More Under-Dividend Stocks

Stock Tickers: APA, BHI, BJS, CHK, DVN, ESV, XTO, VLO

After digging through the Barron’s list of "under-dividend" companies, something else came back to mind again: there are too many energy companies with tiny P/E ratios that yield under 1%.  This is only some because there is a subjective group of companies.  It is possible that some may have decided to bump their dividends, but here are eight more "under-dividend" energy related stocks that could all be dividend hiking candidates:

Company (Ticker)                      Yield    P/E
Apache (APA)                             0.8%    10.9
Baker Hughes (BHI)                 0.6%    11.0
BJ Services (BJS)                     0.7%    11.0
Chesapeake Energy (CHK)    0.7%    10.4
Devon Energy (DVN)                 0.7%    12.6
Valero (VLO)                               0.7%    8.0
XTO Energy (XTO)                     0.9%    12.1
Ensco (ESV)                               0.2%    10.7

The truth is that these companies are all probably looking at other alternatives and opportunities and these have frequently reserved cash for outside opportunities.  If they aren’t going to make acquisitions that will help solidify their operations, then these should all start loosening up the hold on their wallets.

Shareholders now have more power then in prior times.  Activist shareholders force all sorts of action now, so if a company isn’t being generous enough with shareholders then it might be their own fault.

Jon C. Ogg
May 19, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at [email protected]; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.