For the first time since late 2023/early 2024, WTI (at around $71.30/barrel) is starting to look interesting for a number of reasons. Crude fell to $68 in December 2023, drifted sideways-to-higher until February, and then rallied to almost $88 by April. Since then, oil has been in what looks like an ABC or three-wave decline, dropping to a recent low of $65 on September 10. That was the lowest price since May 2023. After peaking in March 2022 just above $130, crude has been range trading between $64 and $95 for the past two years. Back in late 2023/early 2024, the Commitment of Traders (COT) data on oil became very bullish for the first time since the summer of 2023, with commercial hedgers having a relatively high net futures position and large speculators having a low net futures position. That same positioning has occurred over the past couple of weeks. In the very near term, $72 is important resistance as a jump above that price would represent a false breakdown, would break the bearish trendline off the peak since August 12, and would represent a 38.2% retracement of the decline since early July. There are many pieces of potential chart, moving-average, and retracement resistance from $72 to $80. The recent low of $65 is key chart support. Sentiment toward WTI is close to pessimistic, another potential contrarian positive. One of the few negatives is that October and November are the worst two months for oil when looking back over 30 years. Still, seasonality historically is supposed to be bullish from March to September -- and it certainly wasn't in 2024. (Mark Arbeter, CMT)

This pick list highlights constituents of the Morningstar US Large Cap Index that we believe offer investors the best risk-adjusted return prospects. Stocks of large-cap companies where neither growth nor value characteristics predominate. Stocks in the top 70% of the capitalization of the U.S. equity market are defined as large cap.

Occidental Petroleum is an independent exploration and production company with operations in the United States, Latin America, and the Middle East. At the end of 2023, the company reported net proved reserves of nearly 4 billion barrels of oil equivalent. Net production averaged 1,234 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2023 at a ratio of roughly 50% oil and natural gas liquids and 50% natural gas.

Vickers Stock Research, a subsidiary of Argus Research Group, analyzes insider trading and institutional stock ownership. Form 13Fs, which institutions must file to report their holdings, are due 45 days after the end of calendar quarters and have come in for 2Q24. We review 13Fs of major institutional investors, including activists, to see what they are buying and to look for trends. Activist investing is now less about generating a short-term return and more about achieving long-term returns through an active management/investor partnership. The stock-market volatility during 2Q gave those institutional investors a chance to buy a dip. Taking a look at the 13Fs from well-known institutional portfolios, we see that the big guns were busy, either adding new holdings or increasing existing holdings. Buying was across a variety of sectors. Based on Vickers data, the following are select purchases made in 2Q by some high-profile money managers. We also list one significant sale (of Apple by Berkshire) and also note if the holding is now 4% or more of the total portfolio.