At their highs, shares of Callon Petroleum (NYSE: CPE) rose as much as 12% on July 10. Oasis Petroleum (NYSE: OAS) peaked just shy of 11%. And Centennial Development (NASDAQ: CDEV) jumped nearly 10%. Although all three of the U.S.-focused oil and natural gas drillers were off of their highs by the end of the day, they still held on to much of their respective advances. At the close of trading, Callon was up nearly 10.5%, Oasis 6.5%, and Centennial 8%.
The easy reason for the respective gains here is that West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil was up notably for the day (roughly 2.2%). That's the key metric for these drillers, which all operate in the onshore U.S. space. And since their top and bottom lines are dependent on the price of the commodities they sell, it's hardly surprising that investors would bid their stocks up on a strong day for WTI crude prices.
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