Warren Buffett, Carl Icahn, Jerry Jones and Sam Zell are just a few of the bargain-hunters flocking to the energy industry — the worst-performing sector of 2019.
The miserable year caps a grim decade, which has brought the oil and gas sector’s weighting in the S&P 500’s market capitalisation to a record-low 4 per cent. That is down dramatically from the 13 per cent weighting of 2008, when oil was trading above $140 a barrel and the world was much less determined to wean itself off fossil fuels.
Valuations have plummeted along the way. In 2011 the energy sector was trading at about the same level as the broader market, as a multiple of book value. Now the gap is huge: 1.5 times for energy, 3.5 times for the S&P.