The Oklahoman, Oklahoma City, Eagle and Beagle column

June 19--Eagle

Oklahoma's public companies tilt heavily to the energy sector, which until very recently, had been bad news.

But crude oil prices have rallied since bottoming out in February, and our top-performing state stocks reflect that.

Shares of Unit Corp., a Tulsa-based drilling contractor, gained nearly 9 percent last week. UNT shares closed Friday at $16.89 with trading volume as high as we've seen in more than a month.

That closing price also is the greatest that UNT shareholders have enjoyed since Dec. 1, 2015.

While the stock remains more than $10 off its 52-week high, the shares have posted gains every week since the beginning of May. And those gains seem to be growing.

If this keeps up, we may start referring to it as The Big Unit.

Beagle

Wall Street hates uncertainty. And while the executives of our beagle stock last week are working hard to bring consistency to their firm's fortunes, it's slow going.

LSB Industries, an Oklahoma City chemical company, slipped nearly 8 percent last week. The stock price gapped down at the opening bell Wednesday and lost a bit more ground by Friday's close, where it landed at $12.84.

Over the past year, LSB has undergone a change of leadership, expensive repair work to its chemical plants that required heavy leverage to finance, and has spun off its climate control business.

A glance at the one-year LXU chart reveals strong volatility, with a couple of heavy downward swings.

While last week's slide wasn't good news, long-term shareholders have seen much worse.

Eagle & Beagle is a weekly look at the state's high-performing (eagle) and low-performing (beagle) stocks by Business Editor Don Mecoy.

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