Is Stagflation Creeping Into the Picture?

In this podcast, Motley Fool analyst Jason Moser and contributors Travis Hoium and Lou Whiteman discuss:
- Q4 2025 GDP data.
- Uber's autonomous momentum.
- Adobe's earnings.
- Executive free agents.
- Stocks on their radar.
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This podcast was recorded on March 13, 2026.
Travis Hoium: Are we headed for stagflation in 2026? Motley Fool money starts now.
Welcome to Motley Fool Money. I am Travis Hoium joined today by Jason Moser and Lou Whiteman. Guys, we've got to start with the topic of the day. That is the economy. We got information about GDP growth in the fourth quarter this morning. That growth was 0.7%. Earlier estimate was 1.4%. The reason that this is notable is that the further we get away from the end of the fourth quarter, the better the data gets, Lou. Where does your head go when you think about this? Because this is a sharp drop from I believe it was 4% growth in the third quarter. We also have inflation, which was over 3% in January. It seems like that stagflation word starts to come up when you have low growth and high inflation. That's not a great place to be from an economic standpoint.
Lou Whiteman: Yeah, you're right. With each revision, not only do you get more better data because they've had time to digest it, but you also get this rare gift to see into the future, compared to a few weeks ago when we didn't know what the first quarter of 2026 was going to look like, now it's almost over, so we can actually take that data from the fourth quarter and look at the world now. Look, it's not great. I wish we had a real uncertainty gauge the way we have the VIX for volatility, and it's kind of the same, but it feels like what's going on here, this lack of activity, it isn't because just everything's terrible. It's because just for the last year, between tariffs, between war, between just so much uncertainty, it is causing companies, it's causing consumers to just do a little less or to wait and see. The good news there is is that in theory, if we get more certainty, that's a quicker turnaround than it would be if just the economy is in the dumps. The bad news is, like I said, we've had time to see how things play out. Arguably, I think we weren't at war at the end of the fourth quarter, we have oil, we have so much going on. If anything, things look worse now than they did at the end of the year. So combining the fact that things weren't growing in the fourth quarter with, wow, look at what's happened in the first quarter. I think there's a lot of reasons to be concerned right now.
Travis Hoium: Yeah Jason, Lou brought up the oil market. To put some numbers to that, January 2nd, West Texas Intermediate crude was $57 a barrel. Today, as we're recording, it's 93. It has been over $100 a barrel in the past few days. That's a big piece of people's consumer spending. If you need to get to work, you need to take your kids to soccer practice, whatever you've got to do in your life, it's hard to cut back on spending for energy in particular gasoline. Maybe you got to pull back in other ways. How are you thinking about that as an investor? Is this something that just goes into the mix of data that you're pulling in, or is there anything actionable here that you're actually doing when you get GDP data like this?
Jason Moser: Lou, I think, is right there. Looking at things currently right now, they probably look a little bit worse. The wildcard in here is, of course, what's going on in Iran and how long this is ultimately going to last. When you look at energy prices, hopefully this is something that's short lived. When you look at oil and you think, why is oil going up. Is oil going up because demand is going up because of growth? Because then you can support that. But if oil is going up as in this case, because of geopolitical conflict, well, that's another problem altogether. When you combine that with low growth, you combine that with inflation that really is still very sticky. I certainly understand the pessimism here in the near term. Again, the wildcard is how long does this go on? If it's something that is very short lived, then maybe things start to look a little bit better. But, yeah, for right now, I think what will be interesting when we look at these first quarter numbers, whenever we get them in, that's going to take into account the Supreme Court's decision to reverse the tariffs. That could be a tailwind. It also doesn't really incorporate higher energy prices and how persistent that may be. The news is always in the revisions, of course, and we'll continue to get revisions as time goes on, but it's very understandable for now just the near term trepidation.
Lou Whiteman: I'm not going to pretend to be an oil expert, but I am really worried about the idea that it could be temporary, the energy spike. I'll tell you why. I do know a thing or two about logistics, and I think we are greatly underestimating, even at the drop of a hat right now, there's peace. I don't think we're going to see the flow resume. I'll point to look at the Red Sea. It has been at least what, six months since we had headlines about attacks in the Red Sea from Yemen. Look at what's going on there. Shipping is still very depressed, relative to averages. We're dealing with insurance markets. We're dealing with just the safety markets. Shippers are going to be gun-shy well after the straight is open. I don't think we're just going to see an immediate flow. We need an oil expert in here, but I don't think some of these, they've run out of storage capacity, so they are being forced to just shut down the wells. That's not a simple valve like your garden hose. I think even there, I am really worried that energy it's almost too late for this to be quick with energy. Yeah, this is a major headwind heading into it at least for the first half of 2026.
Travis Hoium: Yeah, Lou, let's just explain what you're talking about there. Oil is what you would call an inelastic market. Like we talked about going to work, if you need to fill your tank, you're going to fill it, whether the gasoline is two dollars a gallon or four dollars a gallon. So about 20% of the world's oil goes through the Strait of Hormuz, if my memory is correct. That is a huge number. A 5% reduction in the supply of oil will send oil prices spiking. If this lasts for a while, a 20% reduction or impact in the supply of oil could have a dramatic impact on prices. Now, we're not trying to fear monger here, but this is the real potential economic impact if there is a prolonged conflict there. It's not just as simple as, well, the US makes enough oil to provide energy for the US, this is aglobal market There's a lot of worms in this can that has been opened up.
