Oil just about doubled in four months. West Texas Intermediate crude was sitting at $57 a barrel at the end of 2025. By early April 2026, it’s trading above $115. That’s a near-100% move. So why are certain energy stocks still priced like oil is in the $70s?
That’s the disconnect Bank of America analyst Jill Carey flagged in a note this week. A group of oil-related equities is “trading roughly 30% below where its historic relationship with oil implies,” she wrote. In plain English: the market hasn’t caught up yet. These stocks started moving when the Iran conflict began, but a subset got left behind — and now they look cheap against the commodity they’re supposed to track.
The Iran ceasefire announced Tuesday briefly tanked crude prices. But here’s the thing: the ceasefire is two weeks long. The underlying supply disruption hasn’t been resolved. The Strait of Hormuz isn’t fully reopened. And even if oil pulls back from the highs, these stocks are still mispriced against current prices — not crisis-peak prices. BofA’s point is that the “rerating” hasn’t happened yet. When it does, there’s a 30% gap to close.
This is a trade setup that doesn’t require oil to keep surging. It just requires the market to finally notice that certain energy names haven’t priced in the environment that’s already here. Cheap relative value plays like this don’t stay cheap for long when analysts start flagging them publicly.
