With Western and EU sanctions impacting the Russian economy in various ways, growing fears over the possible disruption in oil and gas supply from one of the world’s major exporters have pushed oil prices above $113/barrel today. However, ongoing efforts to revive the Iran nuclear deal, which would boost Iranian oil exports, ease tight global supplies, and restrict its ability to develop nuclear weapons, should significantly mitigate these concerns.
This, along with lingering concerns related to the Fed’s aggressive interest rate increases this year, is expected to keep the markets highly volatile in the near term. Therefore, investors should be judicious when picking stocks now. Since high-quality stocks can help dodge market uncertainty, investors are increasingly focusing on them. This is evident in the Invesco S&P 500 Quality ETF’s (SPHQ) 5.8% returns over the past nine months versus the SPDR S&P 500 Trust ETF’s (SPY) 4.1% returns.
