Why surging oil prices may not derail the consumer trade

Wall Street is already looking beyond Big Tech quarterly results.

Even though it’s a major earnings week for the group, YieldMax chief strategist Mike Khouw lists consumer staples and discretionary names high on his watch list – especially due to the Iran war fallout.

“The biggest impact to [the] consumer checkbook is going to be felt at the pump,” Khouw, who’s also a CNBC contributor, said on CNBC’s “ETF Edge” this week.

Khouw, a California resident, used the Golden State as an example where the oil shock is being felt the hardest.

According to AAA, the state’s average price for unleaded gasoline as of Wednesday is about $5.98 a gallon. That’s roughly 41% above the national average — which just hit a new high for the year.

Despite the pressure from spiking energy costs, Khouw would still own consumer stocks.

“You’d expect diapers and toilet paper to continue to sell no matter how bad things get from a geopolitical standpoint,” he said.

Khouw is also constructive on the consumer discretionary side due to recent data reflecting resilience among consumers. The latest CNBC/NRF Retail Monitor data shows retail sales in March grew for the sixth month in a row.

“That is one of the areas where we continue to see better results actually coming out of the earnings that we’ve seen and some of the bullish flows,” he said. “I think people are sort of looking into that area —thinking maybe some of those things got a little bit of punishment and that maybe there is going to be light at the end of the tunnel.”

Simplify Asset Management’s Paisley Nardini is also focusing on trades that aren’t Big Tech.

“We have some of our flagship solutions that are going long and short in these energy, oil and broader commodity markets,” the firm’s head of multi-asset solutions said in the same interview.

On Wednesday, WTI crude futures settled more than 7% higher and Brent crude rose more than 6% on fresh worries Iran’s Strait of Hormuz will see a drawn-out closure.