Just caught CNQ's latest quarterly results and the numbers are pretty solid. Revenue came in at C$9.6 billion, up from C$9.47 billion year-over-year, and they're clearly feeling confident about the cash flow situation. What caught my eye though is the dividend move - they're bumping up the payout by 6 percent to C$0.625 per share starting in April. That's a nice signal when a company is willing to increase shareholder returns like that.

The earnings picture is interesting too. Reported earnings hit C$5.30 billion per share, though that's partly boosted by some one-time gains from acquisitions and remeasurements. The adjusted earnings actually came down a bit to C$1.7 billion from C$1.97 billion last year, so it's worth keeping that in mind. Still, the company got approval to buy back up to 10 percent of shares through a normal course issuer bid, which suggests management sees value here.

In trading, CNQ was up about 1.29 percent in pre-market action. Energy stocks have been all over the place lately, but when you see a company increasing dividend payout and executing buybacks at the same time, it usually means they're feeling pretty good about their position.