How to Invest During a Crisis: Oil, the Dollar, and What to Do Right Now with Lauren Simmons

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com for details and applicable terms. I'm Nicole Lappen. The only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some money return. Oil prices have gone crazy and yes of course this is going to affect gas prices but the impact could spread way beyond what you pay at the pump. It could create a ripple effect across the global economy. You're about to hear a conversation I had with Lauren Simmons.

She's a former trader on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange about where markets are, what's driving this volatility and what you as an investor should actually be doing about it. But first a quick primer because I just want to lay the foundation of what's really at stake before we dive in. As you know, the conflict in Iran is driving up oil prices.

When economists talk about the price of oil, you're almost always hearing about bread crude.

There is more than one type of oil but Brent crude really sets the price for roughly 80% of globally traded oil on the planet. Right now Brent is high driven largely by disruptions to shipping through the straight of her moves. How high? Well Lauren and I talk about that later. But I want to clear up some confusion. You've probably heard that the US exports more oil than it actually uses. So you might wonder why the heck our gas prices going up if we produce our own oil.

But crude oil and gasoline are not the same thing. Crude has to be refined before it becomes anything you can actually use. And here's the problem. The US produces a lot of light crude but many of our Gulf Coast refineries were built to process the heavier crude from other countries. They literally aren't designed for what we're pulling out of, say, the ground in Texas, Alabama. Plus, oil is a globally priced commodity.

American consumers are fully exposed to global price swings no matter how much we produce at home. There is no just use our own oil option. Higher oil doesn't just translate into higher gas prices. It also means shipping gets more expensive. Travel gets more expensive. Life gets more expensive. The oil problem doesn't just affect prices. It also affects the value of the dollar.

Sometimes in good ways others not so much. In the '70s the US struck a deal with Saudi Arabia, where oil would be priced and traded globally in US dollars. Every country that needs oil means dollars to buy it. That created permanent massive global demand for the dollar. And oil exporters recycled their dollar revenues back into US treasuries,

So when oil goes up, the US dollar usually strengthens.

But the reason isn't as simple as oil up, dollar up. There are a few steps in between. When oil goes up, inflation pressure goes up. Oil feeds into everything, right? Gas shipping food flights. When oil rises, inflation expectations often rise with it. And then when inflation goes up, interest rates go higher.

Right? The Federal Reserve tends to keep rates elevated to fight inflation. So then higher interest rates? That means stronger dollar. Higher US rates attract global capital chasing yield. More demand for dollars means the dollar strengthens.

“That's why the Petro dollar agreement is so valuable to the United States.”

Countries need US dollars to buy oil. When oil prices rise, global demand for dollars can increase just to transact. But that system is now under serious pressure. China is aggressively pushing yuan dominated oil contracts. Saudi Arabia declined to formally renew the Petro dollar agreement in 2024.

The dollar itself has fallen roughly 4% over the last 12 months.

And the first half of 2025 saw the biggest single half decline in over 50 years.

A weaker dollar means imported goods just to cost more. Inflation, lingers, and you're purchasing power quietly erodes. That means if you have a European vacation to go on, let's say. Your dollar is just not going to go as far. As Lauren and I get into, the value of the dollar has actually been creeping up in recent weeks.

But she has some thoughts on whether or not that trend is here to stay. This though is a perfect example of contagion. One economic domino that causes all of them to fall. Think Greece in 2010. One country's debt crisis nearly took down the entire Eurozone.

Right now economists are watching something similar,

brew in emerging markets today. Emerging markets like Pakistan and Egypt are net oil importers. Their energy bills are exploding now as oil prices are spiking. And their government debt is largely dollar-denominated. When their currencies weaken, which happens when the dollar strengthens or oil prices surge,

that debt becomes harder to service. If those countries default, US banks and institutional investors holding that debt take massive losses. Then the IMF lets say steps in. Markets get choppy and that turbulence finds its way into your portfolio. That's the world, Lauren and I were sitting in when we had this conversation.

