Muchos Pendejos with the Conchos y Anteros

[Photo above is from a great independent film, by the way, Mexico's El Infierno (2010)]

With the COP for CXO deal this morning, the energy patch continues to consolidate while the pickings are awfully cheap for the survivors of a long-term bear market and general disregard by investors for the sector at-large. 

As we have been discussing both here and with Members, however, energy stocks seem to be slowly and in a subtle manner slowly acting more constructively, with this morning's relative strength to the broad market's green-to-red reversal being just one example, gauging the OIH XLE XOP ETFs. 

While there is, indeed, plenty more work for energy bulls to do in order to cement the elusive but fruitful and exciting long-term bear-to-bull multi-year turnaround, seeing names with tons of European exposure like RDS.A outperform here is truly promising. 

In addition, with names in the Concho Resources market cap arena getting bought, a smaller name like Antero Resources, with about 25% of its float sold short, seems even more ripe for a squeeze if not an outright buyout. 

On the AR daily chart, below, you can see a sound setup with price well above a rising 200-day moving average (rare for the oil patch at the moment) flagging and perhaps ripe to move higher yet before October 28th earnings.