Exxon, Chevron May Be S&P 500’s ‘Soft Patch’: Technical Analysis
Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) and Chevron Corp. (CVX) are due for a pullback, suggesting the two largest U.S. energy companies may turn from leaders into a “soft patch” in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, said Janney Montgomery Scott LLC.
Exxon, the stock with the highest market value in the world, produced a “negative divergence,” failing to keep up with the rally in oil prices and surpass February highs. Chevron, the third-biggest U.S. company after Exxon and Apple Inc., rose to highest level relative to its 30-week moving average since July 2007, a sign that the stock may be poised to drop, said Dan Wantrobski, the director of technical research at Janney.
Chevron “is in a vulnerable position,” Wantrobski said in an interview from his office in Philadelphia. “If this comes in and Exxon doesn’t recover, it could weigh on the S&P 500.”
Energy shares have performed the best among 10 industry groups in the S&P 500 this year as anti-government protests erupted in the Middle East and northern Africa, pushing crude- oil prices to a 30-month high. The S&P 500 Energy index rallied 15 percent, compared with a 5.3 percent gain in the benchmark gauge. Exxon and Chevron together have a 5.3 percent weighting in the S&P 500, so a pause by them would hold back any gains in the benchmark gauge for U.S. stocks.
Exxon’s advance since March 16 stalled at an intraday level of $86.22 last week, short of exceeding its Feb. 23 intraday high of $88.23. That marks a “lower high” that tends to signal a downtrend, Wantrobski said.
Shares of Chevron climbed to a closing level of $109.66 at the end of last week, 21 percent above their average price over the past 30 weeks, according to Janney and Bloomberg data. The last time the stock posted a bigger gap -- July 13, 2007 -- the shares fell 9.6 percent through Aug. 15.
“That’s a sign of potential exhaustion,” Wantrobski said. “It’s going to trap somebody.”
Technical analysts study charts of trading patterns and prices to predict changes in a security, commodity, currency or index.
To contact the reporter on this story: Lu Wang in New York at lwang8@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Nick Baker at nbaker7@bloomberg.net.
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