Chord Energy Corporation (CHRD) Stock Price & How to Invest

Chord Energy drills and produces crude oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids across the Williston Basin, the Bakken and Three Forks acreage spread over North Dakota and eastern Montana. Today's company is the product of three combinations: Oasis Petroleum and Whiting Petroleum merged in 2022 to create Chord, ExxonMobil's XTO Williston package was bolted on in 2023, and Enerplus closed in May 2024. Scale is the point of all of it. Second-quarter 2026 volumes ran ~286.4 MBoepd, ~57.8% of it oil, and the operating story has shifted toward longer laterals, with 26 four-mile wells drilled to date and one reaching a measured depth of ~33,810 feet, the deepest in the basin.

As an investment the shares behave like a leveraged claim on the oil strip with an unusually direct payout mechanism attached. Trailing twelve month revenue sits near ~$5.96 billion with net income around ~$841 million and free cash flow near ~$1.19 billion, while the balance sheet carries ~$1.5 billion of debt against ~$612 million of cash and leverage that fell under 0.5x at the end of June 2026. Management returned ~54% of adjusted free cash flow in the second quarter and has said the figure steps up to at least ~75% in the third now that leverage cleared its threshold, split between a ~$1.30 quarterly base dividend and repurchases that shrank the share count by roughly ~3% over the past year. What you are not buying is diversification: one basin, one dominant commodity, and a reserve base that has to be replaced with capital every single year.

Crude price is the dominant variable and Chord has almost nothing else to lean on: with ~58% oil in the mix and a single producing basin, a sustained slide in WTI compresses revenue, free cash flow and the variable portion of the return framework at the same time. Full-year 2026 free cash flow guidance near ~$1.3 billion assumes a price deck that may not hold, and the payout above the ~$1.30 base dividend is explicitly discretionary. Operationally, Williston wells decline steeply, so the ~$1.4 billion annual capital budget is a treadmill rather than a growth investment, and North Dakota winters, gas capture rules and takeaway constraints have all curtailed basin volumes in past years. On legal matters, Walnut found no active securities-fraud class action against Chord: the widely circulated 2024 items were plaintiff-firm investigation notices tied to the Enerplus merger terms rather than filed securities cases, and the company's periodic filings describe ordinary-course litigation, royalty-owner disputes and environmental and regulatory proceedings of the kind common to large exploration and production companies. Federal and state permitting policy, methane rules and any change in Bakken pipeline capacity remain live regulatory exposures worth tracking in each 10-Q.

14 analysts publish price targets on CHRD, averaging $163.00 against a $138.52 price as of August 2026, or +17.7%. The published targets run from $129.00 to $187.00, a moderate spread, and the ratings split 12 buy, 2 hold, 0 sell. Over the last six months there have been 6 raises and 6 cuts among the published actions. A price target is what an analyst published on a date, not a prediction, and sell-side ratings skew positive across the whole market.

Read the full CHRD forecast and price target for the target table, the recent rating actions by firm, and how the consensus has shifted.

We give no verdict on Chord Energy Corporation. Both cases are real, which is why the question is contested at all, so here is the strongest version of each.

The case for buying. A return framework tied to leverage, not to a promise. Chord's payout scales with the balance sheet rather than a fixed policy, which is why the second quarter's ~54% of adjusted free cash flow steps to ~75% in the third once net debt fell below half a turn. The most optimistic published target, $187.00, assumes this works close to its best case.

The case against. Crude price is the dominant variable and Chord has almost nothing else to lean on: with ~58% oil in the mix and a single producing basin, a sustained slide in WTI compresses revenue, free cash flow and the variable portion of the return framework at the same time. The most pessimistic target, $129.00, is roughly what CHRD is worth if this bites instead.

Read the full bull and bear case on CHRD, including what would have to change to break either one. Walnut is not an investment adviser.

A simple financial snapshot. These are approximations and refresh quarterly; for current figures see Chord Energy Corporation's investor relations page or your broker.

• Revenue (TTM): ~$5.96B
• Net income (TTM): ~$841M
• EPS (TTM): ~$14.81
• Free cash flow (TTM): ~$1.19B
• Market cap: ~$7.6B
• Dividend (annualised) / yield: ~$5.20 / ~3.8%

Around ~9 times trailing earnings, Chord prices closer to a melting ice cube than a growth producer, which is the standard market treatment for oil-levered exploration and production names. Cash generation supports the arithmetic: ~$1.19 billion of trailing free cash flow against a ~$7.6 billion market value, with ~$1.5 billion of debt offset by ~$612 million of cash and leverage under 0.5x. Second-quarter 2026 net income of ~$525.2 million and adjusted EBITDA of ~$923.5 million show what the asset earns at a favourable price deck, which cuts both ways when the deck moves.

Other names that sit close to CHRD: same theme, named as a direct competitor, or held beside it in the same funds. Each entry says which. Worth a look if you are thinking about diversification within a thesis rather than concentration on one ticker.

There are three common ways to get CHRD exposure. Buy shares (or fractional shares) directly at any major broker. Hold an ETF that includes it, which spreads the position across many companies. Or build it into a focused thematic portfolio, so CHRD sits alongside other stocks that express the same thesis.

Walnut takes the portfolio route. Describe a thesis where CHRD fits (for example “AI infrastructure” or “dividend-growth large-caps”) and the AI proposes 5 to 6 constituents with target weights. You review the plan and fund it through your own broker when you're ready.

New to this? Start with how to invest in stocks, see how to analyze a stock with AI, or compare the best AI stock analyzers.

Chord is a single-basin, oil-weighted cash machine whose payout depends on crude prices holding up more than on any growth story.

Whether CHRD is worth buying today depends more on your time horizon and what you already hold than on any single call. We walk through valuation, what would have to go right, and the risks in is CHRD a buy or a sell?, and where the stock could go from here in the CHRD stock forecast.

For income investors, whether CHRD pays a dividend and how the payout looks is covered in does CHRD pay a dividend? And to weigh CHRD against a peer, read the full side-by-side comparisons: CHRD vs DVN and CHRD vs CVX.