Hess Corp. price target raised to $172 from $169 at Piper Sandler

Piper Sandler raised the firm’s price target on Hess Corp. (HES) to $172 from $169 and keeps an Overweight rating on the shares. Supportive commodity prices and impressively low-cost structures are generating robust free cash flow, relative market multiples are enabling accretive consolidation, downstream markets remain tight, and volume/CFO growth is strong, supported by deep, quality resource bases, the firm says. However, depth and quality of upstream resource diverges materially across the group, which will have a material impact on relative capital efficiency and the long-term sustainability of CFO/free cash flow growth, in Piper’s view. In this regard, the firm sees U.S. IOC portfolios as supporting higher growth at lower risk, while in the U.S. it sees Exxon Mobil (XOM) and ConocoPhillips (COP) as uniquely positioned for compounding success.