The percentage of our retail client accounts that were profitable in the last, most recent, four quarters was: | Q2-2026 : 29% | Q1-2025: 31% | Q4-2025: 29% | Q3-2025: 40%. Contracts for Difference (CFDs) are complex instruments with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage and may not be suitable for all investors. You should not trade with money you cannot afford to lose. These percentages are for illustrative purposes only and do not indicate future performance.
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Headquartered in London, United Kingdom, BP Plc was founded on April 14th, 1909 by William Knoxx. The company operates worldwide as an integrated oil and gas company and offers its services through 3 major business segments: Upstream, Downstream and Rosneft.
The Upstream segment includes oil and gas exploration, and the midstream as transportation as well as storage and processing.
The Downstream segment includes refining, manufacturing, marketing and the transportation of end products to wholesale and retail customers.
The Rosneft segment is involved in various investment and financial activities relevant to the company.
As described above, BP has footprints in virtually the entire oil value chain – from exploration to oil trading. But this was not always the case.
The company started as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, a financier and explorer of oil in Iran. The company later evolved into British Petroleum Company Ltd, gaining the brand BP as it continuously expanded throughout the world.
Around the turn of the millennium, BP placed more emphasis on alternative sustainable energies. This also coincided with a name change to ‘Beyond Petroleum’ (Still BP) and also created the iconic ‘green sunflower’ logo.
BP Plc is part of ‘Big Oil’, a term used to describe 7 of the largest publicly traded oil and gas companies in the world.
To reach its lofty heights, BP has, over the years, performed strategic mergers, partnerships and acquisitions.
Some of the major deals include the 1998 BP-Amoco mega-merger worth $48 billion and the 2001 $5.56 billion acquisition of Veba Oel AG.
BP went public in 1977 when the British government (then having a controlling stake in the company) decided to sell its shares.
The company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange where it trades under the ticker symbol BP. It is in the Energy Sector, under the Oils and Integrated Industry. The stock is also cross-listed on the London Stock Exchange and Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
As of September 2020, BP Plc has performed 4 stock splits since going public, as follows: a 2-for-1 on July 3rd 1978; a 2-for-1 on June 23rd 1980; a 2-for-1 on June 6th 1997; and a 2-for-1 on October 4th 1999.
BP stock has had mixed fortunes in the market, with its price always vulnerable to the volatility of the oil market. Before the turn of the millennium, BP sustained a multiyear rally from circa $20 in 1994 to a top of circa $62 by December 1999.
A retracement then followed as soon as we entered the new millennium, sending the stock to lows of circa $35 by January 2003. A strong rally then followed that eventually led the stock printing its all-time highs at circa $79 in November 2007.
The effects of the 2008 global financial crisis hit the oil industry hard and inspired a plunge of BP stock to lows of circa $25 in June 2010. The stock then attempted a gradual rally as the global economy recovered and managed to print a temporary high at circa $53 in June 2014.
Since then, the stock has struggled to get anywhere close to $50, with the famous 2016 oil price crash which pushed the price to below $30. In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic inspired weak global demand and supplied massive headwind pressure and ensured the stock continued to trade circa $20 as of September 2020.
As a major global oil company, BP is one of the most followed stocks in the financial markets. Here are some of the factors to consider when trading the stock:
BP operates in a generally volatile and unpredictable industry. With this in mind, it is prudent to assess the above factors for their short to medium term impact rather than the long term.
** Disclaimer – While due diligence, care and research has been undertaken to compile the above content, it remains an informational and educational piece only. None of the content provided constitutes any form of trade or investment advice or recommendation and should not be construed as such.
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Disclaimer: Please note these are stock CFDs (Contracts for Difference)
When you enter into a CFD trade you don’t buy the actual stock itself but instead agree on a contract with the broker to settle the difference in value between the entry and exit price of the Stock based on the price the stock is trading at on the Exchange it is listed. That means when you trade Stocks CFDs with Friedberg Direct you get a flexibility that stock market rules often make very difficult or even impossible for some.