The rotation out of technology may be facing yet another catalyst.
If energy’s outperformance persists, it could force more investors to rebalance their portfolio, leaving tech behind in favor of the former laggard, Miller Tabak’s Matt Maley told CNBC’s “Trading Nation” on Tuesday.
Oil prices fell Wednesday to around $62 a barrel after hitting two-month highs in Tuesday’s trade.
“If you get up into the $67-68 range, that’s going to confirm a multiyear breakout in the underlying commodity and that’s going to be really bullish,” said Maley, his firm’s chief market strategist.
Though energy stocks are starting to get overbought after significant year-to-date outperformance, another breakout could force institutional investors’ hands, Maley said.
“They’re not going to sell completely all out of their Apple or their Amazon, but at some point, they’ve got to pare them back a little bit further because it’s killing their performance and they’ve got to go into the areas that are really outperforming,” he said. “If energy … continues to break out, it’s going to continue to outperform and people have to go towards that group.”
Joule Financial chief investment officer Quint Tatro likely won’t be one of those people.
The commodity and reflation trade has “gotten very overcrowded,” he said in the same “Trading Nation” interview.
“We were a little early with this about a week or so ago when we started making shifts in our book, but ultimately, we think in the … short to intermediate term, we’re going to see some pretty decent pullbacks here and I think that anybody chasing these areas right now are going to probably go through some pain,” Tatro said.
His favorite name to buy on pullbacks was Pioneer Natural Resources for the company’s strong balance sheet, though he wasn’t in a hurry to jump in.
“I don’t see any rush whatsoever. I’d be a buyer of weakness in the space longer term,” Tatro said.
In the meantime, he’ll be focused on left-for-dead momentum stocks, “digging through the trash and trying to find gems in what we think are some tradable bottoms here in the momentum growth area.”
