Market Volatility and the War in Israel - What's an Investor to Do?

Sure, but the impact of that would be much more muted than in 1973. The U.S. is now the world’s largest producer of oil, having passed Saudi Arabia. And we’re a net exporter of petroleum products. Which is beneficial to the U.S. in three ways.

First, rising prices aren’t as much of an unalloyed negative as they used to be - rather than foreign producers benefiting from the higher prices (and our import costs being driven up), domestic producers will reap those gains.

Second, we’re no longer an easy or obvious target for an embargo - a conscious decision not to export to the U.S. specifically as an instrument of Gulf State foreign policy. We just don’t import much at all from there - or OPEC generally - any more. If they wanted to seriously affect world oil and fuel prices through an embargo, they’d have to target it at China and India (who are now their main customers). That just doesn’t work that well - especially in this specific context, since neither is likely to be a strong supporter of Israel.

And finally, we now have the capacity to respond to an external oil shock. If OPEC oil gets locked in - either by choice or by conflict - then we can step up and be the swing producer to provide additional global capacity.

None of this makes us immune from big swings in oil prices, but it puts us in a much better position than in 1973.

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