“Mobil”izing the Troops:
Is the energy space getting its cues from the huge, top two holdings in the XLE? In our last energy note on 11/12 we discussed CVX and today we will take a look at its rival XOM. These two make up nearly 40% of the water-logged XLE. Below is the daily chart of XOM, and Thursday nearly broke above a double bottom with handle pattern, and November interestingly has found support at the top of the intraday range from its last earnings reaction on 11/1 (the stock has recorded 6 consecutive negative earnings reactions, not a typo). The MONTHLY chart, is having a strong November and that is not surprising given the fact that the last 7 months have all CLOSED very taut between 113.26 and 116.98 starting with the strong March push off the very round par number. It will be interesting to see if November with 5 sessions remaining can CLOSE above the October bearish shooting star candle. The debate about whether this group overall is going to be heavy under Trump comparing the underperformance from 2016 to 2020 to Biden from 2020-2024 is negligible in my opinion as 2020 came from such a low trajectory (and basically everything rallied off those 2020 lows). Intriguing over the last week with all the tech “excitement” (NVDA SNOW) by far the best major S&P sector performers have been the underappreciated utilities and energy.