So we get into it and what you can do not just to protect, but also to advance your portfolio. Lauren Simmons, welcome to Money Rehab. I'm so excited to be here in the cold. I'm so excited to have you and it's such an exciting time in the markets. I know people get so excited, really scared but like excitement and fear is kind of the same

emotion. There's just like a lot of action going on right now.

“There is and I think that this is a really good time to learn, especially if you are a novice investor.”

Like absorbing how the market is moving and what these big and small things are doing to move the market and this will hope I honestly think say you up as you go on your investing journey for life. It's such a good point because the times of recession and we're obviously not in recession are times when the greatest wealth can be made. So it's a really really good opportunity to while it can feel scary and so much of the volatility

can rock your portfolio and sometimes you feel like you need a value and even just checking whatever you have invested even if you're just a 401k girlie. It feels like overwhelming but these are the areas that wealth is created. Absolutely. So what are you looking at right now? All the craziness with the war and Iran, what should we be watching?

I mean obviously the overall stock market but really I think what we should be paying attention to is oil and specifically when we look at sprint oil prices today it is at $107 a barrel and while that might have implications on gas it has implications on the entire global market

“and that's what we should be paying attention to. How is it moving?”

Is it going to continue to go up for reference for what if people don't know usually a barrel oil around or the past 12 months has been around $65 so for it to jump to $65 to now $107 that is going to have large impacts and even if the war was to stop today the leg said it's going to continue to have at least for the next few months to the fall we're going to see the fall out from that. I'm glad that you put that in perspective too because when you hear just like in a vacuum

that it's above a hundred bucks or even my husband when we were listening to the podcast on this over the weekend he's like well where is it normally? I don't even know and so it's really good perspective and when you say Brent what does that mean or what should people be looking at with

Yeah so Brent oil so there's two Brent oil being one of those Brent crude oil and that is what sets the prices of oil per barrel and so right now yeah it's at hundred to seven dollars. You're obviously in this every single day if somebody is new to this and they're learning

which I so appreciate you're not an office and you're helping the novices or the first time

investors really becomes smarter about how all of these elements work together because they do oil works in tandem with the dollar right? So how are you watching that and what do you do

“on a daily basis to reposition your portfolio or think about reposition?”

Oh well I try not to look at it on a daily basis really well yeah because I think there is obviously and real time there is a lot of noise but when you are looking at it in a real time you get you know historic and you want to make maybe impulsive decisions not myself but I think a lot of investors that are more new they want to make more impulsive decisions and you

have to when we're thinking about investing overall look at the long-term bigger picture and so

what are your goals what is it that you want to achieve? Yes we look at the noise yes we reposition if there are catastrophic things that are taking place that I don't mean like you know in society society globally but in the markets like you obviously don't want to deplete what you have started investing or looking at your 401(k)s but I wouldn't on a moment by moment react to every noise that is happening I mean realistically if there wasn't so much volatility in the market

you should be looking at your portfolio on a quarterly basis but while there are things that are happening in a real time you have to make decisions on what makes the most sense so if we look

for instance at oil which in general I think the rule like it's always been a volatile commodity.

“I think in general like max you should have maybe three to five percent of your portfolio”

allocated to oil industry or to energy yeah and in any commodity yeah I would say in general because a lot of them are volatile but oil specifically like that their history there's no unless you are someone who is investing to time the market and you feel like you're great at doing that and we're not about that life yeah then then there's really no reason to have such a larger allocation for that in your portfolio totally worth time in the market the timing the

market every single time a lot of times and yet never any time but when you're looking at it just from an investor perspective like not changing things I want to see where it's moving every day so I can just be more informed how do you think about how oil plays in with the dollar so usually when we're in a crisis right or when there's war the dollar strengthens and in the last several weeks and the dollar has been pretty unstable for the past 12 months but in the last several

