Commodities sit on the outside looking in of the top of NDW's rankings. We check in on relevant movement in today's feature.
Commodities continue to largely tread water, seeming to have lost the battle against the larger equity space (both domestic and international) for the top spots across the NDW platform. Today’s feature will talk about notable developments within the space you should be aware of and flag a handful of useful features you may want to utilize to judge the strength of other asset classes. Starting broadly, it might be useful to get a 30,000 foot view of the overall space compared to other more risk-on asset classes available to you, for which we can utilize the DALI and Asset Class Group Scores Page (rankings pictured below). In both scenarios, commodities has fallen behind broader equities over the course of the summer… but it is still worth noting that things are not “weak” by any definition of the word. There are certainly spaces within the commodity group that are relatively strong, which is actually a positive point for those of you looking to create value within sleeves of client portfolios. Point being, where there are distinct points of strength and weakness, there are points for a tactical asset manager to overweight/underweight certain names to possibly best the benchmark.
For you Dorsey Wright experts, you will know that part of creating such value is avoiding points of weakness. Despite several attempts over the last few years to rally, energy has been a sustained loser underneath the hood of the commodity space. While Crude Oil CL/ sits just off 2025 lows, it most recently re-entered a negative trend and trades within earshot of posting a second consecutive sell signal on its default chart. Using historical summaries of the continuous commodity matrix, we can highlight this energy weakness. We have included three historical summaries, one from 2025 lows (4/9), the “start” of the summer (6/2) and yesterday (8/27). At no point did any energy representative hold a compelling argument for commodity leadership (NG/ leadership in April’s date was fleeting- it only maintained a column of X’s against three representatives. All this to say, remember… using relative strength to pinpoint losers is sometimes more important than finding exactly who is the strongest.
On the other hand, leadership has remained largely focused over the recent past. Precious metals have remained somewhat resilient despite the group running into a bit of a headwind around all time highs. Notably gold (GC/) has fallen out of the top spot within the commodity matrix (but still maintains a strong 14 buy signals against the rest of the universe.) In its place sits platinum, another precious metal which has advanced over 50% so far in 2025. Silver SI/ sits in fourth, marking a third precious metal sitting in the top-10 of the matrix as of 8/26. Not included in the matrix is uranium, which has put together quite a campaign so far in 2025. In terms of a recent mover with strong technicals, major uranium representatives NLR or URA have gained nearly 50% this year and could fit the bill for a small satellite position within your alternatives sleeve. Perhaps a tad more intreging from a pure technical standpoint is uranium miners (URNM) which holds a strong 5.75 fund score. Furthermore, the fund recently broke to new 2025 highs, completing a bullish shakeout pattern on its default chart. Towards the downside, support is found in the mid- $40’s. Keep in mind, these names (and most commodities in general) have RRisk scores above 2 (meaning risk metrics more than double the market) so make sure to consider than when assuming suitability for clients.
Remember, with such a strong core of the market, finding ways to differentiate yourself in your client’s eyes is key. This can certainly come in the way of more frequent touchpoints as markets enter a historically rocky September… but it can also come in play with more tailored investment processes. Use the platform to find strong ideas that might be “outside the box,” focusing on strong fund or technical attribute scores.
