---
title: "Energy fund falls 2.8% as oil reverses; Fed delivers first hike since 2023"
url: "https://etf.net/news/energy-fund-falls-2-8-as-oil-reverses-fed-delivers-first-hike-since-2023-2026-09-16"
published_at: "2026-09-16T22:26:22.900Z"
updated_at: "2026-09-16T22:26:22.900Z"
byline: "ETF.net Research"
---

# Energy fund falls 2.8% as oil reverses; Fed delivers first hike since 2023

The energy fund XLE fell 2.8% on Wednesday, September 16, 2026, reversing a 2.2% gain, as WTI crude dropped 3.5% and the Fed raised rates a quarter point to 3.75% to 4.00%.

By ETF.net Research. Published Sep 16, 2026.

The Federal Open Market Committee voted 12-0 on Wednesday to raise its target range a quarter point to **3.75%** to **4.00%**, the first increase since 2023. The committee's new projections for the federal funds rate put the 2026 and 2027 medians at **4.1%**, against June's 3.8% and 3.6%. Chairman Kevin Warsh said inflation "is too high and has been for too long." The 10-year Treasury yield was 5.01%.

Nine of eleven sector funds fell.

Chart: **Energy** led as nine of eleven sectors fell

The financials fund XLF dropped 1.6% on 1.7 times average volume.

Chart: Heavy volume concentrated in **energy** and financials

The S&P 500 fund SPY lost 0.45%. The equal-weight S&P 500 fund RSP lost 0.79%.

## Four producers, one oil reversal

West Texas Intermediate crude was at $102.12 a barrel as of 4:28 p.m. Eastern, down 3.5%. Brent was at $105.52, down 3.0%. Saudi Arabia was offering extra cargoes via Oman. U.S. crude inventories fell 640,000 barrels in the week ended September 11, short of the 1.6 million-barrel draw that had been expected, after the American Petroleum Institute had reported a 7.1 million-barrel build. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said about 18 million barrels flowed out of the Persian Gulf on Tuesday, near pre-conflict levels.

Exxon Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and EOG Resources are 46% of XLE. They subtracted **1.8** percentage points from it at Wednesday's close. Exxon Mobil fell 3.5%, Chevron 2.9%, ConocoPhillips 6.1% and EOG Resources 5.7%. Valero and Marathon Petroleum, the refiners, rose 1.6% and 0.7%. The drop in XLE was an upstream event, and it drew 1.8 times the fund's usual volume. The fund closed at $64.07, below Monday's $64.53, more than erasing [Tuesday's 2.2% gain](https://etf.net/news/energy-fund-gains-2-2-on-106-oil-as-the-10-year-hits-5-2026-09-15).

XLE is still up **45%** this year, against **11%** for SPY.

J.B. Hunt Transport Services dropped 13% after saying third-quarter earnings would decline 5% to 10% from the second quarter. Diesel prices were up 10% from July to August and had risen in eight of the quarter's 11 weeks; driver costs were running $25 million above the second quarter. Management called the pressure "more cyclical than structural." It is 0.4% of the industrial fund XLI.

## Banks sold as a group

Goldman Sachs dropped 4.0%, Bank of America 2.7%, Wells Fargo 3.0% and JPMorgan Chase 1.0%. Those four names accounted for 0.50 percentage points of the decline in XLF. The other seventy-odd holdings supplied the rest. Berkshire Hathaway, 12% of the fund, rose 0.8% and did not offset them.

The real estate fund VNQ lost 0.65%. In communication services, AT&T, Verizon, Charter and Comcast subtracted 0.58 percentage points from XLC, which fell 0.86%. Meta Platforms, 19% of that fund, rose.

## Technology refused to fall

Nvidia, 18% of VGT, rose 0.8%. Intel rose 4.0% after a report of talks with SK Hynix on U.S. memory-chip production. Microsoft, 12%, fell 1.4% and canceled Nvidia's contribution. The Nasdaq-100 fund QQQ was up 0.03%. The technology fund did not so much rally as refuse to fall.

Tuesday's crude spike is off the board. The higher policy rate is not.

Source: etf.net, https://etf.net/news/energy-fund-falls-2-8-as-oil-reverses-fed-delivers-first-hike-since-2023-2026-09-16. Please cite the page URL.