Investors are in for more bad news on the energy front in the coming weeks as a host of the sector's biggest companies report quarterly results following the historic collapse in oil prices.
"It's all messy, and it suggests there's no easy way out of this. We have too much supply and too little demand," said Sameer Samana, senior global market strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute in St. Louis, which downgraded energy shares to its"most unfavorable" rating from"neutral" in early February.
On Monday, U.S. oil prices ended in negative territory for the first time in history, with the May U.S. WTI contract settling at a discount of US$37.63 a barrel. Historically, while lower oil prices are a negative for energy companies, they are often a boon for consumers and businesses that use a lot of oil, such as airlines and some chemical manufacturers."You could say this is great for airlines, but nobody is flying anywhere. You could say it is great for the consumer because gasoline prices are going to go down.