Raymond James told clients in a note on Wednesday that the sharp swings across commodity markets in early 2026 have forced a substantial reset to Big Oil earnings expectations, even as operational disruptions cloud the outlook.
Analyst Justin Jenkins wrote that “1Q26 has been quite the year already,” with investor focus fixed on “the massive changes to commodity markets” amid “extremely intense geopolitics.”
"With extremely intense geopolitics in focus (Venezuela wasn’t even 12 weeks ago), macro volatility is clearly here to stay. For the majors, the focus is rightly on navigating the extremely volatile backdrop," the analyst added.
By the firm’s calculations, Exxon Mobil has “the most production impacted by outages at ~20% of 2025 volumes,” involving areas such as Qatar and Abu Dhabi.
BP has “just over 12%” of 2025 volumes affected, while Chevron faces disruption to just over 4%.
Downstream complications, particularly in chemicals and refining, are said to add further uncertainty.
Jenkins wrote that the firm used its “best guesses toward earnings sensitivities” based on company disclosures and its macro view.
On investor sentiment, Raymond James believes the volatility is “too high to have substantive conversations on the medium-term.”
Still, it noted that “long-only interest before the conflict began was clearly growing,” and the firm expects that interest “to remain elevated after the disruption ends,” even if actual fund flows have been limited so far in March.
source https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/raymond-james-volatility-continues-to-cloud-big-oil-outlook-4580495
