To The Moon

$Exxon Mobil(XOM)$ is scheduled to report its third-quarter 2025 financial results on Friday, October 31, 2025, before the market opens.

EPS (Earnings Per Share) estimated to come in at $1.78, which represent a -7.3% (down from $1.92 in Q3 2024). Expected to decline YoY due to softer commodity prices compared to the previous year's high.

Revenue estimated to come in at $86.8 billion which represent a -3.6% (down from Q3 2024 actuals). A potential revenue dip is also tied to lower average commodity prices over the quarter.

Key Considerations:

Sequential Boost: XOM's own preliminary filings suggested a sequential increase in Q3 earnings (compared to Q2 2025), mainly driven by favorable refining margins and changes in oil and natural gas prices.

Refining Strength: The Energy Products business (Refining) is a significant factor, with XOM forecasting a sequential gain of $\text{\$300 million}$ to $\text{\$700 million}$ due to stronger industry refining margins.

Historical Beat Rate: XOM has surpassed consensus EPS estimates in the trailing four quarters, which suggests a history of conservative guidance or strong operational performance.

Exxon Mobil (XOM) Fiscal Q2 2025 Earnings Summary

Exxon Mobil reported strong Q2 2025 results that beat Wall Street's earnings-per-share (EPS) estimates, demonstrating resilience despite a decline in global crude oil prices during the quarter.

Key Performance Drivers:

Production Strength: Record quarterly production, specifically from high-return advantaged assets in the Permian Basin and Guyana, was the primary factor that helped offset the negative impact of lower crude prices.

Refining Resilience: Stronger industry refining margins and higher volumes due to lower scheduled maintenance boosted earnings in the Energy Products (Refining) segment.

Cost Discipline: The company continues to realize structural cost savings, having achieved $13.5 billion in savings compared to 2019 levels.

Segment Mix: While Upstream earnings decreased due to lower commodity prices, the strong performance in Energy Products and stable specialty products helped stabilize the overall results. The Chemicals segment remained a headwind due to weak margins from industry oversupply.

Lesson Learned from the Guidance

The key lesson learned from Exxon Mobil's guidance and strategic messaging is the importance of strategic, high-return asset growth and operational excellence as a hedge against commodity price volatility.

Core Lesson: Strategic Growth Outweighs Price Swings

Exxon Mobil’s guidance emphasizes that its long-term strategic plan is designed to deliver consistent, superior returns across the commodity cycle—not just when oil prices are high.

Diversification and High-Return Assets: The company highlighted its focus on growing production from advantaged assets (like Guyana and the Permian), which offer lower costs and higher margins. This portfolio focus allowed them to beat earnings estimates despite a decline in crude prices, proving their operational strength is mitigating external market risk.

Future Earnings Power: Guidance centers on specific projects expected to drive future earnings, such as:

Targeting a 50% increase in Permian production by 2030 (to 2.3 million boe/d).

Expecting 2025 project start-ups to drive over $3 billion in additional 2026 earnings (at constant prices).

Aiming for a total of $20 billion in additional earnings and $30 billion in cash flow by 2030 versus 2024 (at constant prices and margins).

Capital Allocation: The commitment to substantial shareholder returns ($9.2 billion in Q2) and maintaining a strong balance sheet confirms the strategy of using strong operational cash flow to fund growth projects and reward shareholders.

In essence, the guidance teaches that an integrated oil company can outperform expectations during price dips by focusing on controlling what it can (costs, production volume from high-value sources, and project execution) rather than relying solely on high oil and gas prices.

Key Metrics Investors Should Watch

The integrated nature of Exxon Mobil's business (Upstream, Downstream/Chemicals) means investors must look beyond just headline EPS and Revenue:

1. Upstream Segment Earnings & Production Volume

Focus: This segment is the largest profit driver and is directly tied to global oil WTI and Brent and natural gas prices.

Watch For: The actual realized prices for crude oil and natural gas and the total oil-equivalent production volume. Strong production volumes, particularly from high-growth areas like Guyana and the Permian Basin, can mitigate the effect of lower benchmark prices.

2. Energy Products & Chemical Product Segment Earnings (Refining/Downstream)

Focus: These segments act as a hedge against lower crude prices, as lower input costs can boost refining and chemical margins.

