Oil has surged all year as one of the best-performing asset classes, and the S&P 500 Energy sector has benefited from oil’s move with a year-to-date gain of nearly 18%. We highlight a few Energy sector stock charts below.

Similar to crude prices, Devon Energy (DVN) and Marathon Oil (MRO) have been in solid uptrends this year.DVN has now seen the third best YTD gains (47.73%) of the S&P 500 stocks in the sector, bringing it right up to the 200-DMA. In Thursday’s trading, it has made a move above the 200-day and is looking to close there. Marathon Oil (MRO) has also traded in a nice uptrend this year right between the 50-DMA and 200-DMA. The two moving averages are converging on each other, and price has been similarly trading in a tighter range though it has continued to make higher highs. As it continues in its uptrend, the 200-DMA will be a point to watch as it could break out as Hess (HES) and Helmerich & Payne (HP) did. Other stocks like Apache (APA), Chesapeake (CHK), EQT (EQT), and Phillips 66 (PSX) are showing similar patterns.

Hess (HES) has actually outperformed the entire sector and the commodities it deals in this year by a sizeable margin having now risen 63.45% YTD. After a rough end to 2018, this rebound has brought it right back towards the upper end of the range from last year. If it breaks through this resistance around $67, the next area to watch would be last year’s highs above $74.

Looking solely at Diamondback Energy (FANG), you would never be able to tell that oil has seen such a strong run this year. While it is up over 13% YTD, the stock has been trading sideways all year. But at its current levels, FANG is eying a break out above this consolidation and back to the levels it was at for much of 2018. Intraday over the past couple of sessions, the stock managed to push above YTD highs to the highest levels since early December. While FANG is overbought, a close above this range would be promising.

Noble Energy (NBL) has also outperformed oil so far this year with a 45.86% gain. The stock has been in a solid uptrend since the start of the year, breaking a long term downtrend line. More recently, the large gap up on last week’s news of Anadarko and Chevron’s merger has brought the stock above the 200-DMA for the first time since October. So far NBL has managed to hold above these levels. Similarly, Pioneer (PXD), which has been in a downtrend for the past year, got a solid boost to the technical picture following the news of the merger. For most of this year, the stock has been range bound, though, in late March it did begin to break above this range. The response to last week’s news led to a large gap up above the 200-DMA. More importantly, it is also now above that former downtrend line. Since then, the stock has yet to reject these new levels rallying over 6% in the past week.

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