Oilfield services company National Oilwell Varco Inc. (NYSE: NOV) reported a narrower-than-expected first quarter loss on Thursday of just $0.06 per share. The consensus called for a loss of $0.10 a share.

The stock closed Wednesday evening at $31.70 and jumped to $33.10 (up 4.4%) at Thursday’s closing bell before adding nearly 9% on Friday. Year to date, the shares are trading up about 7.6%, much better than the S&P 500’s puny 1.05%, but over the past 12 months the stock is still down about 34%. Over two years the share price has been nearly halved.

The company cut its dividend from $0.46 a share to $0.05 a share to conserve capital and fired 6,000 workers in the first quarter with plans to shave even more later this year. The overall feeling among analysts, however, has been positive, probably due to the 20% hike in crude oil prices during the month of April.

Analysts at Credit Suisse remain cautious however:

We reiterate our Underperform rating owing to our view that much of NOVs business will not see a recovery until offshore activity begins to turn, a mid-2018 event in our view. Furthermore, an international recovery, an area in which NOV is also heavily exposed, will lag that of onshore North America. Our target price remains unchanged at $18 based on a blend of 2018 EV/EBITDA, “blue sky” 2018 EV/EBITDA and 2016 P/OCF.

Other analyst calls included the following:

• Cowen raised its price target from $25 to $28 with a Market Perform rating.
• Goldman Sachs cut its price target from $29 to $25 with a Neutral rating.
• KLR Group upped its price target from $48 to $52.
• Raymond James raised its target price from $34 to $44.
• UBS raised its price target to $25 but rates the stock at Sell.

Shares closed at $36.04 on Friday, up 8.9%for the day, in a 52-week range of $25.74 to $56.13. The consensus price target is $31.06, although the latest changes may not be included.

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