Why don’t Big Oil and Biden agree on oil prices? Look to S&P 500′s top stock for answer

When Devon Energy announced fourth-quarter earnings on Feb. 15, the world looked like its newly comfortable, fiscally conservative oyster.

After losing nearly 90% of its value from 2014 through October 2020, the Oklahoma City-based oil and gas producer was the top-performing 2021 stock in the Standard & Poor’s 500, thanks to a concerted strategy of throttling back on exploration, squeezing costs and taking less risk. It turned a 2020 loss of $2.5 billion into a $2.8 billion profit for 2021, raising its dividend 45% and plowing nearly $600 million into stock buybacks after spending just $38 million the year before, with promises of more cash to rain on once-beleaguered shareholders soon.