Lou Whiteman: Real quick,a couple of things. Yeah, we are advantaged to the extent that we are not going to run out of oil, but we're not advantaged in terms of we're not going to feel the price shock. That's it, exactly. We will have oil, it will just be more expensive. The elastic thing is interesting, just a quick dive into that. Where it is elastic is, especially on the corporate side, trying to scale back, say, factories, so you use less. Then that really ripples through the economy in terms of jobs needed, employment hours and just all sorts of things. There's a lot of ways this can ripple. Truth is we don't know. Again, as you said, we don't want to fear monger, but just it feels like enough has happened that it will reverberate for a while, and I think we should acknowledge that as we try and figure out what's going on.
Travis Hoium: Yeah, the US did announce that they were going to release 172 million barrels of oil from the strategic petroleum reserve. To put that into context, that's about two days of global oil consumption. It's a lot of oil, but it's going to be a band aid on what could be a pretty big problem here. When we come back, we're going to talk about the future of autonomous driving and where Uber sits. You're listening to Motley Fool Money.
Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. We have been waiting for Tesla to run away with autonomous driving for a decade, but it's actually Uber, who is making deal after deal over the past few months. They're connecting riders with Waymo in some cities already. They're the demand source for Waymo vehicles. They've announced a deal with Lucid and Nuro. They're going to be launching vehicles potentially later this year for commercial use. But just this week alone, they announced a deal with Zoox, which is owned by Amazon, Wave in a partnership with Nissan. Then this morning, they came out with a deal with Motional who is making the technology for Hyundai vehicles. Lou, this is really interesting that we don't really think about Uber as an autonomous vehicle company, but they may be the way that we actually access these vehicles, and it seems like everybody wants to work with Uber right now.
Lou Whiteman: Yeah, well, also, they don't have their own text tack, so they have to be the ones out announcing partnership. I think that's worth seeing. I worry about almost the press release war. Just because somebody is talking about it more, it doesn't mean they're dealing what's doing it. But, yeah, Uber is set up pretty well, at least for now. As this gets more commoditized, as more people seem to be able to do that, owning the customer is a pretty good way to be an early winner. I don't know if that holds all the way through. I'm honestly not sure. I'm of two minds on that. Also, I will say, guys, I am ground zero for what Waymo is doing. I'm in Atlanta, and just yesterday, I watched a Waymo vehicle behind me get out of my lane, then realized they needed to get back into my lane and then leave my lane again. I wonder about how much we should think that this is just the future for everything right away. I know they're getting there, but I wonder if we're headed toward the disappointment part of the curve. But yeah, for now, Uber is pretty well positioned for the market as it is.
Travis Hoium: Waymo is apparently testing in the Minneapolis area where I live in the snow. I haven't heard of any accidents or any problems there. Hopefully, that's a good sign for those of us in the northern half of the country. Jason, what's so interesting here is Lou used the word that I think we should probably be thinking about, which is commoditized. The auto industry has always had a problem making money because it's essentially a commodity. It's four wheels. It has seats. Yes, there's differences between each vehicle, but the pricing power, unless your name is Ferrari, the pricing power is not super high, and you've got all these manufacturing costs, capacity costs. If you're an autonomous vehicle company and you're not Tesla or Waymo, or maybe Zoox, you got to just find riders, and Uber seems to be the one going, hey, we'll provide them, and we're happy to be a partner with you and it seems like every automaker is going, I guess we got to go down this commodity road.
Jason Moser: That reminds me of the planes trains and automobiles line. Steve Martin Four bleeping wheels in a seat. That's ultimately what this is at the end of the day. I think that's what a lot of us have talked about in regard to AVs and just the general commoditized nature of it. At the end of the day, that really ultimately is what it is. I would rather be in Uber's position. Capital business that's able to really go any different direction it wants. You're already hearing companies like Tesla try to move past the vehicle narrative altogether. Tesla is no longer a car company, it's humanoid robots. I don't think this is something where we're going to see it all one way or the other. The future is not all EVs, or at least not for the rest of my life, I don't think. I think it's a little bit of both. I think it's important to remember, too, for some individuals, having a car and being able to drive represents freedom. It depends on where you live, if AV's even really makes sense. Where I live here in Northern Virginia, it's not necessarily an ideal solution. We need to be able to drive to get to where we need to go. But if you're in a city, like if you're in Washington, DC or San Francisco or Las Vegas, it absolutely can make more sense. Either way, I like the idea that Uber can play this opportunity any number of ways. Just to play devil's advocate because I honestly don't know the answer to this, but I'm curious. If we continue down this path of commoditization, where it just becomes every table stakes, how important then is the owner of the customer? If you could almost get this anywhere from anything, how important. [OVERLAPPING]
Travis Hoium: You're saying you're going to talk to your AI agent, and they are going to disintermediate?
Jason Moser: Isn't it possible if it's everywhere, I every taxicab out there is an autonomous vehicle? Do we need the middleman in the app? Maybe, but I just wonder if Uber could end up commoditized, as well. That's a long way off. I'm not really worried about that, but it's weird to think about how this ends. I'm not sure if it ends well for anyone other than the consumer, I'm OK with that.
Travis Hoium: Well, it will be interesting to see how this plays out because everyone is racing toward autonomy, and I don't know that everybody has a phenomenal business model, but who those winners and losers are going to be is fluid at this point. The fact that Uber is going so aggressively and partnering with seemingly everybody seems notable, no matter where you're invested in the space. Let's get to Adobe. They reported earnings this week,