While not quite taking the limelight due to historic price action within precious metals, energy commodities like crude oil (CL/), gasoline (UJ/), and natural gas (NG/) saw notable price action that did not go unnoticed during last week’s trading.

Positive action kicking off last week led to a reversal into Xs (1/27) on the default trend chart for crude oil (CL/) before returning to a buy signal (1/28) for the first time since summer 2025 by breaking a triple top at $63. Thursday’s (1/29) action culminated with a positive trend reversal as crude rallied to $66, penetrating the bearish resistance line, but intriguingly bringing the chart to a level of price resistance that has been in place since September 2025.

Crude’s lesser sibling gasoline (UJ/) returned to a buy signal earlier in January and gave a second buy signal on 1/23 before continuing higher last week to penetrate the bearish resistance line.  Similar to crude oil, gasoline had been in a negative trend on its default trend chart since July of last year. While seeing the trend flip to positive, gasoline still faces resistance in the low $2.00 range that has been in place since September 2025

In both cases, Monday’s (2/2) kicked off February’s chart action with reversals into Os from recent rally highs, with crude falling down to $62 and gasoline dropping to $1.84. Crude continues to trade above its 50- and 150-day moving averages, while gasoline maintains above its 50-day moving average. Initial support for crude resides in the $57 to $58 range, while support for gasoline sits in the mid to upper $1.70 range.

Prior to last week’s action, natural gas (NG/) saw similarly historic price swings of similar magnitude as gold (GC/) and silver (SI/). After rallying to a multi-year high and moving into a positive trend during trading on 1/21 on the 0.10 point per box chart, that week wrapped with the chart reversing down to Os and retracing much of the rally. While last week’s action briefly led to a reversal in Xs and move above the 50-day moving average, Monday’s (2/2) action saw a reversal down and return to a sell signal with the double bottom break at $3.50 before falling to $3.20 and violating the bullish support line. With the negative trend shift, the low at $3.10 from earlier in January is now near-term support. Additional can be found in the $2.70 to $2.90 range.  

While seeing downward movement to kick off February’s action, much of the gain in near-term relative strength for energy space continues to maintain and is a trend the analyst team is closely monitoring.

February marks the first seasonal evaluations for the Fund Score Method (FSM) models. If you’re not familiar with the FSM model framework, a large majority of the models evaluate their holdings on a seasonal quarter basis with February, May, August, and November marking the start/end of each seasonal quarter. Each FSM model is built around a universe of ETFs or mutual funds with the highest scoring funds selected at each evaluation. If you want a deeper dive into the basics for FSM models, check out our Fund Score Method Model Guide. As we do during each evaluation season, we will cover the trades and themes to get insights into any shifts in market leadership. Whether or not one follows any of the FSM models, their evaluations give us important information.

To start, the FSM T Rowe Price 5S PR4050 made a flurry of trades with an emphasis on international equities. After swapping out four funds, the lineup now consists of all five funds having at least 20% of their underlying allocations in international equities. So, there’s been a major push into the global equity space with a strong mix of both US and ex-US equities. The four new funds include: T Rowe Price International Value Equity Fund (TRIGX), T Rowe Price New Era (PRMEX), T Rowe Price Overseas Stock (TROSX), and T Rowe Price Spectrum International Equity Fund (PSILX). The FSM American Funds 5S PR4050 model made similar changes with only two new funds coming into the current holdings, making all five holdings having a meaningful amount of exposure to international equities. This is the most international exposure either of the two most popular FSM mutual fund models have had since they went live nearly eight years ago.

Moving onto our CoreSolution suite of FSM models, it was a relatively quiet evaluation when compared to the mutual fund models. The FSM CoreSolution US Core 2S PR4050 model made no trades and continues to hold the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) and the iShares MSCI USA Momentum Factor ETF (MTUM). On the other hand, the FSM CoreSolution All Cap World 2S PR405 model did make a trade to pick up more international exposure. The model sold the iShares Morningstar Growth ETF (ILCG) and bought the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM). Overall, this evaluation period highlighted the continued strength in international equities that started last year. On our macro group rankings on the Asset Class Group Scores Page, the All Global and International group has its highest average score since the mid-2000s and its 4.47 score is beating the All US Equity group by 0.40 points. However, the S&P 500 Index Funds group is still ranked above All Global & Intl Diversified, so the large cap growth leadership is still in place despite international equities outcompeting small and mid-cap US by and large.

Daily Option Ideas for February 3, 2026