Watch For: The refining margin performance. As preliminary filings suggested strength here, exceeding the high end of their projected sequential gain ($\text{\$700 million}$) could be a major positive surprise. Also, look at the Chemicals segment for recovery, driven by improved commodity chemical demand and margins.

3. Cash Flow and Capital Management

Focus: The company's ability to generate cash flow to fund its capital projects, dividends, and shareholder returns.

Watch For: Cash Flow from Operations (CFO) and Free Cash Flow (FCF). High FCF allows for continued share repurchases and dividend growth, which are crucial for attracting long-term investors.

Exxon Mobil (XOM) Price Target

Based on 24 analysts from Tiger Brokers offering 12 month price targets for Exxon Mobil in the last 3 months. The average price target is $127.01 with a high forecast of $156.00 and a low forecast of $105.00. The average price target represents a 9.07% change from the last price of $116.45.

Short-Term Trading Opportunity Post-Earnings

Trading around an earnings announcement is high-risk, but here are factors to consider for potential short-term post-earnings movements:

Earnings Surprise vs. Expectations:

• Bullish Scenario: A significant EPS and Revenue beat, especially if driven by better-than-expected operational performance in both Upstream (high production) and Energy Products (strong margins), could lead to a positive breakout.

• Bearish Scenario: A miss on the consensus EPS or a weak outlook/guidance for Q4 2025, particularly if refining gains did not materialize as strongly as anticipated, could trigger a sell-off.

Implied Volatility (IV):

The options market's implied move (straddle) leading into Q3 earnings is often higher than the stock's typical post-earnings move. For XOM, recent reports suggest an Implied Straddle of around 3.5% - 4.8% for this release. This indicates the market expects the stock to move by this percentage in either direction.

XOM implied volatility (IV) is 23.3, which is in the 72% percentile rank. This means that 72% of the time the IV was lower in the last year than the current level. The current IV (23.3) is 0.3% above its 20 day moving average (23.2) indicating implied volatility is trending higher.

Short-Term Trade Idea: If the actual move is less than the implied straddle, selling options strategies (like strangles or straddles) before the announcement may have been profitable (this is a pre-earnings strategy). Post-earnings, the volatility typically "crashes."

Recent Price Action:

The stock's reaction to Q2 2025 earnings (reported August 1st) was a -1.8% drop on the release day, despite an EPS beat, due to mixed results and lower commodity prices. This suggests the market is sensitive to the topline and sequential changes.

Given the mixed signals (sequential gains but YoY decline expected, and recent stock underperformance), the market's reaction will likely hinge on the refining segment performance and the outlook for Q4 2025 production and capital expenditure.

Technical Analysis - Exponential Moving Average (EMA)

Looks like XOM have been trading sideway after making a new high, and we could see investors waiting to see how the company outlook would be showing in its earnings call, and also investors would be looking closely on its refining and also the impact of weaker crude oil prices.

So I am expecting that we might see a volatile stock price movement when we receive the earning report tomorrow Friday (31 Oct) before the market open.

Summary

Exxon Mobil is scheduled to release its fiscal Q3 2025 earnings on October 31, 2025.

Analyst Expectations: The consensus estimate for Earnings Per Share (EPS) is approximately $1.78, which would represent a decline of around 7.3% compared to the prior-year quarter. Revenue is generally projected to be near $86.8 billion, suggesting a year-over-year decrease.

Key Drivers:

Refining: The "Energy Products" business is expected to show gains due to favorable industry refining margins, potentially boosting earnings by up to $700 million sequentially.

Oil and Gas Prices: Changes in oil and natural gas prices are expected to have a mixed but generally limited sequential impact on the Upstream earnings. Oil prices were slightly healthier in the beginning of the quarter compared to Q2.

Company Outlook: Exxon Mobil had previously indicated potential sequential increases in its September quarter earnings, thanks in part to natural gas price changes, while expecting positive contributions from refining margins. The company has a history of beating consensus earnings estimates.

Appreciate if you could share your thoughts in the comment section whether you think XOM would be able to give a positive company outlook as XOM is expecting positive contributions from refining margins.

@TigerStars @Daily_Discussion @Tiger_Earnings @TigerWire @MillionaireTiger appreciate if you could feature this article so that fellow tiger would benefit from my investing and trading thoughts.

Disclaimer: The analysis and result presented does not recommend or suggest any investing in the said stock. This is purely for Analysis.