We’ve seen some big company shares tumbling in the past few weeks — Tesco, Sainsbury and Morrison are trading close to 52-week lows, for example.
But this week, we have a couple of perhaps unexpected ones:
BG Group
Take BG Group (LSE: BG) (NASDAQOTH: BRGYY.US), whose shares crashed back in January after the oil and gas giant declared Force Majeure when government diversions of gas in Egypt dealt a blow to the company’s LNG business.
At the time, the shares dipped to a then 52-week low of 1,008.5p, but they recovered reasonably well and came within a whisker of 1,300p in May. But ahead of third-quarter results, on 16 October the price plumbed a new depth of 1,000.5p.
And as expected, the Q3 figures released on 28 October were disappointing, with E&P production down 2% and earnings per share in the quarter down 29% to 22.3c. It remains to be seen whether new chief executive Helge Lund will revive BG’s fortunes. As I write, BG shares are at 1,044p.
Lloyds
Lloyds Banking Group (LSE: LLOY) (NYSE: LYG.US) was looking like a recovery success story, but its share price has slid in 2014 — it’s down 15% to 74.25p since 15 January. That’s still a little ahead of the 70.9p it dropped to on 15 April, but not by much.
The latest woes stem from the European banking stress tests, which slated Lloyds as the UK’s weakest — it passed, but only just. That, combined with fears that Lloyds might not do too well in the Bank of England’s own stress tests scheduled for later this year, raises fears that Lloyds’ plan to resume paying dividends in the second half of this year might have to be shelved.
After Lloyds’ earlier confidence, that would be disappointing.
Tullow Oil
Tullow Oil (LSE: TLW) shares have been hit by disappointing drilling results, with the latest being the plugging and abandonment of two wells in its offshore Kenya exploration areas. The fall in the second half of this year, however, started around first-half results time, and the news didn’t look bad — results were in line with expectations and Tullow reckoned it was “well placed for the remainder of this year and into 2015“.
With the shares dipping to a 52-week low of 473p on 16 October, and trading a little above that at 493p today, we’re looking at a forward P/E of 18 based on 2015 forecasts. Is that cheap? If Tullow’s exploration blocks prove as fruitful as the company seems to think, it just might be.