Cut your oil risk with Chevron

Article Excerpt

We recommend that most investors maintain some exposure to the oil and gas industry as part of a balanced portfolio. That’s mainly because it offers a hedge (some protection) against inflation. To further cut your risk, you should focus mainly on high-quality producers, like Chevron, with large reserves in politically stable countries. The company is also an integrated producer, which means it both produces crude oil and refines it into usable fuels. As a result, its upstream businesses gain with higher oil prices, while its downstream operations gain when prices fall. We expect Chevron’s new projects and acquisitions will spur the stock higher in the next few years. The extra cash flow from those new assets will also let the company keep raising your dividend and buying back more of its shares. CHEVRON CORP. $155 is a buy. The company (New York symbol CVX; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Resources sector; Shares outstanding: 1.9 billion; Market cap: $294.5 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.5; Dividend yield: 4.2%; TSINetwork Rating:…