Devon Energy Stock Sinks on Dividend Safety Fears
Shares of Devon Energy (NYSE: DVN) tumbled 4.6% this morning within minutes of the market's opening. The broader markets were falling, and so were oil prices on fresh developments in China. Energy investors are now increasingly worried about Devon Energy's dividend safety, especially after the upstream oil and gas company paid out a smaller dividend in its last quarter.
Devon stock gained immense popularity among energy investors after the company started paying out a fixed-plus-variable dividend last year. The dividend has grown manifold in the past year or so, and investors in the stock were minting a lot of money until oil prices started to cool in recent weeks. The sell-off in oil has only intensified.
This morning, the price of U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude slumped more than 1% to levels not seen in nearly 11 months as COVID-19 cases continued to rise in China. The nation's zero-COVID policy and strict lockdowns sparked widespread protests across major Chinese cities this past weekend and added fuel to the market's fears about a potential fall in demand for oil from that nation.
Source Fool.com
