ConocoPhillips (COP 0.90%) stock jumped 3.3% through 11:05 a.m. ET Tuesday, and it's not hard to guess why.
New U.S. sanctions on Russian oil, combined with Russian oil major Lukoil declaring force majeure and canceling shipments from its West Qurna-2 oil field in Iraq, have oil prices marching higher. According to Oilprice.com, both West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and Brent crude prices spiked 1.3% today, and higher prices are pulling oil stock prices higher along with them.
Image source: Getty Images.
Oil prices
WTI crude prices are flirting with $61 a barrel, while Brent crude, the international benchmark, approaches $65 a barrel. That's not enough to erase the steep slide in oil prices experienced since 2025 began, but it's a good 6% more than Brent crude fetched as recently as mid-October.
Oil investors should perhaps not get too excited about these developments, however. As Oilprice points out, Brent crude "has been trading within the $63 to $66 per barrel so far in November, a very narrow bandwidth," and Lukoil's announcement didn't have as big an effect on prices as might be expected, considering the field in question used to produce nearly half a million barrels of oil equivalent a day.
Today's price spike could be less of a trend and more of a blip.
NYSE: COP
Key Data Points
Is ConocoPhillips stock a buy?
What does this mean for investors in ConocoPhillips stock?
Assume today's price spike doesn't last, and crude prices continue to trade in their "bandwidth." At $112.7 billion in market cap, ConocoPhillips stock costs about 12.5 times earnings. With a 3.8% dividend yield and a 5.6% long-term projected growth rate, that works out to a total return ratio of perhaps 1.3 -- not expensive, but not yet cheap.
I'd personally hold off on buying ConocoPhillips stock until that number improves even more.
