. The bottom-line estimate suggests 11.94% year-over-year increase. The same for the top line calls for a 5.69% rise on a year-on-year basis.

Debt/Capital & Current Ratio

Murphy Oil is consistently undertaking initiatives to strengthen balance sheet. Currently, the company has a current ratio of 1.23. Its financial strength will enable the company to meet near-term debt obligation. Its long-term debt-to-capital ratio is 34.94% compared with the Zacks S&P 500 composite’s level of 42.99% and the industry’s 37.45%.

Boosting Shareholders’ Value

Murphy Oil has an extensive history of increasing the value of its shareholders, banking on steady cash flows and impressive performance. In the past 10 years, the company has returned $4.4 billion to shareholders through buybacks and dividend payouts. During the first nine months ended Sep 30, 2019, the company repurchased 16.4 million shares outstanding for $405.9 million. Subsequent to the third quarter end, the company repurchased 4.3 million shares outstanding for $93.9 million, which marks the completion of $500-million share repurchase program.

Other Stocks to Consider

Few other top-ranked stocks from the same industry are CENTENNIAL RES (NASDAQ:CDEV) , Continental Resources, Inc. (NYSE:CLR) and Devon Energy Corporation (NYSE:DVN) . All the stocks carry a Zack Rank of 2 (Buy).

CENTENNIAL RES, Continental Resources and Devon Energy have four-quarter positive earnings surprise of 4.72%, 9% and 2.14%, on average, respectively.

The long-term earnings growth rates for CENTENNIAL RES, Continental Resources and Devon Energy are pegged at 8.40%, 8.50% and 11.90%, respectively.

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