Two oil stocks: 1 buy & 1 hold

Article Excerpt

Oil prices have moved down lately, as higher production in the U.S. offsets cuts by OPEC. We still feel investors should maintain some exposure to oil, but you can cut your risk with integrated producers such as Chevron. CHEVRON CORP. $104 (New York symbol CVX; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Resources sector; Shares outstanding: 1.9 billion; Market cap: $197.6 billion; Price-tosales ratio: 1.8; Dividend yield: 4.2%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.chevron.com) is the second-largest integrated oil company in the U.S. by revenue, after ExxonMobil (New York symbol XOM). Producing oil and natural gas supplies about 25% of Chevron’s revenue. The other 75% of revenue comes from the company’s refineries, petrochemical operations and 7,800 gas stations in the U.S. Those refuelling stations operate under the Chevron and Texaco banners. The company has agreed to sell its downstream operations in British Columbia to Parkland Fuel Corp. (Toronto symbol PKI). Those include its oil refinery in Burnaby, 129 gas stations in the Vancou- ver area and a business that supplies…