The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[DewDiligence]

HES was off 11% today and there are rumors it has to do with the company’s drilling a dry hole in Brazil.

On the 28-May-2009 APC webcast at the Sanford Bernstein conference, an analyst asked CEO Jim Hackett, “What did Hess do wrong when they came up empty?” Hackett didn’t answer directly, but he implicitly confirmed that HES had drilled a dry hole by saying he thought HES knew what they had done wrong.

What I don’t get is why there was a delayed reaction and HES’ share price was not hit until now. Could the dry-hole discussion on the recent APC webcast and today’s rumor relate to two different incidents? That strikes me as highly unlikely.