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Exxon Mobil’s Q2 beats lowered expectations

Relentless OPEC+ production and softness in the global economy have kept oil prices — and stocks — low this year.

8/1/25 9:00AM

Exxon reported better-than-expected Q2 earnings and sales early Friday, having warned weeks ago that soft prices would crimp profits, but the company’s shares still dipped in early trading.

The largest US oil producer reported:

Earnings per share of $1.64 vs. consensus estimates for $1.57 per share.
Sales of $81.51 billion vs. expectations for $80.70 billion, per FactSet data.
Stock buybacks worth $5 billion, putting it on track to meet its $20 billion goal for repurchases this year.

Like others in the energy sector, Exxon has been squeezed by lackluster global demand — demand growth this year is expected to be the weakest, outside of Covid, since the Great Recession in 2009 — and surging production from OPEC, the global cartel, and in particular from Saudi Arabia. Exxon warned in early July that those dynamics would weigh on Q2 earnings.

The result? Oil prices that are roughly 10% lower than this time last year and about 15% lower than two years ago. And energy stocks have, understandably, underperformed.

Exxon was down about 5% over the last year, through the close of trading Thursday. The energy sector of the S&P 500 was down 5.4%, compared to a 16% gain for the S&P 500. Out of the 11 “sectors” of the index, only healthcare did worse than energy, dropping 13%.

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JPMorgan strategist Arun Jain has flagged that retail traders instead appear to be “skipping the dip.”

“In contrast to the behavior observed during the post-Liberation Day selloff, retail investors did not seize the opportunity to buy-the-dip on Tuesday, with a few exceptions such as META,” he wrote of the day where the benchmark US stock index fell 1.2%. “In fact, they scaled back their ETF purchases and turned net sellers in single stocks.”

Then on Thursday, when the S&P 500 fell 1.1%, Jain projected that retail traders sold $261 million in single stocks. Through noon ET on Friday, his daily outflow estimate stands at $851 million.

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The move marks at least the third major equity raise, and dilution, for Archer this year. The company raised $300 million from a new stock sale in February, and sold $850 million worth of shares in June.

On Archer’s earnings call Thursday, interim CFO Priya Gupta said the company came to the decision after “substantial inbound interest.” According to Gupta, the company has heard from government and commercial partners that liquidity is a “key driver to their decisions of who to partner with.” With its latest share sale, Archer said its total liquidity is more than $2 billion.

Exxon Mobil’s Q2 beats lowered expectations

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