Oil stocks see broad selloff as Chevron’s buyout of Hess fails to fuel buying

Shares of energy companies traded broadly lower in premarket trading Monday, as the Chevron Corp.’s $53 billion stock deal to buy Hess Corp. appeared to do more harm than good for the sector. The Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF
XLE,
-1.62%
dropped 0.9%, with 20 of the 22 equity components that have traded ahead of the open losing ground. In comparison, futures
ES00,
+0.05%
for the S&P 500
SPX,
-0.17%
were down 0.5% and crude oil futures
CL.1,
-2.21%
fell 0.7%. Hess’ stock rose just 0.6% despite the buyout, as the fact that it was a stock deal sent Chevron’s stock falling 2.7% to pace the energy ETF’s decliners. The only other gainer in the ETF was Williams Companies Inc.’s stock
WMB,
-0.23%,
which gained 0.9% but on very light volume. Among other more-active ETF components, shares of Occidental Petroleum Corp.
OXY,
-3.62%
shed 1.1%, Exxon Mobil Corp.’s
XOM,
-1.47%
stock gave up 0.7% and Marathon Oil Corp. shares
MRO,
-1.12%
slid 1.5%. Shares of Pioneer Natural Resources Co.
PXD,
-1.46%,
which Exxon Mobil agreed to buy earlier this month in a $59.5 billion stock deal, slipped 0.3% in the premarket.