We’re selling 200 shares of Halliburton (HAL) at roughly $40.64 each Following Wednesday’s trade, Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust will own 1,400 shares of HAL, decreasing its weighting to 1.97% from 2.24%. Technology stocks and the so-called Magnificent Seven may get all the attention in the market, but you might be surprised to know that the group that has performed the best since the last consumer price index (CPI) print back in mid-July has been the energy sector. Oil services giant Halliburton has been one of the better names in the group over this period, and its outperformance has been even better if you zoom out slightly. Since the start of the third quarter, Halliburton has rallied roughly 23% compared to a very small gain in the S & P 500 over the same stretch. HAL shares were up 2% on Wednesday afternoon. HAL YTD mountain Halliburton YTD performance Supporting the energy trade of late has been the impressive recovery in oil and natural gas . Both commodities were down significantly at one point versus the end of 2022, but the per-barrel price of West Texas Intermediate crude, has made a comeback, now around its high of 2023 — and natural gas is near $3 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) after briefly breaking below $2 in the spring. The recent move in HAL and our energy stocks has us feeling a little greedy about our three positions, which also at one point this year were in the red. But we battled and stuck with the trade. With Wednesday’s move, all three are now in the green compared to our cost basis. CTRA PXD YTD mountain Coterra and Pioneer YTD performances But we don’t want to trim Coterra Energy (CTRA) because the rally in natural gas could continue in a cold winter and more liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants coming online in the gulf next year could be a tailwind. In fact, we added to our Coterra position Tuesday morning into weakness. As for our other exploration and production (E & P) name Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD), it reported the best quarter of the group so far with improving capital efficiency. That leaves us with Halliburton, which looks ripe to take some gains given the outperformance it has had lately. We’ll realize a solid gain of about 9% on stock purchased in March 2022. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long HAL, CTRA, PXD. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
A Halliburton oil well fielder works on a well head at a fracking rig site January 27, 2016 near Stillwater, Oklahoma.
J. Pat Carter | Getty Images
This article was originally published by Cnbc.com. Read the original article here.