Occidental Petroleum Corp. stock underperforms

The shares of Occidental Petroleum Corp. dropped from 1.43% to $24.10 on Thursday. This proved to be an all-around grim trading session for the stock market, with the S&P 500 Index SPX falling 0.92% to 4,134.98 and Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA falling 0.94% to 33,815.90.

Occidental Petroleum Corp. closed $8.42 short of its 52-week high of $32.52 which the company achieved on March 5th. The stock demonstrated a mixed performance when compared to some of its competitors Thursday, as Exxon Mobil Corp. XOM fell 1.30% to $55.27, Chevron Corp. CVX fell 1.73% to $100.95, and ConocoPhillips COP fell 1.16% to $49.46. Trading volume remained 2.6 million below its 50-day average volume of 19.0 M.

Names like Costco, Target, Occidental Petroleum, Norwegian Cruise Lines and United Airlines are now in the index. Jamie Wise called it a shift more towards those industrial and value names, away from some of the higher-growth tech names.

The shift reflects investors’ “collective conviction” inmore “traditional, old economy” stocks. Occidental Petroleum Corp. has split from some of its larger rivals by rejecting a potential U.S. carbon tax, saying that it prefers the existing system of tax credits designed to encourage oil companies to store carbon dioxide and reduce emissions. The petroleum company has attempted to position itself as one of America’s more climate-forward oil producers, making its opposition to a carbon tax more noteworthy. The Houston-based company was the first large U.S. oil producer to announce a goal to reach net-zero carbon emissions and has ambitious plans to build in Texas the world’s biggest facility to store carbon captured directly from the atmosphere.