Reply to iMAnewBEThis is a serious non-bias, totally factual reply to your query ALONG with some "wise" advice from a very experienced investor/ Should you wish to read these enlightened comments and/or take that "advice" is totally your perorative & choice! I'll begin with the last question first.......
"Someone enlighten me why I shouldn't just give up and move on?"
To answer this, the first question should be asked & directed to yourself and WHY you are here in the first place. What's your objective or goal? Is this just some "stock tip" someone gave you or did you just throw a dart and invested wherever it randomly landed? If it's neither and you're serious, knowledgeable investor and did your DD before investing, then what were your objectives with this particular investment? Was this a short-term trade OR a more longer term endeavor? If the latter, what was the main attraction? Was it for the passive income & divvy or for the potential appreciable rise in the stock price? If it's JUST for the former, then you did not choose "wisely" and would suggest you reassess that decision. If it's for the latter solely, then you should have done some further DD and kept up with recent developments in the last few years.
If on the other hand, it's for both, then i would say the following. Though Suncor provides an "acceptable" passive income through its mediocre divvy, considering it's current "precarious & stagnant" situation and the risks involved with the company along with it's future prospects, i would say that there are much better & attractive investments out there in the Canaidan O&G sector than Suncor with much less risk. So ask yourself WHY are you REALLY here? And you'll get your answer.
"How long should i wait for this Stock to catch up to its peers?"
It depends. It depends on what YOU would consider its peers. Are Exxon or ConocoP its peers? No/Yes? Is it Enbridge? No/Yes? Is it Imperial? No/Yes? Then Is Canadian UnNatural or Cenovus its peer? No/Yes? Then Is Tourmaline or Arc its peer? Maybe it's CrescentPoint & WhiteCap? Which peers are YOU talkin about? Well, if you aren't certain yourself and now are in doubt and question that premise, then let me enlighten you once again.
First recognize WHAT Suncor REALLY is. Suncor is SOLELY a Canaidan OIL SANDS producer with a fully intregrated upstream, mid stream and downstream bisuness model. So taking that into consderation, which company would be a peer? Well, to answer that properly you'd have to be very knowledgeable of the sector in general, including knowing ALL of Suncor's operations. So if you don't know at this point or are unsure, let answer that for you. NONE. Suncor really doesn't have ANY TRUE peer companies and it's a VERY UNIQUE company & operation. Quite the conundrum right? Therefore, the next question you should ask yourself is what is its "closest" peer? Who could that be? Well, since Suncor is a Canadian company with solely (yes yes we all know they small refinery capacity in the us but for all intents & purposes for this discussion) Canadian operations, with the main & only focus being extracting bitumen from the oil sands and refining it into a heavy oil blend.
So who else does this.....who's Canadian & about its size? Well, there's Imperial, Cenovus, Canadian UnNatural & Meg. The last one, Meg Energy, is the smallest by far and is unique in its own right, so we'll just cross them off for now. So you're left with Imperial, Cenovus & CNQ. As far as Imperial goes, they do have Oil sands assets, also being fully intergrated upstream, mid & downstream as well. And they also have gas stations to boot! The problem with Imperial though is two fold, first they're a "division" or subsidiary" of their mother company XOM. So that alone makes it difficult for a direct comparison to Suncor. In addition, Imperial has many non Oil Sands or conventional oil producing assets. So is Imperial the best choice to be regarded as a peer to Suncor? Probably not.
What about Canadian UnNatural? Well, Oil Sands producer? Check. Fully intergrated up, mid & downstream? Check. Gas stations? Not sure, do they even have any? Don't think so but maybe someone can correct me if i'm wrong on my assumption on this fact. But assuming they don't, well that throws a huge monkey wrench into that arguement for CNQ being a direct peer. And besides, just like Imperial, CNQ has many many conventional oil assets much more than their Oil sands production i believe. So you can chuck Canadian UnNatural out the window as well.
How about the last one on our list? Cenovus? Canadian? Yes. Oil sands? Definite YES. Full intergrated? Yep. Gas stations? Well, they had them for a short while but unfortunately they got rid of them not too long ago. So let's put that aside for now. Cenovus being not solely a Oil Sands producer, they have quite significant production for conventional as well. BUT the majority of their prodcution is STILL Bitumen & Oil Sands. So apart from the fact that Cenovus doesn't have anymore gas stations AND their oil sands prodcution is only 70% of the total output, Cenovus is about the closest thing you'll get as a "PEER" to Suncor and probably the only one. And even then, i wouldn't consider them a TRUE peer to Suncor. Suncor for all intents & practical purposes, is truly on its own in its own unique space.
So now that we've established who Suncor's closest peer is, how has Cenovus faired in comparsion to Suncor perfomance wise? Well, looking at Cenovus stock price, we can immediately see that its trading close to 52 weeks low as is Suncor. Not as bad as Suncor but close enough. Would having exposure to gas stations like Suncor is, make Cenovus's stock more depressed than what it is? Maybe .....maybe not. I don't know. But the FACT that BOTH companes are trading near lows cannot be denied. Maybe Cenovus is fairing a little better because of their slight expsoure to standard oil prodcution and not having gas stations. Just an opinion.
So if you're tyrying to compare Suncor performance to ANYONE else, you would be making not only a grave error but it would also be a futile endeavor. Because Suncor is truly UNIQUE. Whether you believe or not that Suncor is a "good" investment in general or in a great investment in the Canadian O&G space, i'll leave up to you to decide.
Imho, if we keep it in the parameters of just the O&G sector in Canada, and regardless if you're looking for substantial stock appreciation or passive income via a divvy, or a combo of both, i just think you're in the wrong stock and have more viable options with better prospects along with much less risk than Suncor. And if you want to know which ones they are, ill be glad to list them for you. I hope this reply & commentary helps you & others in some way mae more informed decisions.
GLTA