Reddit’s Oil Bet on Occidental Clashes With Wall Street’s Caution
Retail traders are flooding into Occidental Petroleum with near-unanimous bullish conviction while Wall Street analysts quietly trim their targets and a top insider unloads tens of thousands of shares. Someone has the trade badly wrong.
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Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY | OXY Price Prediction) has become a case study in how far retail conviction can drift from professional caution. Shares closed at $57.50 on Wednesday, up 39.8% year to date and 6.9% in the past week alone, sitting 14.8% below the 52-week high. Reddit’s aggregate sentiment score for Occidental is currently pinned at 88, a “very bullish” reading held across all 10 measured intervals this week. Wall Street sees the same setup and shrugs.
The Reddit Trade Behind Occidental’s 88 Sentiment Score
Almost the entire retail signal traces back to a single r/options post titled “Oil is going to $150+ OXY $55 Jan 15th 2027 Calls,” which climbed to 228 upvotes and 92 comments before losing traction Wednesday. The thesis is straightforward crude speculation rather than a fundamental case, and it landed as Brent pushed above $94 on U.S. strikes against Iranian targets and Strait of Hormuz tensions.
The bullish framing rests on real business milestones:
- Q1 adjusted EPS of $1.06, comfortably beating the $0.58 consensus.
- Principal debt cut to $13.3 billion from $20.8 billion, funded by the OxyChem sale to Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.B) that closed January 2.
- Dividend lifted to $0.26 per share, more than 8% higher and doubled over four years.
Analysts Keep Trimming Occidental Price Targets
The sell side is not buying the euphoria. The consensus target is $64.26, but the rating split leans neutral. In the past two weeks, Stephens cut its target to $69 from $73, HSBC to $68 from $73, and Jefferies trimmed to $56. Mizuho still expects a 6% downward bias to Q2 Street EBITDAX and cash flow estimates. On a trailing basis, Occidental trades at a P/E near 77, though the forward multiple compresses to 10, illustrating how much the bull case hinges on crude cooperating.
Chevron Sets the Sober Benchmark
Peer Chevron (NYSE:CVX) runs the same Permian playbook with a higher yield and none of the Buffett-associated retail mystique, which is exactly why Occidental’s Reddit crowd keeps piling in. The wrinkle worth tracking: former CEO Vicki Hollub disposed of 74,178 shares at nearly $59 on June 1, the largest insider sale in the recent window. Retail is trading a $150 oil narrative. Insiders and analysts are trading the earnings report.
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Trey has been an editor and author at 24/7 Wall St. for more than a decade, where he has published thousands of articles analyzing corporate earnings, dividend stocks, short interest, insider buying, private equity, and market trends. His comprehensive coverage spans the full spectrum of financial markets, from blue-chip stalwarts to emerging growth companies.
Beyond 24/7 Wall St., Trey has created and edited financial content for Benzinga and AOL's BloggingStocks, contributing additional hundreds of articles to the investment community. He previously oversaw the 24/7 Climate Insights site, managing editorial operations and content strategy, and currently oversees and creates content for My Investing News.
Trey's editorial expertise extends across multiple publishing environments. He served as production editor at Dearborn Financial Publishing and development editor at Kaplan, where he helped shape financial education materials. Earlier in his career, he worked as a writer-producer at SVE. His freelance editing portfolio includes work for prestigious clients such as Sage Publications, Rand McNally, the Institute for Supply Management, the American Library Association, Eggplant Literary Productions, and Spiegel.
Outside of financial journalism, Trey writes fiction and has been an active member of the writing community for years, overseeing a long-running critique group and moderating workshop sessions at regional conventions. He lives with his family in an old house in the Midwest.
