ExxonMobil (XOM.US) stock dropped nearly 5% after The Wall Street Journal reported that the SEC opened an investigation into the oil giant after employee's whistleblower complaint about an asset valuation. The complaint shows that employees had been forced to make aggressive assumptions on how quickly company could drill wells at its fields in the Permian Basin in Texas, in order to justify the high valuation the company wanted to assign to the assets. At least one of the workers involved in the complaint was fired last year, a knowledgeable source told WSJ. The complaint led to the SEC investigation, sources told the paper. Exxon spokesman Casey Norton declined to comment on whether there’s an investigation.
Separately, yesterday Barclays upgraded the stock to an overweight rating, saying “a perfect storm of a more constructive macro outlook and structural repositioning of capex/costs is providing a solid springboard for materially improved financial metrics that are impossible to ignore.” Earlier in the week JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley each upgraded the stock to a buy-equivalent rating.
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ExxonMobil (XOM.US) stock has soared 47% in the past three months, as oil prices have rebounded but are down more than 30% over the last year. Stock launched today's session lower, however buyers managed to halt declines at $48.00 support level. Source: xStation5
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