weeks the dollar has risen about one and a half to percent and so we are seeing people having more putting more money into the US dollar and that is strengthening at the moment but again for me as like a long-term play at least and when I say long-term I mean anything over a year I don't know if I have that much faith in the dollar at least for right now and so for me I look at other asset classes of where I can hedge and protect myself for the next year or two years and where else I can

grow my portfolio for the time being where are you looking because the dollar typically in in times like this you're absolutely spot on like it's considered a safe haven and during shady times people are like well the Fed's gonna kind of interest rates so the dollar is gonna strengthen anyway but where are you skeptical I'm skeptical because I'm looking at the bigger picture of the last 12 months we have had a lot of a lot of large institutional investors that have been pulling money out

of the dollar not seeing it as so much a safe haven and putting money into emerging markets or we're seeing a boom in the last 12 months of a lot of people putting money into gold and silver myself included I have actually gone outside the rule of 3% and have put about 10% of my portfolio into gold and silver now gold and silver has taken a hit in the last few weeks because of the war

“but where I was when I entered last August which I believe was around $40 a when as high as”

97 and has dropped down to 60 but I'm still you know at a game because when I entered the market last summer last fall we don't mourn paper losses around here yeah and so I think and I like

they do a a weekly market commentary and they said like many where they're positioning

“themselves right now a lot of commodities a lot of emerging markets and not to say again not”

financial advice take everything that I say with the granny salt do your research but it is something to to look to now the dollar is treacheries they are safe and they have you know an interest rate right now around 4% so it's not a bad play but when you're looking at what can I how can I get more bang for my buck there are other asset classes that you can definitely be looking into so do you think that there's still room to grow with so if you're investing in gold like maybe

GLD which is the ETF that is going to track gold or what's the silver one S S L V and then I and then ring ring is part of my portfolio yeah all right R i and G ring what does that do it's attracts gold as well oh I didn't know that yeah yeah I'm I'm into copper these days but I got your own research yeah I think there's a lot of room to grow yeah absolutely so if somebody is

getting into metals for the first time what what are good entry ways ATF's obviously and you want to

really I can you want to understand like what your goals are and what your future is because there

“are a lot of some have fees associated with them and so you have to look at the pros and cons but I”

will say that what I put okay I guess the question is today would I pick up GLD yeah or SLV probably not but that's not but I mean like specifically today because it's been on a decline so we need to see it it's stabilized and I think the where we will see it stabilize it's probably going to be when this war has ceased which I honestly don't like I can imagine that this would go on for months but because it's been unstable because it's been on a decline why would you want to put

money that you know at least for the moment isn't as safe as it could be but I do think yes if I'm thinking about a longer term play for the next one to two years it is something that I want to keep adding to my portfolio dollar tax averaging yes little bits at a time because we can ever time the market right right so from your trading days now you're a long-term investor for yourself

you probably experience putting in the first bit as like the smallest amount to sort of test the

waters right so if somebody's thinking about jumping into gold or silver ETF and a great point to check the expense ratios ETFs are generally you know less expensive than mutual funds so these are on the lower side but don't put all your money in there so like if you had for easy math like $12,000 that you want to put it and you wouldn't put all it all right now you would put like $1,000 now and then you would you know don't encourage me to go on the average of it and what do you

“think about Bitcoin which is what some say the digital gold which is down like 20% I think when I”

last looked at black rocks market commentary which was Monday the 26 oh the 23rd Bitcoin has been the most underperforming asset class out of all of them year-to-date so for me I don't touch it and listen I know there will people that will argue me down and saying that I am going to miss out on the future I miss on the future I miss out it wasn't for me it wasn't aligned with my financial goals I have nothing against Bitcoin I honestly don't track it but to me they're just a little too

unstable they fall too closely to tech so honestly if you have exposure in tech you have tech stocks you're going to be performing this I think the same way when it comes to Bitcoin totally it was supposed to be uncorrelated Jim it and here it is like even the same way so you might as well own in video I can do your own research but like what you're saying is that you know it's not a hedge for other asset classes now it's been acting in theory it should be which would be great we all want

