Forest Oil Shares Surged: What You Need to Know

Anders Bylund, The Motley Fool
Updated

Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.

What: Shares of oil and gas producer Forest Oil (NYS: FST) jumped as much as 10.8% in intraday trading today on eerily average trading volume.

So what: The company just announced that Canadian subsidiary Lone Pine Resources (NYS: LPR) will be fully spun off in the form of a share dividend to current shareholders. This move is no surprise, but it's always nice to see a company following through on established plans.

Now what:As fellow Fool Isac Simon points out, Forest Oil is arguably a more efficient producer than well-respected rivals Ultra Petroleum (NYS: UPL) and Southwestern Energy (NYS: SWN) . And those two laggards are good enough that The Fool invested real money in them. Will a leaner, meaner Forest Oil look even better after the Lone Pine spinoff? I don't know, but that's what we have watchlist services for.

At the time thisarticle was published

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