Founder’s Note: Sam Gatlin has already shown himself to be one of the most reflective technicians working in the stock market today.
Sam absorbs information, processes it, and makes it his own as quick as anybody I’ve met in this business.
I’m probably biased, but here he is to prove it once more… – JC
By Sam Gatlin
I spent this week in Miami, sitting in a room full of people who actually move markets for a living.
There were active traders and technicians, a few fundamental analysts, and portfolio managers overseeing billions of dollars.
One of JC’s friends from high school was there, too. He’s now a celebrity chef, which somehow made the whole thing even better.
It was one of those rare rooms where everyone belongs, where ideas are challenged without ego, and where nobody needs to pretend they know more than the charts.
We spent hours talking about the market.
We talked about what’s working, what’s crowded, what’s being ignored, and where the next opportunities might be hiding.
I even had the chance to present my work on speculative growth to the group, which was surreal in its own right.
But the highlight for me was finally meeting Jeff Weiss, the author of “Relationship Investing” and one of the most respected Chartered Market Technicians (CMT) in the business.
Jeff has been doing this at the highest level for decades, and he’s exactly the kind of analyst I hope to resemble someday: thoughtful, disciplined, curious, and humble.
Getting to spend time with him was a privilege.
What made the week even more meaningful was bringing my brother along.
He’s the one who first introduced me to JC’s work years ago and set me on this entire path.
Watching him sit in that room, hearing the same conversations that shaped my thinking, was a full-circle moment I won’t forget.
And while the room’s backgrounds varied, one theme kept coming up.
Energy
Most of the room was bullish.
And it’s hard to argue with the tape.
Exxon Mobil (XOM) is breaking out to new all-time highs, and at roughly a $570 billion market cap today, it doesn’t take a heroic assumption to see it eventually joining the trillion-dollar club:
At around $237 per share, XOM gets there, and that level no longer feels far-fetched in a world starved for real assets and real cash flows.
But the room was split over the U.S. dollar.
The consensus view is that the dollar stays weak.
That it has to.
That it should.
And that weakness continues to support metals, international stocks, and everything priced in dollars.
That’s Where I Disagree
For the past few years, the U.S. dollar and energy’s relative performance versus the S&P 500 have been tightly linked.
When the dollar strengthens, energy tends to outperform the broader market.
When the dollar weakens, energy lags while metals and international equities shine:
That relationship hasn’t broken.
And there’s no evidence it’s about to.
If energy is truly entering a new phase of outperformance, and the charts suggest it is, then the dollar strengthening isn’t some optional side effect.
It’s part of the same regime shift.
I think everybody’s wrong about the dollar.
Since early last year, dollar weakness has been the tailwind behind one of the most crowded trades on the planet.
Investors piled into metals.
They loaded up on international equities.
They abandoned anything tied to domestic defensiveness.
And to be clear, that trade worked. Spectacularly.
But markets don’t reward the same positioning forever.
Today, hardly anyone owns energy stocks relative to history.
Consumer staples barely exist in most portfolios.
Meanwhile, exposure to metals and non-U.S. equities has quietly become the consensus.
If the dollar turns higher, even modestly, that entire setup changes.
The trades that benefited from persistent dollar weakness suddenly lose their wind.
And the areas nobody wanted start to matter again.
I’m not here to make bold predictions.
That’s not the job.
The job is to weigh the evidence as it comes in and stay flexible when conditions change.
What I am saying is this: if energy is about to outperform the S&P 500, and if the historical relationship between energy and the dollar holds, as it has for years, then a stronger dollar isn’t a risk. It’s the signal.
That outcome would surprise many people.
It would hurt crowded trades.
And it would force investors to rotate into places they’ve spent years ignoring.
That’s usually how the next chapter begins.
The most valuable part of weeks like this in Miami isn’t the charts or the forecasts.
It’s the conversations.
The friction.
The moments where smart people disagree, and the tape ultimately decides who’s right.
Right now, the tape is telling us to pay attention to energy.
And if that message is real, then the dollar may be the most misunderstood piece of the puzzle.
Everybody’s wrong about the dollar.
And that’s exactly why I’m watching it so closely.
Stay sharp,
Sam Gatlin
Analyst, TrendLabs