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As airline stocks dive, tiny oil issues light up Wall Street

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The winning trade of the week on Wall Street: Get out of brand-name airline stocks -- and get into oil stocks that almost no one’s heard of.

That’s not a recommendation, just the reality of the last few days.

The latest surge in oil prices is wiping out billions of dollars more of stock market value for the major airlines, and the selling today had an aura of abject desperation to it.

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AMR Corp., parent of American Airlines, dived $1.98, or 24%, to $6.22. The stock is down 32% this week. That rivals the plunge of 40% in the first week of trading after markets reopened following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

UAL Corp., parent of United, sank $3.41, or 29.5%, to $8.15 today. Continental Airlines Inc. dropped $2.15, or 13%, to $14.20.

Here’s one measure of how poorly Wall Street regards the business: The combined stock market value of AMR, UAL, Continental, Northwest Airlines, US Airways Group and Southwest Airlines now is just $15.2 billion -- less than one-tenth the market value of Google Inc. and just 3% of the $495-billion market value of Exxon Mobil Corp.

Exxon’s shares are rallying this week, but by far the biggest gains are being racked up by stocks of relatively obscure oil companies -- a classic sign of a speculative frenzy.

Shares of Bakersfield-based Pyramid Oil Co. jumped $4.25 to $27.10 today and are up 72% this week. The crude producer, which had sales of just $1.6 million in the first quarter, now boasts a stock market value of $100 million. Fieldpoint Petroleum Corp. of Cedar Park, Texas, saw its shares leap 25% today to $7.23. They’re up 130% this week. The company’s first-quarter sales were $1.5 million.

‘It sure looks like the dot-coms all over again,’ said Dan McMahon, head trader at brokerage Raymond James & Associates in New York.

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Maybe with one exception: Pyramid and Fieldpoint actually are making money at the moment.

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