Oil-services companies received lots of attention last week as the big names in the industry posted strong earnings that helped propel the energy sector to a weekly gain of 0.96%. For comparison, the S&P 500 only mustered a 0.23% gain for the week. While talking heads will focus on big guns like Halliburton and Baker Hughes as indications that oil services is the place to be, the real gains were found in other oil-services specialists. Newpark Resources (NR +2.36%) and Helix Energy Solutions (NYSE: HLX) last week saw shares surge a spectacular 15.3% and 10%, respectively. On top of that, Talisman Energy (NYSE: TLM) saw an impressive gain of 11.6%, but for entirely different reasons.
Check out the following slide show to learn more about earnings from Newpark and Helix that led to such impressive gains, why investors are taking a harder look at Talisman recently, and whether what happened last week will have an impact on any of these companies in the long term.
