Here’s What Exxon Mobil (XOM) Is Doing to Stay Ahead of Competition

First Eagle Investment Management recently released its Q1 2020 Investor Letter, a copy of which you can download below. The First Eagle Fund of America posted a return of -23.72% for the quarter (without sales charge), underperforming its benchmark, the S&P 500 Index which returned -19.60% in the same quarter. You should check out First Eagle’s top 5 stock picks for investors to buy right now, which could be the biggest winners of the stock market crash. There weren’t a lot of funds who could deliver these kinds of returns without shorting the market or using aggressive put options.

In the said letter, First Eagle highlighted a few stocks and Exxon Mobil Corp (NYSE:XOM) is one of them. Exxon Mobil is an oil and gas company. Year-to-date, Exxon Mobil Corp (NYSE:XOM) stock lost 36.2% and on May 28th it had a closing price of $45.04. Here is what First Eagle said:

“The stock of Exxon Mobil, like all energy producers, suffered during an abysmal quarter for oil prices. With what we believe are significant, long-duration reserves and an attractive position on the oil-cost curve, however, we believe Exxon is better equipped than most of its competitors to withstand lower prices. As marginal players in oil patch go into distress, Exxon’s financial strength may allow it to be aggressive in acquiring attractive assets and preparing for a recovery.”

In Q1 2020, the number of bullish hedge fund positions on Exxon Mobil Corp (NYSE:XOM) stock increased by about 3% from the previous quarter (see the chart here), so a number of other hedge fund managers seem to agree with XOM’s growth potential. Our calculations showed that Exxon Mobil Corp (NYSE:XOM) isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.

The top 10 stocks among hedge funds returned 185% since the end of 2014 and outperformed the S&P 500 Index ETFs by more than 109 percentage points. We know it sounds unbelievable. You have been dismissing our articles about top hedge fund stocks mostly because you were fed biased information by other media outlets about hedge funds’ poor performance. You could have doubled the size of your nest egg by investing in the top hedge fund stocks instead of dumb S&P 500 ETFs. Below you can watch our video about the top 5 hedge fund stocks right now. All of these stocks had positive returns in 2020.

Video: Top 5 Stocks Among Hedge Funds

At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea.  For example, we are still not out of the woods in terms of the coronavirus pandemic. So, we checked out this analyst’s “corona catalyst plays“. We interview hedge fund managers and ask them about best ideas. You can watch our latest hedge fund manager interview here and find out the name of the large-cap healthcare stock that Sio Capital’s Michael Castor expects to double. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. Our best call in 2020 was shorting the market when S&P 500 was trading at 3150 after realizing the coronavirus pandemic’s significance before most investors. You can subscribe to our free enewsletter below to receive our stories in your inbox:

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.