Dana Peterson

"If you are a consumer and everything already costs too much in your view and now you have to choose between filling up your car to go to work versus going to the movies or doing something else, you are going to choose to put gas in your car, but that means you are not engaging in other activities." With Brent crude sustaining above $100 a barrel, the immediate pass-through to gasoline prices acts as a regressive tax on the consumer. This forces demand destruction in non-essential categories like retail, apparel, and entertainment. Short consumer discretionary and retail ETFs as wallet share shifts to mandatory energy and food costs. A sudden geopolitical de-escalation could cause oil prices to crash, providing immediate relief to consumer wallets and sparking a rally in discretionary stocks.

"If you are a consumer and everything already costs too much in your view and now you have to choose between filling up your car to go to work versus going to the movies or doing something else, you are going to choose to put gas in your car, but that means you are not engaging in other activities." With Brent crude sustaining above $100 a barrel, the immediate pass-through to gasoline prices acts as a regressive tax on the consumer. This forces demand destruction in non-essential categories like retail, apparel, and entertainment. Short consumer discretionary and retail ETFs as wallet share shifts to mandatory energy and food costs. A sudden geopolitical de-escalation could cause oil prices to crash, providing immediate relief to consumer wallets and sparking a rally in discretionary stocks.