Energy stocks take over list of NYSE's biggest losers

Chris Nichols

With oil getting routed and derailing the market overall, it was hardly a surprise Monday that fossil-fuel stocks were in a similarly poor situation. But was it ever poor.

At the New York Stock Exchange, nine of the 10 largest percentage decliners on the second trading day of 2015 were involved in the petroleum industry. All of them had double-digit losses, with Canada's Baytex Energy (BTE) the worst of those, recently falling 14.5% to $14.39. Laredo Petroleum (LPI) followed with a 14.2% drop, and third was SandRidge Energy (SD), down 13.7%.

On and on it went. All along the list of notable Big Board movers, the story didn't change -- petroleum stocks were under severe pressure and taking up far and away the bulk of the leading losers.

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The decline in crude was impacting Nasdaq energy stocks, as well, although there the index's decrease was broader. Still, the energy side did have ample representation, but it was mostly smaller names in retreat, such as Eagle Rock Energy Partners (EROC). That stock was losing 12.7% to $2.21 in recent trading.

Meanwhile, the majors were having their own troubles. While the selling, in terms of percentages, wasn't as pronounced, the top names in oil were, to put it bluntly, tanking. BP (BP) was off 5.6%, Chevron (CVX) was down 4.1%, Exxon Mobil (XOM) was giving back 3.1%, and ConocoPhillips (COP) was worse by 5%.

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The ugliness in equities occurred as the two key crude futures contracts, West Texas Intermediate and Brent, sank to levels where they last traded in 2009. At one point, WTI was under $50 a barrel. Brent, which lost almost half its value last year as traders fretted about an oversupplied market, was down 6.4%.

U.S. drivers have benefited from lower gas costs for their cars, but the worries about the state of global energy pricing has kept stocks on edge, producing a few weak sessions of late. Monday was one of those days, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average off 325 points. The S&P 500 fell 1.8%.

As for oil, WTI crude was recently lower by 4.5% at $50.29 in New York trading.