We could be on the verge of another major oil M&A boom like the historic one that brought Exxon and Mobil together. Mergers and acquisitions have the potential to shake up a market and send some stocks soaring, but the best industry plays aren’t all that obvious.

The price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil dropped to $81.07 per barrel last week. It now sits at just pennies above 4-year support. From around that level, sharp rallies followed back in 2010 and 2011.

September E-mini S&Ps (ESU14 +0.05%) this morning are unchanged and European stocks are down % after a composite gauge of European manufacturing and services activity slowed to its slowest pace in 6 months.

The technical picture and our fundamentals-based sector rankings have both taken a bearish turn, so we might see more weakness ahead

As Q1 of 2014 comes to an end, we can see that January was extremely weak, February gained it all back, and March treaded water.

HP is primarily engaged in the exploration, production, and sale of crude oil and natural gas and in contract drilling of oil and gas wells for others. Since the Trend Spotter signaled a buy on 2/11 the stock gained 22.26%,