Shares of Phillips 66 (PSX) hit a 52-week high of $78.25 during Thursday’s trading session. However, the stock closed the session at $78.13, which reflects a solid return of 39.3% over the past six months. The average trading volume for the last three months aggregated 5,377,100 shares.
The strength of Phillips 66’s business model reflects its commitment to return value to shareholders along with its strong cash generation capabilities.
Phillips 66 has a good capital deployment policy through share repurchase and payment of dividends. During the third quarter of 2013, the company returned more than $863 million to shareholders through $189 million in dividend payments and $674 million in share repurchases. The company also repurchased 11.6 million shares of common stock as part of its previously announced $2.0 billion share repurchase program.
We believe that the increase in dividend and share repurchase programs will boost investor confidence in the stock, and drive shareholder value.
Phillips 66, an independent publicly traded company, was formed after the spin-off of the refining/sales business of ConocoPhillips (COP) in May 2012. The move resulted in the creation of the largest refining company in the U.S. and the largest exploration and production player based on oil and gas reserves.
Phillips 66 is headquartered in Houston, Texas. In addition to the refining, marketing and transportation businesses, the company has emerged as an integrated downstream company with most of the Midstream and Chemicals segments, as well as power generation and certain technology operations included in the Emerging Businesses segment. Phillips 66 currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
Meanwhile, one can consider better-ranked players like Athlon Energy Inc. (ATHL) and Harvest Natural Resources Inc. (HNR). Both these stocks currently sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).
To read this article on Zacks.com click here.
Get all Zacks Research Reports and be alerted to fast-breaking buy and sell opportunities every trading day.
Be the first to comment