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Pipelines and Automation: 2 Energy Plays Built for Any Oil Price

Written by Chris Markoch

As current events show us, oil prices are volatile. They can swing wildly based on politics, supply decisions, or shifts in global demand. That makes many energy stocks cyclical in nature, particularly those oil and gas companies that are engaged in drilling and exploration.

But there are companies with business models that hold up even when oil prices fall. Kinder Morgan (NYSE: KMI) and Halliburton (NYSE: HAL) are two such companies. Each is built differently from your average oil stock. One owns the pipes that move energy. The other provides the services that make wells work better. Together, they offer a smart way to stay in energy without betting everything on the daily fluctuations in crude oil prices.

Why “Built for Any Oil Price” Matters

Most energy companies rise and fall directly with oil prices. When crude oil prices rise, much of that increase goes directly to the company’s bottom line, which is great for shareholders. But there’s another side to that coin. When crude drops, their revenue drops too. But some companies have business models that reduce that risk.

Kinder Morgan, for example, earns most of its money from fixed fees. That is, customers pay to use its pipelines whether oil is cheap or expensive. Halliburton sells technology and services that help oil producers get more out of every well. When prices are low, producers need more efficiency than ever. That keeps Halliburton’s services in demand. Both companies offer stability that pure oil producers simply can’t match.

Kinder Morgan: The Pipeline Giant

Kinder Morgan is one of North America’s largest energy infrastructure companies. It owns roughly 79,000 miles of pipelines and 700 billion cubic feet of natural gas storage. That scale matters. Natural gas demand in the U.S. hit record levels in 2025 and is expected to keep growing. Kinder Morgan sits right in the middle of that flow.

The company’s fee-based model is its biggest strength. The vast majority of KMI’s cash is fee-based and therefore not directly exposed to commodity prices. That means a drop in oil prices barely dents earnings.

The company’s most recent earnings report proved the point. KMI reported adjusted EPS of 48 cents, a 41% increase from Q1 2025, beating analyst estimates of 40 cents by nearly 20%. Revenue of $4.83 billion was also well ahead of expectations. Both numbers were higher year-over-year.

KMI’s expansion backlog grew to $10.1 billion, driven by power and LNG demand. 

With Moody’s upgrading its credit rating and leverage at its lowest point since 2014, the financial foundation is solid.

The analyst forecasts on MarketBeat have an average rating of Hold on KMI with an average price target of $34.20. That suggests roughly 9%–10% upside from current levels. However, that upside comes with limited downside risk given the fee-based cash flows.

The board recently declared an increased quarterly dividend of 29 cents per share, or $1.19 annualized, which is a 2% increase over 2025. At recent prices near $31, the yield is roughly 3.7%.

Halliburton: The Oilfield Efficiency Play

Halliburton is the world’s second-largest oilfield services company. It provides the drilling technology, completion tools, and reservoir services that oil producers rely on. When producers want to squeeze more output from existing wells, which they do especially when prices are tight, Halliburton is the kind of company they call.

The company delivered a strong earnings beat on April 21. For Q1 2026, Halliburton delivered adjusted EPS of 55 cents, beating consensus by 10.55%, with revenue of $5.4 billion, up 1.8%. 

Net income surged to $461 million for the quarter. HAL has now beaten estimates in three of the last four quarters, reinforcing a pattern of conservative analyst estimates and consistent outperformance.

The analyst forecasts on MarketBeat give Halliburton a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $40.73. With the stock near $40, that implies slight near-term upside, but the “Moderate Buy” consensus reflects confidence in longer-term earnings growth.

Halliburton paid a 17-cent per share quarterly dividend in Q1 2026 and repurchased approximately $100 million of common stock during the quarter. The annualized dividend of 68 cents per share yields roughly 1.7% at current prices. The combination of buybacks and dividends shows management returning cash to shareholders even in an uncertain macro environment.

