I bought BP (LSE: BP) shares last month because I thought they looked great value. I’m already thinking about buying more. Should I take the plunge?
The FTSE 100 oil and gas giant looked too cheap to ignore trading at less than six times earnings. Energy stocks tend to be cyclical, and this looked like a good time to grab BP when it was down rather than up.
As the energy shock subsided, most of the heat had gone out of the BP share price. I didn’t want to miss out on the next upswing, so dived in.
Is this a FTSE 100 bargain buy?
I was also tempted by the dividend. In 2020, the board rebased shareholder payouts at 26 US cents per shares, down from 41 cents the year before. This cut the yield to just over 4%. I’d got used to seeing BP shares yield north of 6%, and felt this was a bit of a comedown.
Yet with the shares plunging 16.54% over the last year, BP now has a trailing yield of 5.39%. That’s comfortably above the FTSE 100 average of 3.54. Better still, the yield is forecast to hit 5.7% this year and top 6% in 2025.
Timing share purchases correctly is mostly pot luck, but I seem to have got this one just right. When I bought BP, the oil price was sliding below $70 a barrel. Tragic and terrifying events in the Middle East have driven it up to $78 at time of writing.
The oil price climbed more than 8% last week, its biggest weekly jump since January 2023. Hopes of a US recovery also played a part, as this will boost demand, as may Chinese stimulus.
I’m keen to buy more of this stock
The BP share price is up 7.39% over the last week. There’s now talk of oil heading towards $100 a barrel. That would surely drive the BP share price a lot, lot higher. However, I don’t put much faith in predictions like that. There are simply too many variables at play.
Neither Washington nor Beijing want to see oil prices soar right now. Markets are betting they will put pressure on Israel and Iran to keep a lid on things. That may explain why the oil price hasn’t gone a lot higher.
I’m not going to predict where the oil price will go next. And I wouldn’t trust anybody who claims they do. Oil could just as easily plunge towards $50 a barrel, if rumours that Saudi Arabia could flood the market to grab share are correct. That would hammer the value of my BP shares. Again, it’s just speculation.
What I do know is that BP shares still look good value, despite last week’s hop, trading at 6.11 times trailing earnings.
The same long-term challenges remain, as the planet warms but BP struggles to find a future beyond fossil fuels. But I bought the stock with a long-term view and taken from that perspective, I still think they look a strong buy today, I will buy more BP shares the moment I have the cash to do so.
This post was originally published on Motley Fool