to hedge our investments like when one goes down one goes up cool but that's not how crypto has

been acting I have been I'll get on my soapbox for a second really into the wash sale rule for crypto

because right now as you know the wash sale rule affects security so stocks are considered security is but crypto is so considered property and so you can which is what I did I sold my crypto and I bought it right back so I lowered my cost basis which is not allowed in stocks you have to

before 30 days after right now this is the rule it probably is going to change but you can take that

“loss so like if somebody bought it at a hundred grand and it's down to 60 you can take that 40”

chaos against 40 cave games that's an exist right now but again those are strategies that are really case specific and not for everybody not for you not for me like I'm out no no not touch you

I'm sitting that one out and you just never been never it's never worked for you you haven't tried

you've not bought Bitcoin not once not ever not even that one time in college but Bitcoin became like a thing when I started on the trading floor and there was a coworker that sat next to me and all the men on the floor because then were significantly older they told him that he was crazy like why are we buying Bitcoin this is not something to put your money into you're gonna lose it all and I'm pretty sure that coworker is doing just fine in life now so I will give him that

and obviously the earlier that you are into some of these asset classes or any company is always better but yeah for me I you know great for people that do it I love that for you it's totally true and to clarify you know I generally suggest like one percent of your net worth if you're going to play with it yeah you can afford to lose one percent of your net worth but if one percent becomes a hundred that's that's great for them too yeah absolutely do crazy times like this make

you miss working in the thick of the action on the floor no not at all but it I mean it's fine it's it's you know such a boys club down there but I do think and it's also a very interesting mindset working you know on any exchange floor I I know that you used to report down there but play on the floor of the Chicago again absolutely they have a different mindset because they've gone through recessions they've gone through torrent turmoil time after time and time again

so like to to to the men on the floor it's always very different not as much hysteria as

everyday people because they've gone through it they know how the market moves they know what could help their better at forecasting of like what is going to come in the you know next few

“months but the worst thing that I could see happening inflation rises that's cut rates things”

become more expensive but you were alluding to the idea that you're not entirely sure the dollar will be the safe haven asset do you think that's a real possibility and if so then who is the safe haven do you think oils not going to be denominated in dollars anymore no no I was just putting this in your head so much I just have so much anxiety in general clearly I mean well I think everybody right now is having financial anxiety and it's not just related to the stock market

but what I but I will say overall that always the key when it comes to investing is making sure

that we diversify do I think the US dollar right now is a safe haven if I'm being honest no there's just too much instability for me to feel comfortable and so I am making sure that I am allocating my portfolio my investments that are going to hedge at least for this time I do think

“overall you know America's amazing and I think in the long term yes the dollar is going to”

outperform but right now and especially as I look at again my my north star is institutional investors and where are they putting their money on when I see large institutional investors taking their money out because they don't think it's safe I'm going to say that the the the the guys probably know a little bit of what they're doing and so with that I'm not going to pull all my money out I'm just going to make sure that I'm allocating and diversifying accordingly

I think a smart way is to just tap back into the ETFs again not financial advice to your own research but VxUS is like XUS minus the US is all international expose yeah that's part of my portfolio and that's a good one to have for sure and what about conflict stocks so any of the defense stocks or the different oil stocks I mean think about if you are though invested in a broad-based index fund like a boo boo and then you're already going to have

like what some X on and and some other stuff in there so you're going to have some exposure to oil and defense and you are but they they only make up a small percentage what three to five percent and even like that's in p500 like it doesn't because that's in p500 right like the their exposure

that's a that's a large percentage of most people's portfolio but if you are a believer in the

commodity you could always look at XLE XLE is the benchmark when it comes to energy stocks overall