One risk worth noting: geopolitical tension in the Middle East hurt some international results. But Latin America revenue grew 22% in Q1, showing strong diversification across regions. READ THIS STORY ONLINE

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Follow the Flow: 3 Stocks Absorbing the Market’s Biggest Rotation

Written by Bridget Bennett

Market volatility has a way of scattering investors—but it doesn’t destroy money. It moves it. And right now, Larry Benedict, founder of The Opportunistic Trader and a 40-year market veteran, says he’s watching clear rotation into three sectors with specific stocks absorbing the bulk of those flows.

The backdrop is a market that’s done something genuinely unusual. After weeks of turbulence, the Nasdaq ripped roughly 20% off its lows while the S&P gained around 12–13%—one of the sharpest recoveries Benedict says he’s witnessed in four decades. And yet, he’s not ready to call it a new bull run. “I think we’re nearer the top end of the range,” he says, pointing to persistent geopolitical uncertainty, energy prices, and questions about what comes next for interest rates. He’s not ultra-bearish—but he is watching risk.

That watchfulness is exactly what’s driving his sector focus.

NVIDIA Leads the Mag 7 Surge

The first and loudest rotation Benedict is tracking is into the Magnificent 7—Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL), NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Meta (NASDAQ: META), and Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA). These names, which had been struggling for much of the early year, absorbed a massive wave of inflows during the recent rally and powered the Nasdaq to fresh highs.

The standout is NVIDIA. Benedict watched the stock fall from around $185 to roughly $165 at its low, then recover to over $200 in just two weeks—adding trillions in market cap at a pace he describes as unlike anything he’s seen. “That’s the big one,” he says. “That’s the one that’s outperforming everything.”

With Mag 7 earnings still ahead—NVIDIA traditionally closes out the earnings season—Benedict thinks results will be solid enough to support prices, with the caveat that the quarter after this one may start reflecting economic headwinds. For now, bulls are in control, and he’s not fighting that.

D.R. Horton and the Rate-Driven Housing Setup

The second sector seeing real money flow is housing—and Benedict’s read here is longer-term than just the recent momentum. He believes the market is underweighting a significant catalyst: a likely change in Federal Reserve leadership. With Kevin Warsh widely expected to step in as the next Fed Chair, Benedict anticipates a pivot toward lower interest rates that could unleash pent-up housing demand.

“I think that will cause a boom in the housing market,” he says. From his vantage point in South Florida, where he says he’s watched 20 new high-rises go up in his town alone, the demand isn’t theoretical—it’s concrete.

His preferred vehicle is D.R. Horton (NYSE: DHI), the largest-cap homebuilder in the sector. The logic is simple: when expressing a sector view, he wants the biggest and most liquid name.

DHI captures the housing thesis cleanly without the idiosyncratic risk of smaller builders. He acknowledges supply chain pressures could create headwinds, but believes the demand response to lower rates will more than offset them.

Oracle: The Software Sector’s Undervalued Rebound

The third area—and the one Benedict seems most energized about—is enterprise software, specificallyOracle (NYSE: ORCL). While Mag 7 names have largely reclaimed their losses, Oracle is still a long way from its all-time highs despite a meaningful bounce off its lows.

That gap is the opportunity, in Benedict’s view. Oracle’s AI infrastructure deals—including significant contracts tied to OpenAI—were the catalyst for its original run to near-trillion-dollar market cap territory. When sentiment turned and the market grew skeptical about AI CapEx spending, Oracle pulled back hard.

Benedict thinks that skepticism went too far. “The market has misjudged what these companies can actually do,” he says. He sees Oracle as operating in the same AI infrastructure playing field as the Mag 7, but priced as if it isn’t. Compared to fully-valued Mag 7 names, software stocks like Oracle have more room to run—even if the path is bumpy.

The risk is real: if the broader market corrects, software won’t be immune. And Benedict is candid about the longer-term AI question, noting that no one knows exactly how AI monetization plays out. The dot-com era is a reference point he keeps close.

But for investors willing to hold through volatility, the setup in software stocks—beaten down, under-owned, and sitting on legitimate AI revenue relationships—is where Benedict sees the most asymmetric upside of the three sectors.

