Chart of the Day $XOM – Most Oversold in 10 Years

by Enis August 19, 2013 2:23 pm • Commentary

XOM has periodically been the largest market cap company in the U.S. market, off and on for the past decade.  It was the largest again for most of 2013, before AAPL’s recent resurgence and XOM’s recent selloff.  But this is no normal selloff for XOM.

Today is the 18th down day in the last 19 trading days for XOM!  That is a mind-boggling streak, especially since the broader market, while weak, has not been totally in the dumps in that period.  Weak earnings on August 1st aided the move lower, but market participants have been relentlessly selling this stock for weeks now.

In fact, XOM’s negative momentum as measured by the daily RSI is now at its lowest level since July 2002:

Chart of XOM stock top panel, XOM daily RSI (14) bottom panel, Courtesy of Bloomberg
Chart of XOM stock top panel, XOM daily RSI (14) bottom panel, Courtesy of Bloomberg

First off, the daily chart of XOM was never able to get above its 2008 high near $96.  It got awfully close this year, but sellers showed up before that all-time high, and XOM has been on a one-way train lower ever since.

The lower panel shows the daily RSI reading for XOM going back to 2002.  The current losing streak has moved the momentum reading to below 21 for the first time since July 2002, quite amazing considering the many deep selloffs the market and XOM have seen in the intervening years.

Whether such weak momentum readings for the second-largest market cap stock in the U.S. has broader implications is tough to say.  It’s certainly another sign that buyers of stocks seem to have much less dry powder to make new purchases compared to earlier this year.