Canadian Natural Resources 2

This stock (TSX-CNQ) is on the Dividend Achievers at www.dividendachievers.com/ and the Dividend Aristocrats lists. It is a stock that I notice has been recommended lately as good value. It is hard to know what to buy in such volatile markets, so I am featuring ones who have recently been recommended in this tough market.

I have updated my spreadsheet for the June 2008 quarterly report. Looking at the ratings for this stock, they are from Strong Buy, Buy and Hold, with the mean rating being Buy. They have increased their dividend for this year in February 2008 by 17.6%. The P/E ratio has come down a bit. The Accrual Ratio has come down quite a bit, and this is good. The stock price is still about the Graham price, which is a good price to pay for this stock. It was the Graham Price being much higher than the stock price and the high Accrual Ratio I was concerned about with the December 2007 annual report. These problems has been resolved.

There is a loss in this 2nd quarter that has to do with revaluation of financial instruments they hold. These values are set by “mark to market” rules. They are not the only company affected by low market values in financial instruments and governments are rethinking the “mark to market” rules because with the freeze up of credit markets, financial instruments have much lower value that will be their ultimate value. It would take to long to explain this completely, but I would like to say, that I do not see this loss they have taken as a problem.

As far as the charts go, this stock has done was well as the TSX Index and the TSX Energy Index for the year to date period and for the last year. If you look at the charts for 3 years, 5 years and 10 years, this stock has done better than both the TSX Index and the TSX Energy Index.

Canadian Natural Resources Limited is a senior oil and natural gas exploration, development and production company. The Company's operations are focused in Western Canada, in the U.K. sector of the North Sea and in offshore West Africa. Its web site is www.cnrl.com. See my spreadsheet at www.spbrunner.com/stocks/cnq.htm. I have reloaded it with the June 2008 quarterly results.

This blog is meant for educational purposes only, and is not to provide investment advice. Before making any investment decision, you should always do your own research or consult an investment professional. See my website at www.spbrunner.com/stocks.html for a list of the stocks for which I have put up spreadsheets on my web site.