Oil prices on the rise as energy stocks lead sector gains
Oil prices are trading above $84 per barrel ahead of Wednesday's closing bell. Yahoo Finance Markets Reporter Jared Blikre breaks down crude oil's pricing behavior year-to-date in 2023, while taking a look at the sector action surrounding energy stocks.
Video Transcript
AKIKO FUJITA: Jared Blikre is on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange with his eye on the energy patch. Jared?
JARED BLIKRE: Hi, Akiko. Let's take a look at the YFi interactive. And we can see indeed WTI Crude Oil has risen today. Got past a little stumbling block there. And in the context of the longer term-- this is a 2-year chart-- you can see it's been trading in a range here that is just trying to break out all year long, and in fact, going back to about the fourth quarter of last year.
A definitive breakout from here would be a really big deal for not only crude oil but commodities in general and also the energy stock patch. And we'll talk about that in a second. Before we do, I just want to point out what's going on with the broader Goldman Sachs [? Commodity ?] Index.
Now, here's a year-to-date chart, and we can see that has really picked up since July. It has broken to the upside today, but it in fact is still in a trading range as well. So waiting for commodities and WTI to really break out of that range. In the meantime, energy.
The S&P 500 energy sector ETF here by [? Spider ?] XLE. That is a leading sector today. And I want to show you guys something. Over the last five days, it is also the leading sector. 10 days, yes, it is a winner once again. One month, two months, yes. But when you go to a [? year-to-date, ?] you're going to find it's barely positive. And that's because XLE has been taken for quite the wild ride this year. Had a big decline into March, and energy itself has been trading in a big range.
However, unlike WTI, it has actually broken to the upside. We want to see if we get confirmation over the next couple of days here. But I just want to show you guys a max chart because this is really huge here. XLE has been flirting with these levels-- let's call it 90 to 100-- three times here, and it's in the process of a third attempt.
If it breaks higher, that is a huge base to break out of. So energy certainly has some legs if it breaks higher, but that could take a while-- weeks, months to develop here.
AKIKO FUJITA: OK. We'll be watching those numbers. Jared Blikre, as always, thanks so much for that.
