This weekend action sent crude higher before Monday's movement sent it retreating... what you need to know.
This weekend brought a whole host of news & headlines to the forefront of the global stage. Of course, any time there are major issues in the middle east energy focused areas can be affected one way or the other… and while many of us have been underweight these names recent action leaves us with plenty to talk about. Intraday action on Monday, 6/23 saw crude oil (CL/) trade significantly lower after spiking over the weekend. Falling roughly 6% intraday, crude futures dipped after attacks on US military bases in the area, suggesting that further military escalation could focus on US military presence in the areas rather than critical energy infrastructure or the Straight of Hormuz (source Wall Street Journal.) Regardless, the weekend's upside movement demonstrates just how sensitive price movement can be to an evolving situation, price movement that continues to print quite an interesting picture from a technical perspective. Furthering this idea is the rapid accent of energy-based commodities within the commodity DALI rankings- energy moved from 4th to 2nd over the last 10 calendar days.
Before our overnight chart update, which would take into account possible intraday action on 6/23/25, the chart for CL/ sits at $75… one box away from posting a bullish triangle on its default chart. This chart action may get a tad cloudy with 6/23’s action, however, which leaves CL/ in jeopardy of reversing lower and violating some localized support. We have discussed the importance of holding above these levels throughout recent research if the commodity has meaningful hope of establishing long-term strength, so a break of this point would certainly be discouraging for energy bulls in the near term.
Perhaps more likely in more of your portfolios will be energy based exposure, which we use proxy XLE as a gauge. While the fund has posted a string of buy signals off 2025 lows and broken back into a positive trend with recent action, it maintains a poor overall fund score, bringing into question the longer term strength of the recent move. Reversing back down into a column of O’s, bulls will look to defend various levels of support nearby baked into the upper $70’s & low $80’s but expectations for further action should be tempered.
When the broader sector’s outlook remains cloudy at best, using the technical attribute scoring system to isolate specific points of strength is typically the best course of action when picking up exposure. Using the security screener to isolate highly rated, liquid, non-MLP energy names, we screened for a total of 19 strong options. One of which is Expand Energy Corp (EXE), which posted new all-time highs over the last week. While it is a tad overbought around current levels, the 5/5’er sits on a string of consecutive buy signals and has a nice base of support to work off of just above the middle of the trading band. Keep in mind- the upcoming weeks will undoubtedly bring plenty of news and further headlines about the US and its involvement in the middle east. Remember- using price action to find points of strength/weakness is most important in a quick moving market.
