RE:RE:DisconnectGood analysis Clem...
If we see a positive earnings surprise it is possible that we could see a pop in the SP.
That said, in resoponse to your last point, some things to consider....
The "Grownups" on The Street at a macro level look at asset allocation.The first level is equities vs fixed income. The next level in regards to equities is asset allocation within equities in regard to inudtry weightings and then finally actual allocation within the various industry grouping. Going through this process could lead to less demand for SU shares and a lower SP despite earnings not going down or going down by a lessor amount.
For the purposes of illustration, here is a scenario...
There is reason to believe that The Fed is through raising rates or at worse it might raise by one more 25 basis points hike and then next year begin a process of lowering rates back toward what they were a year ago. In such a scenario, bond investors would make significant capital gains as interest rates go down, and, at a much lower risk adjusted basis than owning equities. This would be especially true if there is a recession or a significant slowdown in economic growth. In order to benefit from this, they would reduce their portfolio allocation in equities and raise their allocation of bonds and this would result in lower equity prices even if earnings were still relatively OK.
The next layer is equity asset allocation. If there is a belief that there are other sectors of the economy that hold promise of higher growth than energy/oil, then there would be the selling of oils and the buyers of some other industry. This would have the effect of reducing the performance of oils even though the price of oil went up around 25%.
The final layer is asset allocation within an industry sector. So when the oil price was low and people like Migraine had done their homework, they would be more interested in buying shares of a pure oil producer as opposed to a vertically integrated oil company like SU and hence would sell SU to buy another oil company. We discussed here a few days ago the differential impact of the recent rise in oil prices across various oil companies.
So when one looks at it from this perspective you can see that there is a lot going on "under the hood" and this has to be considered when making investment choices and making forecasts about future stock prices. The better you get thinking like the Grownups, the more money you will make and less number of mistakes you will make.