and if you are someone who is a stock picker which I I do ETFs and I individually pick stocks but if we're looking at energy XLEB in the benchmark then look at a stock that's their history not the last three months because the last three months many energy stocks are going to look great but that is not enough to that is not long enough historical data to bring yourself to have a good thesis on the stock so I would say look at the last year to two years and if it is

outperforming XLE go ahead and pick up that individual stock is there an easy way to chart I'm sure

you have all the fancy cards and graphs but if you're an easy way to chart against the benchmark

just any of the finance sites you could take XLE as the the baseline and then put something else against it and see what the returns are most people will benchmark against like the S&P 500 to see where they are in comparison again we were talking about strictly energy stocks so I do look at the S&P 500 the XLE is actually outperform the S&P 500 and the last two years which is interesting and then from there picking your individual stocks but what I also love is making sure

like I said your money working for you so I like looking at stocks that are going to give me dividends and so the the further note if I was to get into oil or even defense stocks I'm looking at the stability or I'm looking at the graph of their dividends and what they're paying out is and if the chart is not going up consistently if it isn't not stable I'm not going to touch that

“so that I think that would be a really good advice for people that if they're looking to pick up”

individual stocks and they're looking to pick up more multiple stocks like why that would be something that they potentially would add to their portfolio. Do you reinvest your dividends?

Yes always always yeah so you do the drip yeah yeah and I I have it set that way in which you

know make sure make sure money work for you more yeah how should people think about that well again it's it's going to come down to what your goals are if you don't want to take the rest of your money to to just automatically reinvest and you want to look at other stocks are like income producing depending on where you are yeah your life or age all that your risk yeah all important to take into consideration and you know a lot of young people in particular vote with their

dollars and they take into consideration their morals and their values and how they feel about oil or how they feel about defense stocks or private prisons and tobacco and all of that and look at ETFs that strip those things out so how would you talk to a values driven investor who's like cool cool I want nothing to do with oil or there's options right like no yes gv yeah I was going to see

“this say I think when I first started investing and it was surprisingly it wasn't even while I was”

on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange I really wanted to like learn and absorb as much as I could and make sure that I was financially in a place where I can actually invest in the stock market so I was having an emergency fund making sure that my debt was paid off and then really understanding my risk tolerance and again what my goals are but once I got that settled and and what stocks I wanted to invest in I was really big into ESG investing I still believe in it partly but I do

realize that there is a lot of green washing that is going on within the space and while I think that we have the intention of having an ESG mindset when it comes to picking companies and stocks and making sure that they you know are ethical and moral and they're putting their money to other right things you realize that you don't know everything that's going on behind the curtain and so sometimes you're investing in stocks you don't realize that they have partnered or have put

“money towards other organs I think that there's just a lot of gray area in the space that all”

that to say that was a very long way of saying that that if you were asked me 10 years ago yes absolutely

that I've invested in not realizing where all their money was going to so you have to look at again back to your morals and ethics but I don't think I have as stringent of a of a test within any more because I realize how many companies in the world are all interconnected that sounds so depressing no I'm just entering between the lines way yeah I hear what you're saying you are more invested in ESG or ESG ETFs or companies that stood by that and now you've moved a little bit away from

that based on research that you've done yeah but then that's based on the realized what poison do you want to pick and you kind of just go from there what we talked a lot about Iran today for sure

“are there other sectors or areas that you are bullish in you know exileas you said you need to”

have to track energy has beaten the S&P 500 so has SMH some connectors one areas are you excited about right now I'm still honestly excited about tech that is not adjacent AI then that's very what is that then I'd rather be tied to a tech company that is more involved in defense more involved in anything but AI because I do think that that and itself is a bubble like a volunteer pound here is a good one but I don't have a volunteer part of my portfolio

the circular spending in AI is is so real so basically that's you know one company like I'm

Microsoft to buying something from Nvidia and then Nvidia then buying something from Microsoft where is that revenue actually going and back to each other back to each other and when you

