Agreed. Valuations are often based on expected future earnings, among other parameters. This deal, in my opinion, increases the likelihood of expected future earnings. This is certainly different than where Falcon was a week ago and going from an unknown to a known is a milestone achievement.

If one examines the amount of stock purchased, at last week's discounted price, versus the amount of stock sold Friday, it looks like someone or some parties knew something and made a quick buy-and-sell. However, I would speculate most of the 'buy-and-sell' actions are almost over, based on Friday's volume, and think valuation should gradually increase. Between the two partners, their combined market cap. is something like 54 billion USD, which is almost twice that of Hess.

Management was a little late on delivery, but I don't think anyone could have asked for much more in terms of the deal that was struck.