By Steve Gelsi, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Energy stocks fell back on Friday as the broad market traded mixed and crude-oil prices stabilized around the $81-a-barrel mark, while losses in shares of Schlumberger pressured the oil-service sector.
The Philadelphia Oil Service Index (OSX 207.04, -3.72, -1.77%) fell 1% to 209, the NYSE Arca Natural Gas Index (XNG 528.31, -6.22, -1.16%) dropped 0.5% to 532 and the NYSE Arca Oil Index (XOI 1,114, -6.59, -0.59%) gave up 0.3% to 1,117.
Schlumberger (SLB 66.70, -2.10, -3.06%) , the largest global provider of oil services, saw its shares drop 2.9% to $66.59.
Earlier, the company said it earned 65 cents a share for the third quarter. While this surpassed the analyst consensus forecast of 63 cents a share, some had expected a "whisper number" of 67 cents a share, Tudor Pickering Holt said in a note to clients.
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Schlumberger also sounded a cautiously optimistic note about its business prospects, but management said it still faces some price erosion for its services. See full story.
Also Friday, Soleil Securities initiated coverage of blue-chip oil giants Exxon Mobil (XOM 73.55, -0.89, -1.20%) and Chevron Corp. (CVX 76.88, -0.42, -0.54%) with buy ratings.
Analyst Jacques Rousseau set a $90 price target for shares of Exxon Mobil, which drew praise for its sizable capital-spending budget -- more than $20 billion a year -- and its potential for generating production growth.
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Chevron's price target was set at $105, as Rousseau praised the company's improved upstream portfolio.
"We expect rising crude-oil and natural-gas production volumes and higher commodity prices to significantly increase Chevron's earnings and return on capital employed," he said in a note to clients.
Sector benchmarks mixed on the week
Among other stocks in the spotlight, Valero Energy (VLO 21.29, +1.16, +5.77%) rose 5.7% to $21.26. The refining giant drew an upgrade to overweight from equal weight at Barclays.
For the week, the NYSE Arca Oil Index stood higher than its level of 1,105 seven days ago, while the NYSE Arca Natural Gas Index was slightly below its week-ago level of 539 and the Philadelphia Oil Service Index managed a slender gain from its 208 close of a week ago.
Energy stocks traded flat on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, but broke through and rose on Thursday.
