Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Royal Bank of Scotland on BP: "BUY" and "Anadarko Trades at $99,999, Briefly Halted" (APC; BP)

"Don't try to buy at the bottom or sell at the top. It can't be done except by liars."
-Bernard M. Baruch
S'truth. Plus we like Anadarko better (However, see links below for BP bonds)
BP's up 6.71% at $31.32, APC 2.29% at $38.92.
From MarketBeat:
There haven’t been too many of these lately.
RBS raised BP to “buy” from “hold,” saying essentially that some of the most-pessimistic scenarios they think possible have been priced into the shares.

All in, RBS thinks the disastrous spill in the Gulf of Mexico could cost BP somewhere between $16 billion and $67 billion. And by their math, BP’s valuation has tumbled by some $60 billion relative to its closest peers since the spill, putting the the costs priced in toward the high-end of the spectrum RBS envisions. (For their part, they put the base case costs at $38 billion, $22 billion less than the relative decline in the shares have seen.) BP shares are up more than 2.5% in London trading. The American depositary shares are up more than 5% early.

Of course, as we pointed out before, it’s proven particularly tricky for analysts to get their arms around the extent of the costs that might come from this oil disaster....MORE
From Barron's Stocks to Watch Today blog:
Clearly, somebody believes Anadarko (APC) shares have value despite the company’s ongoing tussle with BP (BP): The stock apparently briefly traded at $99,999.9999 before being halted by the New York Stock Exchange around 11 am, as related by Reuters’s Chuck Mikolajczak....MORE
Anadarko Rises Despite Supposed BP Bill
Shares of Anadarko Petroleum (APC) have defied the threat of a big BP (BP) bill for the Gulf of Mexico cleanup: the stock is up 88 cents, or 2.3%, at $38.95, despite the piece by The New York Times’s John Schwartz on Sunday that says BP will demand $272 million in funds from Anadarko because of the latter’s 25% ownership of the ill-fated Macondo well.
An Anadarko spokesperson tells Schwartz simply, “We are continuing to assess our contractual remedies.”>>>MORE
We first started talking nice about APC in "Bullish Options Plays in Anadarko Petroleum (APC)" and followed up with "UPDATED: Sometimes the Crowd is Right: Relatively Heavy Call Activity in Anadarko Petroleum (APC)" in which I noted
...Yesterday we posted "Bullish Options Plays in Anadarko Petroleum (APC)" and I received a couple emails that implied I had lost my marbles.
We answer all mail...
"BP Bonds Ooze Value" and "BP Bankruptcy Filing Would not Trigger Cross-default of Bonds" (BP)
BP: "Incompetence, uncertainty and risk" (among securities analysts)
More on BP's Bonds (BP)