The money is moving. The question is whether you’re positioned in front of it or watching from behind. READ THIS STORY ONLINE

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Chevron’s Pullback May Be a Buying Opportunity—Even If the War Ends

Written by Sam Quirke

Shares of energy giant Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX) are currently trading around $186, down over 10%from the all-time highs reached at the height of the recent Middle East tensions at the end of March. While that pullback might suggest the best of the move is behind it, the reality is far more nuanced.

The stock is still holding onto a significant portion of its gains from earlier in the year, and, more importantly, the underlying drivers of those gains haven’t really changed.

It makes for an interesting setup. The market appears to be acting as if everything is back to normal, where you’d typically expect geopolitical tensions to ease and oil prices to follow. Off the back of that assumption, you’d be forgiven for thinking that now is not the time to be buying Chevron. 

However, there are several reasons to think the company’s best days are ahead of it—let’s jump in and take a look at some of them.

Oil Is Still Doing the Heavy Lifting

The key thesis is simple. Chevron’s performance isn’t tied to geopolitical headlines; it’s tied to the price of oil. Right now, crude oil futures are still trading above $100 per barrel, around the same levels they were at during the initial shock of the crisis. That matters far more than the fact that equity markets already seem to be looking beyond the conflict as a whole.

While the benchmark indices have moved back toward all-time highs and risk appetite has returned, oil prices have remained elevated, which directly impacts Chevron’s earnings. In other words, even if equities are acting as if the whole thing never happened, the price of oil clearly isn’t. And that’s what’s ultimately going to impact the business’s revenues and profits.

What strengthens that case further is how well aligned Chevron’s underlying business actually is right now. Yes, the company’s upstream-heavy model means it directly benefits from elevated oil prices, but it’s not just a short-term trade on commodities. Several long-term growth drivers are beginning to align, including increased production across key basins, improved operational efficiency and cost discipline.

Chevron is also generating strong and stable cash flow, supported by a diversified asset base and a balance sheet that allows it to keep investing while still paying a decent dividend to shareholders. That combination matters, especially in a volatile macro environment, and means the company is not reliant on perfect conditions to perform. In other words, even if oil prices were to soften from current levels, Chevron is still well-positioned to generate meaningful free cash flow.

Analyst Support Is Solid

That view is increasingly being reflected in analyst commentary, with recent updates landing firmly in the bullish camp. The team at Scotiabank raised its price target, while BNP Paribas upgraded the stock from Neutral to Outperform.

Those moves echoed those of RBC, which reiterated its outperform rating the other week, itself built on bullish updates from Wells Fargo, Tudor Pickering, and Citigroup earlier this month.

Some of these refreshed price targets range as high as $235, implying nearly 30% in potential upside from current levels. More importantly, they reflect a broad-based view across Wall Street that Chevron is still undervalued relative to both near-term and longer-term earnings potential.

The company’s own outlook supports that view. Chevron is targeting meaningful free cash flow growth over the next few years, driven by large-scale projects coming online and continued cost efficiencies across its operations. This includes production growth from key regions such as the Permian Basin and major international developments, all of which are expected to drive a step-change in earnings power in the coming years.

Earnings Should Reinforce the Case

With the company’s next earnings due on May 1, the next catalyst is already in sight and fast approaching. Given the strength in oil prices over the past quarter, expectations will be high for Chevron to deliver strong results. If the company meets, or even exceeds, those expectations, it would provide further support for the bullish case and should help drive the next leg higher in the stock.

Considering the stock is back trading at the same price it was more than a week before the conflict erupted, while oil is trading at the same level it was when the conflict was escalating, the mismatched opportunity becomes clear.

That also means investors getting involved around these levels can do so right as the recent pullback tires itself out, which it looks to be doing this week. Having previously traded at extremely overbought levels, the recent correction could actually be a blessing in disguise for those looking to open or add to a position ahead of next week’s report. READ THIS STORY ONLINE

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The Night Owl is a financial newsletter that provides in-depth market analysis on stocks of interest to individual investors. Published by MarketBeat and Early Bird Publishing, The Night Owl is delivered around 9:00 PM Eastern Sunday through Thursday. If you give a hoot about the market, The Night Owl is the newsletter for you.

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