Creative Planning‘s Chief Market Strategist Charlie Bilello said Monday that Iran war-driven inflation was rewarding energy stocks while squeezing consumers, highlighting a 56-percentage-point performance gap between the S&P 500’s energy and consumer discretionary sectors.
Energy ETF Surged Over 50%
In a post on X on Monday, Bilello shared a chart showing that the State Street Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF (NYSE:XLE) was up over 50% since the beginning of the year. “A stunning 56% spread between the best and worst performing S&P 500 sectors so far this year,” he said. During pre-market trading on Tuesday, XLE was up 0.39% to $66.28.
Bilello also outlined the State Street Consumer Discretionary Select Sector SPDR ETF‘s (NYSE:XLY) 5.4% Year-to-Date (YTD) decline. “War-driven inflation is rewarding big oil and squeezing consumers,” the analyst said in the post. XLY was down 0.51% to $112.27 at market close on Monday.
Surging Commodity Prices
In the post’s thread, Bilello pointed to price increases since the war with Iran kicked off. Bilello said that European Natural Gas was up 163% since the Iran war began, while sulfur was up 89%. Jet fuel, as well as heating oil required to keep people warm, were both up 80%.
The analyst also pointed to a 67% surge in diesel costs since the Iran war began. Trump has moved to allow dyed diesel for highway use under a temporary federal measure, while Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL) announced a similar state-level measure.
Rice and sugar costs also surged by 62% and 50%, respectively.
Gas prices were up 46%, Bilello said. According to the data provided by the American Automobile Association (AAA), the national average price of gas on Tuesday was $4.3413/gallon, with the national average price falling 1.43 cents compared to Monday. “The inflationary shock continues to build,” the analyst said.
Oil ETFs were declining during pre-market trading on Tuesday as the United States Oil Fund (NYSE:USO) slipped 1.21% to $149.23. The ProShares Ultra Bloomberg Crude Oil (NYSE:UCO) also declined 1.41% to $58.27 during pre-market trading.
Oil prices were also declining at the time of writing this article. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures contracts expiring in November 2026 declined 1.97% to $91.89 at the time of writing this article. Brent futures contracts ending in December also demonstrated a 1.68% decline to $104.86 at press time.
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