“look at their projections I think that's what's scary all the money that has been invested”

what is come of it and also when we're looking at the big picture the energy that these companies are saying that they have to be able to use you take a step back and you say well do they plan to wipe out an entire country with all the energy that they planning on using like when we're thinking about these projections in these forecasts how are we really materializing the energy use and what does that actually mean for the future and to me there's a really big disconnect there

so I I'm just not touching it but there are some in the space again

repital names that are always going to I think be good Microsoft is going to be just fine

Ryan videos going to be fine AMD is going to be just fine Google is going to be just fine again I named a lot of obviously like top tech stocks but then there are others that I'm not going to name that I don't because they've made it there at those their tagline AI I don't know what what the future for them if this is when this is to fall apart what that actually looks like for them in the future but you think there is an AI bubble absolutely absolutely you don't

“I think it's yes and yes and okay there is and there isn't a bubble there are bubble like”

behaviors in a very real technology okay so I don't think it mirrors the dot convubble completely okay Goldman Sachs came out and said that we're more in 1997 right then 1999 and so there's like more room to grow over the next couple of years what do you think about the output that they need to be able to compute yeah they all need compute yeah I know yeah I mean then it's the picks and shovels of like where is the energy coming from like the nuclear the ocean yeah I feel like

the Taylor Swift song was about energy really convinced by the land the sea the sky like that's where energy needs to come from in the future for sure yeah figure out how to power all of this but do you think it can power as large or even just like the announcement the other day they said that they were getting rid of Sora like that was just announced and it and it was consuming a lot of energy not making anyone any money and so to keep that on your balance sheet or to keep that

as like a project to make I don't know 10 second videos to get a giggle here or there

like what is that actually doing and so it's it's nice in real time I guess we're seeing like some of these companies cutting back but again I think the the bigger question I think it's the energy and some of these energy projections that they have so where are they getting I guess land space that large to be able to have this much in space we're going to go into the ocean

like that absolutely it's it no it's brilliant but it does give us insight into to AI and and how they're thinking and how they're going to navigate within the space and they amount of energy that it costs just to think the AI or say please I mean I still gonna do it because just to you know

hedge against the AI coming for me yeah I'm always gonna be polite to the AI so sorry for all the

energy but I am curious so with AI you are definitely a believer or not a believer in AI but like believing in like tech companies and like they're their second like tech line like AI you are a real believer within those not every company is going to work but I actually don't I don't think in the same way as we talked about the tech sector like 20 years ago all companies are tech companies

“I think all companies are just going to become AI companies they're going to integrate it into the”

fabric of their company they have to go or see yeah it should hit the fan more and we're going to have

you back and we're going to be like we call it yeah yeah well we we have we have a little bit of time I don't think that this is going to happen in a year or two years so we there was a lot of money spent in AI so I think we have time to see it right out and to see it implode but it's not it's not going to be soon it's just something to definitely think about in the future like 10 years down the line

and we're thinking about how you're building your wealth and how you're investing is that

are these some of the things that you really want to have part of your portfolio yeah and I think

“that's why it's important to like refocus on the picks and jubbles of this sort of new gold rush”

and what are what's the underlying infrastructure and where are the energy plays or like the certain materials that are needed the lithium and the whatever needed to power all of it I think is something to take a look at again yeah do your own research absolutely or it is such fun to have you here and just talk nerdy for the last hour we end all of our episodes as you know by asking our guests for final investing tip that listeners can take straight to the bank you've given us

so many already but is there one final one one or no one this is not necessarily an investing tip but what I will say is what I tell everyone you know yourself better than anyone else if it feels good for you when it comes to how you're investing and what you're choosing to invest please do not allow other people to convince you otherwise because you actually might be on to something my goals my risk tolerance by the way is very conservative so it's gonna look a lot

“different from everyone else and I think as long as you feel safe in what you're investing in”

and you're not allocating 100% of your money into your investments and you feel great about it do it