Exxon Mobil profit tumbles 59 pct in 2nd quarter

Also, the Bank of Japan delivered a smaller-than-expected round of additional stimulus, disappointing investors.

From early April to early June this year, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil for September delivery added about $12 a barrel, rising to just over $50, and it looked like the market for crude was finally picking up.

The 30-stock Dow average slipped 10 points, less than 0.1 per cent, to 18,445, weighed down by the drop in Exxon Mobil.

Eventually, analysts say, that kind of lower spending by Exxon and its rivals will translate into lower production, smaller supplies and higher prices for oil. Eastern. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index lost five points, or 0.2 percent, to 2,162 and the Nasdaq composite fell four points, or 0.1 percent, to 5,135. Its major competitor, Chevron, fared slightly better.

The results beat Wall Street expectations, but Chevron does not adjust its reported results based on one-time events such as asset sales.

Shares of Exxon are down by 1.90% to $88.49 this afternoon.

Rex Tillerson, Exxon’s chief executive officer, said the overall results reflected the “volatile industry environment”, but defended the company’s integrated business model, where oil production and refining are under the same umbrella.

Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 1.25 points, or 0.03 percent, on volume of 29,373 contracts. Earnings in the S&P 500 so far are down 2.4 percent from a year ago, which is better than the 5.2 percent decline expected when earnings season started, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. The 41-cent-per-share result was 23 cents lower than the average of 20 estimates from analysts in a Bloomberg survey, the biggest miss in at least a decade.

Amazon rose 6.20 dollars, or 1%, to 758.81 dollars. Shell reported its weakest quarterly result in 11 years and missed analysts’ estimates by more than US$1 billion.

On Friday Brent crude dropped 1.3% to $42.66 a barrel, while U.S. crude fell 1% to $40.73 per barrel. Brent crude, used to price worldwide oils, rose 32 cents to $43.55 a barrel in London.

Japan’s central bank ended a policy meeting Friday by announcing it will expand purchases of exchange traded funds from financial institutions to help inject more cash into the world’s third-largest economy and pursue its 2% inflation target.

Separately, TheStreet Ratings team has this stock set as a “hold” with a ratings score of C. The company’s strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its reasonable valuation levels, largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures and solid stock price performance. However, the yen surged following Friday’s decision. Margins from refining oil into fuels at US refineries, based on futures prices, plunged 30 percent to a second-quarter average of $17.12 a barrel from $24.42 a year earlier.

Molchanov, however, expects oil prices to rise and said the company’s diversified business plan means it will be less able to make quick gains if oil prices do jump.