There is nothing like flashing some green to excite energy investors these days, so long as it is the hue of cold, hard cash.
Exxon Mobil ’s first quarter was something of a mixed bag. The company posted a quarterly net profit of $5.5 billion the first quarter, well short of the $9.5 billion analysts polled by Visible Alpha had been penciling in. The big gap was due to a hefty after-tax charge related to Exxon’s exit from Russia (which accounted for less than 2% of production last year), but even without that impact, its earnings would have been about $700 million below expectations.
