Author ran sensitivity analysis on Devon Energy, found valuation highly sensitive to oil prices, and decided to take a smaller position.
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I was looking at energy stocks since the whole sector is beaten down and devon caught my attention. Low pe, decent dividend yield, strong cash flows. Seemed like a no brainer value play.
Then I ran sensitivity analysis on the dcf and it got complicated.
The thing about energy companies is that small changes in oil price assumptions completely change the valuation. At $70 oil devon looks undervalued by maybe 30%. At $60 oil its roughly fair value. At $50 oil it becomes overvalued so I run different scenarios on valuesense quickly and also checked what discount rates made sense for the sector. Ended up using 10% given the commodity volatility which is higher than id use for stable businesses.
The base case still showed upside but the margin of safety was way thinner than i initially thought. Im basically betting that oil prices dont collapse, which might be reasonable but its definitely a bet.
Also compared devons cost structure to peers using some data from finviz and company filings. Theyre not the lowest cost producer which means less downside protection if prices drop.
Decided to take a smaller position than originally planned. Maybe 2% of portfolio instead of 5%. The upside is real but so is the risk and i want sizing to reflect that.
Curious how others think about commodity exposed stocks in a value framework.