Two Energy Stocks Making Big Moves In Opposite Directions Today

Moving on, shares of Weatherford International Plc (NYSE:WFT) are trading down by 15% after the company announced that it would be launching a concurrent underwritten public offering of its ordinary shares and issuance of subordinated notes of its wholly owned subsidiary Weatherford International Ltd. Through these offerings, Weatherford International Plc (NYSE:WFT) expects to raise $1 billion. At a time when other oil and natural gas companies are trying every trick in the book to reduce their debt and making all the effort in the world to lower their operating expenses, this announcement by Weatherford International hasn’t gone down too well with analysts. Investors of the company are also not happy with this decision, as not only does the issuance of fresh equity dilute their existing ownership in the company, they feel that the company’s plans to add more debt to its books when oil prices have crashed could result in its financial health deteriorating significantly.

Factoring in the announcement made by the company today, analysts at Morgan Stanley reiterated their ‘Overweight’ rating on the stock, but cut their price target on it to $20 from $22, which represents an upside potential of over 130% from the stock’s current price. The decline that the stock has suffered today has resulted in its year-to-date loss widening to almost 25%. Ken Griffin‘s Citadel Investment Group and Anand Parekh‘s Alyeska Investment Group both increased their stakes in the company significantly during the second quarter, by 89% to 7.75 million shares, and by 66% to 4.61 million shares, respectively.

Disclosure: None