Weekly Performance Update On 6 Offshore Drilling Stocks

By Power Hedge: This proved to be a very positive week for the market as a whole. The S&P 500 and oil prices both increased last week. For the most part, shares in offshore drilling companies also benefited from the market strength over the last week. As usual though, not all of the companies' stocks reacted to the same degree to this market strength.

By Power Hedge: There was a broad market sell-off this week that negatively impacted the stocks of many companies. This was partially caused by a slow down in China's GDP growth. It may also have been affected by the jobs data that was released last week. Despite this, shares of offshore drilling companies held up quite well.

By Power Hedge: Overall, the market was flat for the past week. There was some strength early in the week due to renewed optimism in the state of the economy. The market declined later in the week and ultimately closed at the same level on Friday that it opened at on Monday. The price of oil was up slightly. This series is concerned with the performance of the six offshore drilling companies that I have been tracking for several weeks now. Let's see how each of them performed last week.

By Power Hedge: The market was up this week as measured by the S&P 500 which climbed from 1299.19 to 1317.82. The market was rather volatile during the week, reaching its weekly high on Tuesday, then bottoming on Wednesday, before recovering in the latter half of the week. Crude oil was much less volatile but did see a very slight decline to its close at $90.86. As usual, the stocks of the six offshore drilling companies that I track in these weekly updates reacted differently to the market action.

By Power Hedge: The overall market, as measured by the S&P 500, showed some strength early in the week, climbing to its intra-week high by midday Tuesday. The market then declined slightly but stayed strong on Wednesday before plunging on Thursday. We saw a slight increase on Friday but overall, the market closed the week around the same level as it opened. Oil prices were much less volatile and showed a slow decline throughout the week.

By Power Hedge: The market fell this week with the S&P 500 declining from 1342.49 to 1295.22. Most of the fall came in the last three days. The market was relatively flat on Monday and Tuesday. Crude oil prices were also down and remained below $100 per barrel all week. As usual, each of the offshore drilling companies that I track in this weekly series responded differently to the overall market decline.

By Power Hedge: The overall market was broadly down over the past week, although virtually all of this loss came between market close on Monday and market open on Tuesday. The broad index was quite volatile, with numerous dips and rallies over the week, but overall was flat from Tuesday to Friday. The volatility did make for an exciting week for traders. The oil markets, meanwhile, were also quite volatile and were up very slightly over the week.

By Power Hedge: The market showed considerable improvement this week. The S&P 500 opened at 1281.34 and closed at 1325.66, an increase of 3.46%. Oil prices also increased, but showed more volatility. Oil prices increased until midday on Thursday, when the prices began to fall. Prices fell into Friday and then rebounded somewhat. Overall, oil did close the week at a higher price than it opened the week with but it did not follow the same steady increase that the S&P 500 did.