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Transocean s storm tossed stock can ride gains in oil

Since topping out in 2008, Transocean has been where money goes to die. It might be ready to come back to life.

The last decade has been painful for anyone who owned Transocean. The offshore driller’s shares have tumbled more than 80% over the past 10 years and have yet to recover from the drubbing they took first during the financial crisis, and then again when oil prices collapsed starting in 2014.

With oil prices rising, however, Transocean’s stock, though volatile, appears to have found a bottom. And with business conditions improving along with crude prices, Transocean could be set to do something it hasn’t done in a long while—go up and stay up.

That doesn’t make Transocean a safe play, by any means. Its stock has gained 28% this year but has suffered two drops of more than 24% during that period. Its shares are most certainly not for the faint of heart. “It’s wildly volatile,” says Rich Ross, head of technical analysis at Evercore ISI. “The pullbacks are not your gentle dips.”

Yet Ross is encouraged by how Transocean’s stock has been acting. The stock, for instance surged 29% from Sept. 9 through Sept. 25, a period that followed its announced deal to acquire Ocean Rig UDW. In the past, such rallies had been greeted with sharp pullbacks, but not this time. Transocean’s stock has declined just 2.1% during the past week.

“Anyone can take the gains, but you have to hold the gains,” Ross says. “It gives me further confidence that the stock can push out from short-term resistance.”

The technical story wouldn’t matter as much if Transocean’s fundamental story weren’t also compelling. In upgrading shares of Transocean on Sept. 20, RBC Capital Markets analyst Kurt Hallead argued that the rig market was finally beginning to rebound from its lowest level in more than 30 years. Rig-utilization rates dropped under 60% during oil’s crash, something that hadn’t happened since 1985. Utilization is starting to improve, however, and if that’s the case, there could be lots of upside left in Transocean’s stock. After it bottomed in 1985, the average offshore driller gained 40% for two consecutive years, Hallead explains.

There’s a good reason for those gains—higher utilization means higher prices paid to use the rigs. For instance, Hallead expects utilization of ultra-deepwater rigs to hit 85% by 2022, up from 54% now. As a result, he estimates that rates will rise to $400,000 a day, from between $150,000 to $160,000 now.

He estimates Transocean could earn $2.94 a share in 2022, up from his previous estimate for $1.35. Based on those numbers, Hallead raised his price target on Transocean to $30 from $15, implying a potential gain of 120% from Friday’s close of $13.66.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Transocean first needs to break through resistance at around $14 a share, Evercore’s Ross says. The stock faces another roadblock around $16.50. But if that breaks, it would have room to hit $25 a share.

Yes, that’s a gain of more than 80%. But remember, Transocean was a $161 stock back in May 2008, and such a gain would still leave it 80% below its all-time high. “Percentages get squishy when stocks get compressed like that,” Ross says.

Published: 07-10-2018

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