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Oil and gas stocks shock: basket beats the market by 16.8%!

Industry · Oct 16, 2026 · 3 min read · Updated Nov 5, 2026

TL;DR

Oil and gas stocks beat the market by 16.8% over the last 20 trading sessions. The basket rose while the benchmark slipped. Underneath, the gap between the best and the worst name was wide, and the short-window ranking almost reversed the longer one.

The oil basket went up while the market went nowhere

Here is the short version. Over the last 20 trading sessions the equal-weight oil and gas returned 15.3%. The market returned -1.5% over the same 20 sessions. The gap between the two, 16.8%, is the part a crude-price headline leaves out.

Oil and gas basket against the market
The basket's high point is the last day of the window, while the market line ends below where it started.
Data table
dateseriesvalueseries_role
2026-08-10Industry basket0.0%target
2026-08-11Industry basket1.0%target
2026-08-12Industry basket1.0%target
2026-08-13Industry basket-0.1%target
2026-08-14Industry basket1.1%target
2026-08-17Industry basket2.7%target
2026-08-18Industry basket4.5%target
2026-08-19Industry basket4.9%target
2026-08-20Industry basket6.7%target
2026-08-21Industry basket6.5%target
2026-08-24Industry basket5.1%target
2026-08-25Industry basket3.1%target
2026-08-26Industry basket2.4%target
2026-08-27Industry basket2.1%target
2026-08-28Industry basket2.3%target
2026-08-31Industry basket4.2%target
2026-09-01Industry basket6.5%target
2026-09-02Industry basket6.8%target
2026-09-03Industry basket5.7%target
2026-09-04Industry basket4.5%target
2026-09-08Industry basket5.2%target
2026-09-09Industry basket6.7%target
2026-09-10Industry basket7.0%target
2026-09-11Industry basket7.3%target
2026-09-14Industry basket7.2%target
2026-09-15Industry basket10.4%target
2026-09-16Industry basket4.9%target
2026-09-17Industry basket5.0%target
2026-09-18Industry basket4.3%target
2026-09-21Industry basket1.4%target
2026-09-22Industry basket0.4%target
2026-09-23Industry basket2.1%target
2026-09-24Industry basket2.9%target
2026-09-25Industry basket1.4%target
2026-09-28Industry basket1.5%target
2026-09-29Industry basket0.5%target
2026-09-30Industry basket0.4%target
2026-10-01Industry basket2.6%target
2026-10-02Industry basket2.6%target
2026-10-05Industry basket3.3%target
2026-10-06Industry basket3.6%target
2026-10-07Industry basket3.4%target
2026-10-08Industry basket6.6%target
2026-10-09Industry basket6.6%target
2026-10-12Industry basket8.6%target
2026-10-13Industry basket10.2%target
2026-10-14Industry basket11.3%target
2026-10-15Industry basket10.1%target
2026-10-16Industry basket13.6%target
2026-10-19Industry basket13.3%target
2026-10-20Industry basket13.6%target
2026-10-21Industry basket13.6%target
2026-10-22Industry basket13.5%target
2026-10-23Industry basket17.0%target
2026-08-10Market benchmark0.0%benchmark
2026-08-11Market benchmark-0.3%benchmark
2026-08-12Market benchmark-0.1%benchmark
2026-08-13Market benchmark0.6%benchmark
2026-08-14Market benchmark0.4%benchmark
2026-08-17Market benchmark-0.0%benchmark
2026-08-18Market benchmark-0.7%benchmark
2026-08-19Market benchmark-0.5%benchmark
2026-08-20Market benchmark-1.3%benchmark
2026-08-21Market benchmark-0.9%benchmark
2026-08-24Market benchmark-1.2%benchmark
2026-08-25Market benchmark-0.9%benchmark
2026-08-26Market benchmark-0.9%benchmark
2026-08-27Market benchmark-0.3%benchmark
2026-08-28Market benchmark-0.5%benchmark
2026-08-31Market benchmark-0.8%benchmark
2026-09-01Market benchmark-1.5%benchmark
2026-09-02Market benchmark-1.0%benchmark
2026-09-03Market benchmark0.0%benchmark
2026-09-04Market benchmark-0.4%benchmark
2026-09-08Market benchmark-0.9%benchmark
2026-09-09Market benchmark-1.4%benchmark
2026-09-10Market benchmark-2.0%benchmark
2026-09-11Market benchmark-1.1%benchmark
2026-09-14Market benchmark-1.6%benchmark
2026-09-15Market benchmark-2.0%benchmark
2026-09-16Market benchmark-2.5%benchmark
2026-09-17Market benchmark-1.3%benchmark
2026-09-18Market benchmark-1.2%benchmark
2026-09-21Market benchmark0.3%benchmark
2026-09-22Market benchmark0.3%benchmark
2026-09-23Market benchmark-0.4%benchmark
2026-09-24Market benchmark-0.5%benchmark
2026-09-25Market benchmark0.0%benchmark
2026-09-28Market benchmark-0.7%benchmark
2026-09-29Market benchmark-0.9%benchmark
2026-09-30Market benchmark-1.1%benchmark
2026-10-01Market benchmark-0.9%benchmark
2026-10-02Market benchmark-0.2%benchmark
2026-10-05Market benchmark0.5%benchmark
2026-10-06Market benchmark1.0%benchmark
2026-10-07Market benchmark0.8%benchmark
2026-10-08Market benchmark0.4%benchmark
2026-10-09Market benchmark1.0%benchmark
2026-10-12Market benchmark0.9%benchmark
2026-10-13Market benchmark0.9%benchmark
2026-10-14Market benchmark-0.2%benchmark
2026-10-15Market benchmark0.1%benchmark
2026-10-16Market benchmark-1.0%benchmark
2026-10-19Market benchmark-0.6%benchmark
2026-10-20Market benchmark-0.3%benchmark
2026-10-21Market benchmark0.3%benchmark
2026-10-22Market benchmark-0.9%benchmark
2026-10-23Market benchmark-1.4%benchmark

