Why San Juan Basin Royalty Trust (SJT) Is Up the Most So Far in 2025
We recently published a list of Why These 15 Energy Stocks Are up the Most So Far in 2025 . In this article, we are going to take a look at where San Juan Basin Royalty Trust (NYSE:SJT) stands against other energy stocks that are up the most so far in 2025.
The energy sector has been volatile, and macro trends have led to fears of recession. The S&P 500 energy sector gained almost 9% from January till late March, but it has been dragged down by the broader market correction.
Brent futures have hit lows and sent many energy stocks into a tailspin. Yet, there are still some energy stocks that have defied the odds and have delivered solid gains. Midstream companies have been exceptionally resilient, and renewables have also been a bright spot in the energy sector.
Even during bear markets there are pockets of the market that perform exceptionally well. For instance, tech stocks have been in a bear market, but I recently identified 15 Tech Stocks that are Up the Most in 2025 in another article.
Methodology
For this article, I screened the best-performing energy stocks year-to-date.
I will also mention the number of hedge fund investors in these stocks. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points ( see more details here ).
An oil rig worker in overalls, examining a drill bit at the San Juan Basin.
San Juan Basin Royalty Trust (NYSE: SJT )
Number of Hedge Fund Holders In Q4 2024: 6
San Juan Basin Royalty Trust (NYSE:SJT) is a grantor trust that holds a 75% net overriding royalty interest in oil and natural gas properties in the San Juan Basin of northwestern New Mexico, distributing monthly royalty income to unit holders.
The biggest news impacting the stock in 2025 was negative: the Trust (NYSE:SJT) announced no cash distributions for March and April due to excess production costs from Hilcorp’s drilling of two horizontal wells in 2024.
As of April 2025, the Trust (NYSE:SJT) had to apply all net proceeds to cover a remaining excess production cost balance of $12.87 million, with cash reserves dropping to just $117,797. This suspension of distributions followed a similar halt in March.
Hilcorp’s 2025 capital plan also calls for $9 million in expenditures for new drilling, recompletions, and facility upgrades, which will continue to weigh on cash flows and delay future distributions.
SJT stock is up 50.39% year-to-date. This is likely due to technical and cyclical reasons, as the stock recovers from a 77%-plus decline from 2022 peaks. Plus, many are optimistic about its oil and gas properties due to the new administration being friendly to fossil fuel development.
Overall, SJT ranks 2nd on our list of energy stocks that are up the most so far in 2025. While we acknowledge the potential of SJT, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than SJT but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock .
READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires .
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey .