Surging Oil Prices Spark Market Jitters

In this episode of Motley Fool Money, Motley Fool contributors Jon Quast, Matt Frankel, and Rachel Warren discuss:
- Oil's rapid price increase and market jitters.
- The S&P 500 reshuffling.
- Trends in AI and data centers.
- Hims & Hers stock's big jump.
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A full transcript is below.
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This podcast was recorded on March 9, 2026.
Jon Quast: Surging oil prices spark some market jitters. This is Motley Fool Money. Welcome to Motley Fool Money with the Hidden Gems team. I'm Jon Quast, joined today by Foolish contributors Rachel Warren and Matt Frankel. On the show today, we're going to talk about some changes that are happening in the S&P 500, as well as some seemingly important news for Hims & Hers stock. But first, let's go ahead and start with the big news of the weekend. Oil prices surged over $100 per barrel. For a perspective, it hasn't been above $100 since 2022. It started the year below $60 a barrel. This is a big jump. It's actually one of the sharpest increases in history, and that's making some investors nervous. I was looking at the fear and greed index just this morning, and it's hitting extreme fear levels. I think some investors might say, it's going to cost more to fill up my car, maybe next time I go to fill up for gas. But what is it about these high oil prices that really changed my life, that really impact things? Why are investors panicking this morning?
Rachel Warren: There's typically a few reasons that we see investors, and therefore, the market shows signs of panic when there's a rapid surge in oil prices. One of the major reasons is most companies are essentially energy consumers. Higher oil prices, it raises the cost of things like manufacturing, shipping, even powering the massive AI data centers that are currently driving the tech boom. Then there's, of course, the concern that if this is a long-term, durable trend, this would make a company's expenses go up. There's the concern that some of the businesses might struggle to raise their own prices fast enough. This could put pressure on earnings. Right now, that risk, a lot of it is perceived. We're seeing that send stock prices down across a range of sectors. There's one other I think element to consider, too. Oil can be a major driver of inflation. We've seen crude cross that psychological $100 per barrel mark. There, I think, is some concern that if this is to be a durable trend, this could force the Fed into a corner. Could they have to stop cutting interest rates or even start raising them again to cool off rising prices? This is something that investors hate. Then I think the final thing is that when people have to pay more at the pump, they tend to have less discretionary income to spend on other things. That, of course, can affect a wide range of companies that face those discretionary expenditures. But it's still early days, and I think that's the very important thing to bear in mind here.
Matt Frankel: What Rachel is describing is essentially stagflation, prices rising across the board, but it's hurting economic growth at the same time. It's not surprising to see oil spike like this. In fact, I was surprised it didn't spike even higher last week. This is literally the largest supply disruption in history. About 20% of oil supply has been disrupted for about nine days so far. That is significantly worse than the previous record. If you're curious, that happened way back in 1956, the year my dad was born. Unlike previous situations, there's no spare capacity available to help alleviate the problem. Just because of where this war is, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, those are the two primary holders of spare capacity to help with supply issues, and both are essentially right now cut off from the global oil market. It's not just the supply cutoff. That has caused oil prices to literally double in 2026, based on the overnight peak of what was around $120 a barrel. It's fear that this is going to last a lot longer than people initially expected. We aren't really seeing significant supply constraints yet. You're not seeing gas stations run out of gas or anything like that, but it could get much worse.
Rachel makes some really good points there. I personally think the fear of consumers being squeezed even more than they already are is one of the big reasons we're seeing investors paddock so much. Consumers are fragile right now due to inflation. This is why companies like Walmart that specialize in low prices are doing so well, and having to spend 40%, 50%, 60% more on fuel and other energy costs could be a tipping point. That's the big fear right now. Right now, in the U.S., gas is up by 15% over the past week. I don't know what it's up where Rachel is. But I wouldn't be surprised to see it get even worse. I think it's more expensive over there normally.
Rachel Warren: We're seeing spikes, and it's being felt really across a range of sectors, which has been something that I think consumers are feeling very close to home.
Jon Quast: I had to fill up two vehicles yesterday, and it was not as fun as a month ago. But this is so interesting. As I think about this, I don't really follow the oil industry very closely. Personally, I don't think either of you do very much, maybe more than some, but not as much as others out there who really focus on this space. I'm just thinking about this big picture. Rachel, you're talking about the things that it impacts. Matt is talking about it, as well. As I zoom out, I think about how we invest as Fools, we're holders. We hold stocks, generally speaking, for at least five years, and we hold through market volatility. These are big values that we have as an investing community. But, Matt, you just mentioned that this being the biggest supply chain shock in history. To me, it almost feels our listeners out there might feel like it's naive to apply Foolish holding principles to this situation when it's historic. I guess I'm saying, why are we not just waving our hands here at the situation? Why are we still holders? Why is it still a good idea to hold our stocks through the market volatility when it is something unprecedented?
Matt Frankel: I don't mean this is a shot at anybody who's an oil bull, but this is one of the reasons I don't own any oil stocks. It's one of the sectors that's they're really prone to volatility that is completely outside of their control, you can run your company great, but you're at the mercy of things like this. The great operators will continue to be great operators. There's no need to panic and sell Chevron, for example. In fact, when I checked right before we recorded this, Exxon and Chevron are two of the only stocks that are up on my watch list today. I'm more worried about the secondary effects. I don't think we're going to get a full-on market crash because of this. But stocks that rely on discretionary spending in particular could start to come under pressure if all those economic fears and price increases really start playing out. Times like this are when it makes the most sense to apply that principle of holding through market volatility. Ask anybody who panicked and sold in the early days of the COVID pandemic because they were afraid of things getting worse. They were right, things did get worse. But even after the recent market pullback, the S&P has more than doubled from its all-time high before the COVID pandemic. So those who panicked and sold missed out. So this is where those principles make the most sense.
Rachel Warren: Maintaining that long-term investment horizon during what we are seeing right now, as well as other periods of extreme volatility. It's not naive, but I think it's important to underscore, it's also as retail investors, it is a statistical advantage, and I think that's something that's really important to bear in mind. We're seeing what's happening with a lot of energy stocks right now. This is event-driven volatility. It hits the markets fast. The businesses with the strongest modes, the healthiest balance sheets, eventually will adapt. If you're looking at the market as a whole and you're seeing this volatility impact the stocks you own, I think it's important to remember at this time, when you panic-sell a winner because of a temporary spike in crude, for example, that's having negative downward pressure on different industries, you aren't just dodging a dip. You are incurring the investment risk of missing that eventual recovery. I think it's important for us to remember that great companies are built to survive cycles in the market. Various cycles in the market are inevitable, and the long-term compounding power of those businesses can usually far outweigh even a one-year headwind in input costs that puts pressure on businesses.
I think, obviously, there's been some concerns of a market downturn or crash. I don't think we're there yet. But I will also note as a long-term retail investor, this can be our best friend. When we see stocks in a sell-off, and bear in mind when there's these external triggers like oil prices going up, the market rarely discriminates. It tends to punish struggling stocks and compounding machines equally. This can really, I think, create a very rare window to harvest value in really robust businesses, at depressed valuations. I think sticking to our investment principles as long-term investors can prevent us from making emotional decisions at the bottom of a cycle. That is also where the most retail wealth is lost. The emotional decisions that are made at the bottom of the cycle. As long as your underlying business thesis is intact, holding through the noise is key.
Jon Quast: The late great Charlie Munger used to say, the first rule of compounding is to never interrupt it unnecessarily. Seems like a good thing to remember here. After the break, they're shaking up the S&P 500 again. You're listening to Motley Fool Money.
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Jon Quast: Welcome back to Motley Fool Money with the Hidden Gems team. The S&P 500, when we talk about the market, we're really normally talking about an index. Sometimes it's the Nasdaq, sometimes the Dow Jones. But most of the time, for me, it's the S&P 500. This is a collection, per se, of about 500 of the largest profitable U.S. companies. The list is always changing. After the market close on Friday, the selection committee announced four changes to the lineup. Match Group, Molina Healthcare, Lamb Weston, and Paycom are all out, and Vertiv, Lumentum, Coherent, and EchoStar are now in. Rachel, when looking at this list, are there any here that you're sorry to see leave the S&P 500, or are there any newcomers here that you really like?
Rachel Warren: I think it's worth noting. The four companies leaving the index, these have all really underperformed the market over the last year. They've been really consistently trading in the red, even as the broader market has rallied. I think Match Group probably stuck out to be. This was once a growth darling, but they've really struggled. Tinder, which is, of course, their flagship monthly users have declined for multiple quarters. Match Group is moving to the S&P Small Cap 600. I think that's an example of a once growth-oriented favorite that is dealing with a turnaround that's taking much longer than investors had hoped. But switching over to the newcomers list, this was really interesting. I think the selection committee made a very clean sweep for AI and connectivity infrastructure with these additions, all of which I think are up by triple digits over the last year, so these have been all very high flyers in the market.
You look at Vertiv Holdings, for example. This is a company with a near monopoly on liquid cooling and high-density power systems for data centers. They've really strong organic growth rates. They recently upgraded their investment-grade credit rating. You've got Lumentum and Coherent, they're leaders in photonics, which is a market that's really surging due to the 1.60 transceiver roll-up. Basically, it's this major industry transition, which is essential for GPUs to talk to each other within AI clusters. Then EchoStar was also interesting. This is a key player in satellite infrastructure and space defense. They've really gotten a lot of attention from investors recently due to some different SpaceX-related deals. Some intriguing plays that have been added to the index.
Jon Quast: That's normally how it works. Normally, it's businesses that are maybe declining. The stock is going down. Now it's no longer representative of one of those large U.S. companies and vice versa, companies that are really the business is booming, the stock is going up. Now it is more representative of that large-cap company. I'm glad that you brought up that for some of these, such as Vertiv and Coherent, for example, this is really playing in on this semiconductor trend. Business is hot for all of those companies, and it's playing into these larger trends that we've been looking at in AI in data centers. Some people are afraid, of course, that we're reaching a bubble territory because of how the fu