Our latest advice on two shale producers

Article Excerpt

DEVON ENERGY CORP. $55.14 (New York symbol DVN; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative) (405-235- 3611; www.dvn.com; Shares outstanding: 409.1 million; Market cap: $22.6 billion; Dividend yield: 1.7%) is one of the largest U.S.-based oil and natural gas explorers and producers. Its production mix is 48% gas and 52% oil. In 2011, Devon sold all of its international and Gulf of Mexico properties, which it saw as risky and expensive to develop. The company narrowed its focus even further with the July 2014 sale of some of its properties to Linn Energy for $2.3 billion. The sale included Devon’s holdings in the Rockies, the onshore Gulf Coast and the Mid-Continent region (which includes Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas). The sale lets Devon focus on what it views as lowrisk/ high-reward properties, especially the oilproducing assets it bought in Texas’s Eagle Ford shale formation for $6 billion last year. As well, 80% of the production from the properties Devon sold to Linn is natural gas,…