Why Oasis Petroleum Stock Jumped 33% at the Open Today

Shares of U.S. oil and natural gas company Oasis Petroleum (NYSE: OAS) rose as much as 33% in the first half hour of trading on Aug. 5. That's an impressive advance, though investors have to remember that the stock is still down over 70% for the year -- including that big gain. The main driver of the early stock rally was the company's quarterly earnings update, which was, on the surface, pretty bad.

Oasis lost $0.29 per share in the second quarter of 2020 compared to a profit of $0.14 in the same quarter of 2019. Revenue was off by nearly 70% and production was lower by nearly 40% year over year and down by a third sequentially from the first quarter of 2020. These are not particularly good numbers. However, given the massive supply/demand imbalance in the energy sector, driven by the economic shutdowns to slow the spread of COVID-19, investors had low expectations here.

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Source Fool.com