You can't beat them. Maybe you should join them.
Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.
The air is choked with soot. Canada and Minnesota are ablaze in the scorching, dry heat. Cities and towns across America post record temperatures as global warming - "global roasting," really - proves, once again, that it's totally a Chinese hoax.
And "no big deal."
Oh, yes, and gasoline prices are breaking $4 again as the U.S.'s triumphant war with Iran continues.
But every cloud has a silver lining, even the cloud of wildfire smoke enveloping your city or town. In this case: U.S. oil-and-gas companies are making record profits, yet again. And their stock prices are booming!
You see? It isn't all bad.
Many of these companies' top executives are making millions, even tens of millions, of dollars on their options, restricted stock and bonuses.
ExxonMobil $(XOM)$ has added $97 billion to its market value since Jan. 1, according to FactSet. Chevron $(CVX)$ has added $62 billion.
Investors in Marathon Petroleum $(MPC)$, America's biggest oil refiner, have earned a 90% return (yes, really) this year. Investors in Valero Energy $(VLO)$, the second biggest, 87%.
As you can see from this chart, big energy stocks are crushing the rest of the market so far this year. The State Street Select Energy ETF XLE has risen 28% since Jan. 1.
That's twice as much as the Invesco QQQ ETF QQQ, an index fund that tracks the Nasdaq-100 index of top technology stocks
The S&P 500 SPX has risen just 9% and the so-called Magnificent Seven MAGS, those heroes of yesteryear, a miserable 2%.
So much for all that excitement about technology and AI. Actually, energy stocks have crushed the rest of the market, including the Nasdaq COMP, for years.
In the past five years, the "XLE" fund has earned a total return, including reinvested dividends, of 183%.
The "QQQ" ETF: 101%. And the S&P 500: just 78%.
As we have mentioned once or twice before, adding some energy stocks to your portfolio can pay off. Energy stocks have a habit of rising when bonds and the rest of the stock market are falling, because one of the things that causes that is an energy crisis.
Another reason to own energy stocks may be to help compensate you for global roasting. Yes, it would be better to persuade people to believe the evidence of their own eyes. But America is full of people insisting that climate change is nonexistent, even while they stand in dense clouds of smoke from burning forests, frying eggs on the hood of their car.
Or as Chico Marx famously said: "Who are you gonna believe - me, or your own eyes?"
You can't beat them, so join them. Otherwise you're just railing in impotent fury at the companies frying the planet.
The bad news is that energy-stock prices are typically a good indicator of where oil and gasoline prices are heading. They are more closely correlated with next year's oil futures than with today's "spot" prices. So the rise of energy stocks isn't a great sign that gasoline prices are due to fall anytime soon.
The more positive news is that right now may be a better time to take some profits on your energy stocks than to buy them. Using the State Street XLE as a basic proxy for the industry, they are currently selling for 2.47 times net asset or "book" value, which is well above the 20-year average (two times book value) and near typical peaks. The forecast dividend yield, meaning the dividends divided by the share price, is just 2.83% - again, well below averages and down sharply from the 3.6% at the end of last year. Stocks do not become better values when they get more expensive.
Whether they keep rising is something only time will tell.
Meanwhile, as the smoke from the Chinese hoax continues to choke American cities, I asked Cleveland Clinic pulmonologist Amanda Morgan this question: How worried should we be about our health?
Her advice: Don't panic, but be sensible.
Those with respiratory issues should, obviously, avoid spending too much time outdoors in the smoke.
And, she adds, so should everyone else. "If somebody's generally healthy I usually say you should take the same precautions as patients who have underlying respiratory disorders," she says.
She observes that a study last year found that forest fires around the world were typically followed by rises in the number of people visiting emergency rooms and being admitted to hospital, and to the number dying.
But denialists will point out that the study in question was a collaboration between three U.S. universities - Harvard, the University of Buffalo and the University of Washington - and institutions in China. So maybe it's all part of the same hoax.
-Brett Arends
This content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 17, 2026 17:08 ET (21:08 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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