The S&P 500 Energy Sector’s winning streak has come to an end.
The sector closed just 0.2% lower on Thursday to snap an eight-day winning streak—the group’s best run since March 2022. If the sector had closed higher Thursday, that would’ve brought it to its best stretch in more than a decade, with its last nine-day winning streak back in October 2009.
The group’s recent gains have been all about oil, with WTI crude prices rising 3.9% so far this month. Crude, like energy stocks, fell Thursday: Front Month Nymex Crude for October delivery lost 67 cents per barrel, or 0.77% to $86.87. That broke an even longer winning streak of nine days, the commodity’s longest since January 2019.
Still, don’t feel too bad for energy investors. The S&P 500 Energy Sector has climbed 2.5% for September, a notable rise when the sector has risen just 3.3% year to date overall.
And more gains could be in the works, with the energy sector severely lagging behind the S&P 500’s year-to-date rise of 16%. In fact, some market watchers predict a steeper rise to come in oil prices in the remaining months of 2023. UBS this week predicted that crude prices could rise roughly another 6% this year, forecasting the U.S. WTI benchmark will hit $91 a barrel by the end of December.
As many of these energy stocks tend to move in tandem with the oil, investors might not want to take Thursday’s broken winning streak as a sell signal just yet.
Write to Emily Dattilo at [email protected]
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