Liam Denning, Columnist

Exxon Should Be Its Own Activist

The oil giant's hubris is no longer justified and leaves it increasingly vulnerable.

February 12, 2018 at 3:06 PM UTC

Liam Denning is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy. A former banker, he edited the Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street column and wrote the Financial Times’s Lex column.

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Exxon Mobil Corp. just isn't used to being treated this way.

This month has been traumatic for many, but the biggest of Big Oil had it worse. From February 1 to last Friday, Exxon's stock fell 15 percent; its worst six-day losing streak since the dark days of October 2008 (it's up 2 percent Monday morning). That's $56 billion up in smoke -- or as if Occidental Petroleum Corp. just vanished.