HF Sinclair Corporation, headquartered in Dallas, Texas, is an independent energy company that produces and markets light crude products such as gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, renewable diesel and other specialty products. The company owns and operates refineries located in Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Wyoming, Washington and Utah. HF Sinclair provides petroleum products and crude oil transportation, terminaling, storage and throughput services to its refineries and the petroleum industry and supplies fuels to more than 1,500 branded stations and licenses the use of the Sinclair brand at more than 300 additional locations throughout the country.

Stock markets were mixed on Monday morning ahead of the next read on inflation due out Wednesday morning via CPI. Expectations are for both headline and core CPI to rise a more-modest 0.3% from the 0.4% increase in February, for annual CPI to tick up to 3.5% from 3.2%, and core CPI to decrease to 3.7% from 3.8% last month. This week also marks the unofficial start of earnings season, with big banks J.P. Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup reporting. The Dow and the S&P 500 were nearly flat, while and the Nasdaq gained 0.1%. Crude oil traded just above $86 per barrel and gold rose $4 to $2349 per ounce.

The major stock indices opened the day on Thursday with a nice gap higher, paused for a bit, and then ran to new intraday highs around noon. After that, we saw the proverbial "rug pull," with the S&P 500 (SPX) falling over 100 points and finishing at its lows for the day. While for only one day (and we have seen this before), it was an ugly reversal and did a bit more technical damage then prior one-day losses since mid-January.

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil closed at $79.60/barrel on Wednesday, as attempts to break to new rally highs above the $79/$80 region continue to be thwarted. However, the price action has been very tight over the past couple of weeks and crude looks like it is percolating under the surface. Oil is still working on a few higher highs and higher lows, but the rally since December 12 has been labored and, to our eye, does not look like an impulsive rally (which would imply a large move higher). This is the same type of action WTI saw back in May and June of 2023 before it took off, rallying from below $70 in early July to $95 by late September. To be confident in a big rally, any move over $80 should be somewhat steep and not just a slow crawl higher.