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Shares of Chevron and Exxon Mobile are on the move after reporting earnings. Chevron, if you can take a look at that stock, you see Chevron moving lower, Exxon moving to the upside, but Chevron cutting plans for its share buybacks, while Exxon Mobile gains after reporting it is on pace for its planned $20 billion in buybacks. Both companies dealing with a slowdown in oil prices as well. Joining us now with more Dan Dicker, the Energy Word founder. Dan, great to speak with you here. I want to start with your overall takeaway from how these two firms were able to handle the slide in oil prices that we've seen over the course of the last quarter. To what extent did that impact these names?

Well, both, both have reported. I mean, the expectations were already very bad for both Chevron and Exxon. Exxon executed better. I mean, they definitely beat the expectations, but their expectations were down for the last three quarters. And obviously, it's based on an oil price that is continuing to be under pressure and with increasing recession risks that continue to to build out there. Uh, it doesn't bode well. Till this morning, I mean, obviously, Exxons did doing a little bit better in the market than Chevron is based on that better execution. But the bottom line problem for both of these companies is clearly price of oil. And and that's something that they're going to have a difficulty maneuvering going forward, both of them.

Yeah, oil, even with some of the interim rebound that we've seen, is still set for another weekly loss here. And so, all of that considered, as you're kind of looking out into the future and the forecast for both of these companies, you have a president that's talked about drill, baby, drill. But for these companies that are also trying to maintain their own margins and have a duty to investors to really showcase what that pipeline looks like for the future prospects of the business, you know, how are you kind of drawing, drawing a line between the two, what is kind of talked about from the administration side, but what's the reality for the business and the industry more broadly?

Yeah, I mean, quite frankly, the, um, whatever it is that the oil companies managed to get out of the White House in terms of some a couple of cabinet picks and so on, is not being, um, uh, reflected in terms of positives for the companies compared to obviously the tariff problem and the recession risk that's going into it. I mean, you don't have to be a genius to realize that these companies rely upon a price in order for them to make profits. And it's just not there. I mean, at this point, I've been negative on, on majors since the middle of 24, actually, as these kind of supply demand numbers have gone against the oil companies for a while. And that's proved out. And it's getting worse all the time. I mean, I've been trying to tell my investors that the best values are really in the renewable sustainable space. Unfortunately, the Trump administration has disincentivized all of that as well. I mean, they've stopped payments on the, um, the Biden, um, inflation reduction act that was helping all of these renewables gain their footing. And so right now there's dead money everywhere in the energy sector. I mean, I can't tell people to put money into Exxon or Chevron, I can't tell people to put money into constellation or or first solar. And you know, I tell them that they've got to sit back at least in the energy sector and wait, and maybe put their money in Bitcoin because it seems like that's what the president is interested in pushing for.

So you're saying there's no opportunity within the energy sector right now, even when you do, you know, you have Exxon maintaining buybacks, that doesn't entice you?

Well, they've been maintaining buybacks for many, many years, and they've solid in that. So what I tell people is that, yeah, you can own majors, but depend upon the dividend, depend upon, you know, the bond, like a bond, and play it that way. I mean, you basically are looking at a company that has very little upside alpha that's going for it. And you know, so basically what you're dealing with is something that's very much like a fixed income kind of investment. Now, a lot of people don't mind having something like that. I have majors in my portfolio too, but I don't take it as something that's this tremendous opportunity for, you know, a 20 or a 30% gain or something even better than that.

Dan, good to get your perspective as always. Thanks so much for joining us this morning.