Oil is fueling energy stocks again, and Exxon Mobil is using the move to climb to levels it has not seen in at least a year. On Borsa Italiana’s Global Equity Market the stock was trading at €162.70 at 5:00 p.m. CEST, up 3.97%. On Wall Street, where the benchmark price is set, the shares were worth $181.86 at 4:00 p.m. CEST (10:00 a.m. ET), 2.04% above the October 22 close of $178.23. The gap between the two moves comes down to the different reference prices used in each calculation and to the euro-dollar exchange rate.

On the US market the session has so far traded between $179.00 and $182.07, and that intraday high wiped out the previous 52-week record of $180.31, set the day before. On October 22 the stock closed almost flat, up 0.08%, after swinging between $174.63 and $180.31.

Why Exxon Mobil stock is running

The main push is coming from crude. On October 22 Brent closed at $113.17 a barrel, a jump of 4% and the highest close since May 4; on October 23 it pushed above $114, while US WTI moved back above $100.

Prices have been lit up by attacks in Saudi Arabia attributed to the Iran-backed Houthis, which have revived fears of fresh supply disruptions from the Gulf, alongside production losses in Libya. For an integrated group like Exxon, which extracts, refines and sells, every extra dollar on the barrel translates almost automatically into fatter margins in the upstream division.

There is also a rotation at work that rewards energy at the expense of technology. Doubts about the sustainability of artificial intelligence spending are pushing many investors to cut their exposure to tech names, and the Nasdaq opened lower. In a phase like this, the oil majors, with robust dividends and earnings tied to expensive crude, go back to acting as a safe harbor.

The third engine is earnings. Exxon will report third-quarter results on Friday, October 30, before the Wall Street open, and expectations have risen considerably in recent weeks. According to the consensus compiled by Zacks, the market expects earnings of $3.96 per share, more than double the year-ago figure, on revenue of $102.74 billion, and the earnings estimate has been revised up by 18.67% over the past thirty days. Investment banks are adjusting too: on October 20 Goldman Sachs raised its price target from $169 to $178.

This is also where the first note of caution hides. The stock is now trading above the average analyst price target, which MarketScreener put at $179.41 on October 21, a sign that much of the expected good news is already in the price. In the background, the Financial Times reports that Infineum, the lubricant additives joint venture Exxon controls together with Shell, is said to be weighing a sale worth roughly $8 billion.

The technical picture

Having cleared the first resistance at $180.82 with momentum, the next obstacle sits at $183.40, a level that almost coincides with the upper limit of the 20-session Bollinger Bands, calculated with a deviation of 2 and placed at $183.01. The price is therefore traveling in the upper part of a channel whose floor reaches down to $156.43. In the event of a pullback, the first footholds are at $175.14 and $172.04.

The moving averages trace an orderly staircase below the price. The 20-session average sits at $169.72, the 50-session at $164.83, the 100-session at $155.40 and the 200-session at $152.16, a sequence that describes a solid uptrend built up over time.

The oscillators confirm that strength but also sound a warning bell. The 14-session RSI (Relative Strength Index, a momentum gauge that runs from 0 to 100) has reached 70.6 and entered overbought territory, while the stochastic is moving high with %K at 89.0 and %D at 88.4. The MACD (Moving Average Convergence Divergence), at 4.497, remains above its signal line at 3.691, with a positive histogram of 0.806. The 14-session ADX (Average Directional Index), at 29.3, points to a well-defined trend, and the comparison between the +DI at 24.6 and the -DI at 14.1 leaves buyers in control of the game.

Should the correction deepen, the Fibonacci retracements calculated on the past six months’ rally, from $134.95 to $180.31, offer reference points at 38.2% ($162.98), 50% ($157.63) and 61.8% ($152.28). Further down sit the supports built on the relative lows of recent months, at $158.75 and $155.59, the latter already tested twice.

Trend and volatility over the medium and long term

Widen the lens and Exxon’s growth looks steady on every horizon, with a gain of 2.03% over a week, 10.54% over a month and 58.79% over a year. The stock has come a long way from its 52-week low of $111.98, even if the past year has had its difficult moments, with a maximum drawdown of 20.52% from the peak.

The statistical indicators describe a robust trend. The regression over the past 60 sessions shows a slope of 0.20% a day with an R² of 0.69, and the Hurst exponent at 0.67 signals trend memory, that is, a tendency to keep moving in the current direction. The exception is the dominant price cycle, roughly 120 sessions long, which is now in its descending phase and argues against taking the continuation of the rally for granted.

Volatility remains contained for a stock exposed to swings in crude. The average daily move over the past 20 sessions is 1.07%, the 14-session ATR (Average True Range) is worth $3.75, equal to about 2.1% of the price, and annualized historical volatility stops at 17.24% over the past 20 sessions against 25.58% over the past 60. Market tension could change that picture in the coming days, with oil at the mercy of headlines from the Middle East and the October 30 earnings report acting as a watershed.

Disclaimer

The information and considerations contained in this article must not be used as the sole or primary basis for making investment decisions. Readers retain full freedom in their own investment choices and full responsibility for making them, since only they know their own risk tolerance and time horizon. The information in this article is provided for informational purposes only, and its publication does not constitute and is not to be considered an offer or solicitation to the public to invest.

Editor’s note

This article was originally published in Italian on money.it by Ufficio Studi Money.it on October 23, 2026 as «Exxon Mobil ai massimi dell’anno con il petrolio sopra 114 dollari. Cosa c’è dietro il rally e fin dove può arrivare». It has been translated and adapted for an international audience by the Money.it International desk.