Is It Time To Buy Exxon Mobil?

Iain Reid from BMO Capital recently upgraded Exxon Mobil Corporation XOM to Market Perform and also raised the price target on the stock to $95 a share. Reid argued Exxon’s ‘strength in downstream business’ and ‘better positioning than peers’ as the reason for the upgrade.

CNBC’s Fast Money trader Stephanie Link and Nili Gilbert, co-founder of Matarin Capital recently provided their perspective on this upgrade and also discussed whether it’s time to buy Exxon.

“Its [Exxon] gone down the least of the big ones and so I kind of get that [BMO’s upgrade] and at the same time its off 17%, so, you are getting a better deal. It yields 3.2%, but I still think that capex budgets need to come down and earnings estimates need to come down,” Link said.

She continued, “there are a lot of other companies out there that they are doing kind of self-help things that are down even more and when I say that ConocoPhillips or Royal Dutch or Marathon, these companies are down 25-30% and they yield pretty attractive levels and, so, I think that there are better values […]”

When asked whether her firm owns Exxon or any other big energy stock, Gilbert said, “ Yes, when it comes to energy for us, we really try to spread our bets across industries and that’s been key in playing this sector. Whether you look at the energy group, down about 22% since the end of June, you see a lot of spread within that between sub-industries […] so, for us maintain a balance across energy has been really important.”