The basket holds 5 names, each given the same weight: Exxon Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Occidental Petroleum and EOG Resources. Stretch the window out and the lead is still there. Over 60 sessions the basket returned 19.1%. The benchmark returned 2.7% over the same 60 sessions. The prices here run through 23 October 2026, a week after the news. The rise came in the same window as reports of 「continued uncertainty over Middle East supplies」, which is co-movement, not proof of cause.

Glossary
basket
A made-up group of stocks held in equal slices, used to show how a whole industry traded. It is a measuring stick, not a product you can buy.
benchmark
A broad market index used as the yardstick for everything else. A stock ahead of it has gained ground on the market average over that window.

The average is tidy; the five names are not

ConocoPhillips leads the five with 27.5%. EOG Resources returned 12.8% over the longer window, well behind the leader. Chevron, Exxon Mobil and Occidental Petroleum sit in between, in that order.

The five names, ranked
ConocoPhillips leads the ranking over the longer window and EOG Resources sits at the bottom.
Data table
nameretseries_role
ConocoPhillips27.5%peer
Chevron22.3%peer
Exxon Mobil17.5%peer
Occidental Petroleum15.2%peer
EOG Resources12.8%peer

The spread shows up in one figure: the cross-member over 60 sessions was 5.3%. In plain words, the members wandered a fair way from the group average. Picking one name out of the basket is not the same bet as owning all 5. A comparison for these names is not available here.

Glossary
standard deviation
A measure of how spread out a set of results is. A bigger number means the members behaved less alike.
price-to-earnings
The share price divided by profit per share. It is one rough way to ask whether a stock looks dear or cheap against its earnings.

Around the news, the laggard ran hardest

Now zoom in to the days around the report. Abnormal return simply means a stock's move once you strip out what the whole market did on the same days. EOG Resources had the largest abnormal return after the event at 4.0%. Exxon Mobil had the smallest at 1.8%. The median of the group was 3.2%. In all, 5 tickers were measured.

How far did the strongest oil name run ahead of the market in the days after the report?

Show answer

4.0% EOG Resources had the largest abnormal return after the event at 4.0%. That is a surprise, because the same name trailed the whole group over the longer window.

That order is close to the reverse of the ranking over the longer window, a useful reminder that a short view and a long view tell different stories. My reading: the smaller drillers swing harder on supply news than the biggest major does. Either way, each of these names gained ground on the market in the days around the report, so this looks like an industry-wide move rather than one company's story.

Risks

  • An equal-weight basket of a few names is not the whole oil and gas industry.
  • A move this size can come from the whole market, not just this industry.
  • One member can dominate a small basket, so the average hides single-stock swings.

Sources

  1. FinMind USStockPrice SPY — data as of 2026-10-23; fetched 2026-10-24 18:33 UTC; License note: FinMind open data; original source TWSE/TPEx or US exchanges
  2. FinMind USStockPrice CVX — data as of 2026-10-23; fetched 2026-10-24 18:33 UTC; License note: FinMind open data; original source TWSE/TPEx or US exchanges
  3. FinMind USStockPrice COP — data as of 2026-10-23; fetched 2026-10-24 18:33 UTC; License note: FinMind open data; original source TWSE/TPEx or US exchanges
  4. FinMind USStockPrice EOG — data as of 2026-10-23; fetched 2026-10-24 18:33 UTC; License note: FinMind open data; original source TWSE/TPEx or US exchanges
  5. FinMind USStockPrice XOM — data as of 2026-10-23; fetched 2026-10-24 18:33 UTC; License note: FinMind open data; original source TWSE/TPEx or US exchanges
  6. FinMind USStockPrice OXY — data as of 2026-10-23; fetched 2026-10-24 18:33 UTC; License note: FinMind open data; original source TWSE/TPEx or US exchanges