We recently released a list 13 Best Energy Stocks to Buy Now. In this article, we will take a look at the position of Conocophillips (NYSE:COP) with other best energy stocks.
Recently, the global energy industry has been stunning by a variety of factors, including a trade war triggered by President Trump’s tariffs, the prospect of a global economic slowdown and the prospect of a sharp decline in crude oil prices. As a result, at the time of writing, the overall energy sector has fallen by 4.64% since the beginning of 2025, while the broader market has fallen by nearly 3.6%.
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The sharp decline in global crude oil prices is particularly severe, and so far there seems to be no sign of a reversal as supply is expected to increase while demand forecasts continue to decline. Oil prices for West Texas Intermediate Oil Price (WTI) fell to above $57 a barrel earlier this week, the latest level for Covid-19 Pandemic in 2021. But it has recovered slightly since then and is currently hovering around $61, which is around $61, which is caused by hope in romantic trading, which is a breakthrough between China and China between us in romantic trade talks. Still, low prices and higher costs have prompted many U.S. oil producers to brake into drilling new wells due to tariffs on steel and aluminum.
However, this cannot be said about natural gas and its liquefied state, and this is especially outstanding under the Trump administration. On the first day of his tenure, the president ordered the resumption of LNG export approvals and began revoking environmental regulations that slowed down projects. The United States is already the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas, with 1.2 billion cubic feet of outflows per day in 2024. Europe remains the main destination for LNG in the United States, accounting for more than 75% of total orders this year. Since the Putin administration invaded Ukraine in 2022, the continent has had to rely more on imported liquefied natural gas, less gas delivered through pipelines through Russia.
The expected ongoing AI boom is also an important growth factor for the gas industry, which has become a major competitor in powering data centers. These energy-intensive facilities may consume 9% of all energy generated in the U.S. by 2030, and this energy needs to come from a relatively clean, flexible and reliable source that is available in large quantities in the form of natural gas. Even if a quarter of data center load is expected to be provided by a generation of natural gas power generation, this will translate into a 2% increase in total U.S. gas demand in 2040, according to S&P Global Commodity Insights.
Natural gas prices have doubled since March 2024, providing a huge lifeline for the U.S. oil and gas industry in the last quarter, especially as profits from falling crude prices.
The underground pipeline network transports oil through wide terrain.
To collect the data from this article, we scanned the stock holding database of insider Monkey’s hedge funds and selected the top 13 companies in the energy sector with the largest number of hedge fund investors in the fourth quarter of 2024. Best energy stocks for hedge funds.
At Insider Monkey, we are addicted to the stocks accumulated by hedge funds. The reason is simple: Our research shows that we can beat the market by mimicking the top stocks of the best hedge funds. Our strategy for quarterly newsletters selects 14 small and large stocks quarterly, returning 275% since May 2014, exceeding 150 percentage points (See more details here).
Hedge Fund Holders: 86
Conocophillips (NYSE:COP) is one of the world's largest independent E&P companies based on oil and gas production and prove reserves.
Conocophillips (NYSE:COP) announced a $22.5 billion marathon oil acquisition last year, greatly improving its presence in the Permian, Eagle Ford and Bakken basins. However, COP also took on about $5.4 billion in marathon debt, which is now seeking to unload some assets to help strengthen its balance sheet as part of the deal. Since the acquisition, the company has dispose of assets worth more than $1 billion and has also announced plans to reduce its workforce, a broader plan to cut costs and simplify operations.
That being said, the deal also added more than 2 billion barrels of oil and gas resources, with an average supply cost lower than its portfolio. As a result, Conocophillips (NYSE:COP) released strong results in Q4 2024, reporting EPS adjusted EPS of $1.98, beating forecast of $0.15. The company's $14.74 billion revenue also exceeded expectations of nearly $515 million. In addition, in the fourth quarter of 2024, oil and gas giants' production increased by 14.8% to 2.183 million BOE/D.
Conocophillips (NYSE:COP) is known for its commitment to shareholders, with its continuous dividend growth of ten consecutive years with continuous stocks. The company returned $9.1 billion to its shareholders in 2024 in the form of buybacks and dividends, and plans to return $10 billion this year.
Overall, the police Ranked sixth On our list of the best energy stocks to buy now. Although we acknowledge the potential of COP as an investment, our belief is that AI stocks have greater hope to provide higher returns and do so in a shorter time frame. AI stocks have risen since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks have lost about 25%. If you are looking for AI stocks that are more promising than the police but have less than 5 times the gains, check out our report Cheapest AI stocks.
Read the next article: Buy 20 Best AI Stocks Now and According to the billionaire, there are now 30 best stocks.
Disclosure: None. This article was originally published in Inside monkey.