Is The Oil Crisis Over? Or Is It Just Beginning?

In this episode of Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing, Motley Fool contributors Travis Hoium, Lou Whiteman, and Tyler Crowe discuss:

• Why oil prices are dropping.
• Did China prevent an energy crisis?
• The new OpenUSD stablecoin.
• Are stablecoins disruptive?
• Nike’s earnings.
• Can Nike make a comeback?

To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center. When you're ready to invest, check out this top 10 list of stocks to buy.

A full transcript is below.

This podcast was recorded on July 1, 2026.

Travis Hoium: Is Nike coming back into fashion? Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing starts now. Welcome to Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing. I’m Travis Hoium, and I’m joined today by Lou Whiteman and our special guest, Tyler Crowe. Guys, we're going to get to Nike. Nike stock was down pretty big after the market closed yesterday after they reported earnings, and now it's shockingly up today. We'll get to that a little bit later.

But I wanted to start with an area of the market that we don't talk about all that much, but it's actually a huge deal for consumers, for the economy overall, and that's oil. Tyler, this is a commodity that we thought was going to be a huge problem for the economy by this time in 2026, when the Strait of Hormuz closed, we were supposed to have $200 barrels of oil. Oil is still up about 20% for the year, but went down to about $70 a barrel for West Texas Intermediate. What is going on with the oil market? Did that just never materialize into the economic concerns that we thought they were going to, and is this whole thing over?

Tyler Crowe: Well, talk about a loaded question here. I think one of the things with the initial fears, so much of this was basically this, for a lot of commodity traders, this was considered the doomsday scenario, but some of the things that ended up happening were with a lot of investing decisions and major global geopolitical reactions, there was a lot of second or third order a knock on effects that affected this in some ways. For one, we started this war or conflict, however you want to label it, with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, where not too long after, it was like, we’re going to open it back up. Either we're going to open it up by force, or we're going to start negotiating. Then there's just been this tit or tat. It seems like for two or three months now of negotiations started we're going to open it. There's been a lot of this is temporary, we can get through this. As we came into the crisis, there was actually quite a bit of surplus oil on the market. We were actually oversupplied relative to demand in the market. We were in a position of strength on the market, and at the same time there was a lot of unprecedented changes that we saw. Over this period, so far, about 1.3 billion barrels have been drawn down from strategic petroleum reserves around the world, whether in the U.S., in Europe, Japan, and that's been a major buffer for this, and not to mention what China has done as well, because demand imports from there have also fallen off a cliff.

Travis Hoium: But isn't that like a band aid for the market?

Tyler Crowe: Maybe. This is the really hard thing to say, because one of the things that is not necessarily known is how much oil in storage or how much does China have? There are some what they call floating tank storages that you can actually monitor, and that's been like using satellite imagery data. People have been able to do this because obviously China does not publish their strategic petroleum reserves but they also have these massive underground caverns that nobody really knows how much is in there at any given moment. It's been using those as a massive drawdown, and they were reducing their total amount of imports at the time at about five million barrels per day. When you started thinking about a 13 million barrel per day gap that was leaving the Strait of Hormuz, taking five out was a huge chunk, and you start adding in SPR releases. You saw demands of destruction in other parts of the world, it has somewhat deflected the blow that I think a lot of people had seen so far.

Travis Hoium: Lou, I remember talking about this a few months ago and one of the things that we talked about was, you just don't know what the second and third order effects were, and we were talking about that in a negative way. But it seems the market has been, I think the word that U.S. used was resilient in ways that we maybe didn't anticipate.

Lou Whiteman: Yes, certainly, I think we've learned that maybe we have evolved some on oil, but just underline what Tyler said. China is the most interesting story here, and China probably saved us all a ton. As Tyler said, fortunately, we were washing oil going in which made it easier. But something weird, and we may never know. My pet theory is with China is that they have been building a bigger stockpile than we realized for a long time, simply because if mischief happened in Taiwan or something, or if they were cut off, just to have it, and they decided it was not in their best interest as exporters to see the global economy crash. It wasn't really benevolent, but they had the oil, and they decided not to draw the oil so others could. Look, the big takeaway here is we can survive these things, but I don't know if we want to press our luck and try it again.

Travis Hoium: I want to get out of here on this from both of you quickly. If this conflict with Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, if oil is not flowing the way that it normally does over the next six months, let's say, through the end of this year, Tyler, let's start with you, do you think we can keep oil prices the way that they are? Are these what I call band aids there's only so much strategic petroleum reserve that you can pull out of it, and eventually we're undersupplied overall, and that's going to impact prices, or is that not right way to think about it?

Tyler Crowe: Six months, I think we might be pushing it. We’re, I think, four months into it now, and it is strained. Let's not take away from the fact that, SPR releases have been patching things together. We can't do this forever. Also take into account, too, that Russia has also significantly lost a lot of refining and export capacity recently because of its conflict with Ukraine. There are some other things that are knocking on here if we were to go for another six months. That would be a little bit harder to do. Now, on that band aid situation, you're also see for example, the UAE is starting to build pipelines so they can actually circumvent the Strait of Hormuz. It can't really build one and a port in six months, but there does seem to be some momentum towards ways to circumvent the existing bottlenecks. Maybe over the six months, it wouldn't happen, but I think over the next couple of years, we're going to probably end up building a slightly more resilient system that can absorb these shocks even better than before.

Travis Hoium: When we come back, we're going to get to a new stablecoin in the market. You're listening to Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing. Welcome back to Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing. Move over Tether and USD, a new stablecoin is here. OpenUSD is out, it has the support of a massive number of institutions. Lou, this is why I wanted to bring this to you. I know that you've been questioning the future of stablecoins, but Visa, Stripe, Mastercard, BlackRock, BYN, Google, IBM, Solana, are all of these companies, there's a list of about 100 companies that are going to be adopting this stablecoin. Is this finally this disruption to payments that we've been promised from the blockchain over the past five or 10 years?

Lou Whiteman: I think it's disruptive for every other stablecoin. I don't know if it's disruptive for anyone else. Inevitably, most of the money is going to gravitate towards one stablecoin or a couple of stablecoins, if it goes anywhere at all. If this is where the cool kids are playing, this is where everyone will go. If you were trying to compete against this stablecoin, all of these partners definitely puts you at a disadvantage. As far as the consumer goes, I don't see this as anything at all to worry about. Behind the scenes on the enterprise side of it, there is the potential here to make existing payment flows more efficient. I know everyone always talks about how that was going to tear down Visa and Mastercard. It's going to destroy all these plump margins they get. I think more likely is they adopt these tools, they grow more efficient, they lower their fees, but keep margins intact. Never underestimate the power of inertia and finance, especially among these big players. The house usually wins. I think this might end up with lower fees everywhere, but I think Visa and Mastercard will be just fine.

Travis Hoium: Tyler, what do you think?

Tyler Crowe: Is it really disruption if every major existing player in a system is implementing it?

Travis Hoium: Let me make the case for this because I've been watching this for a while, and one of the things, if you've ever run a business, and you paid the 3% credit card fees, that's a massive fee. Like a restaurant, for example, the credit card fees are about the same as the profitability of a really good restaurant. Basically, you could double your profits if you just didn't have to pay those fees. The potential fee reduction is real. The example that I always point to is Stripe accepts USDC stablecoins on their platform. It's just a digital transfer, just like using your credit card. But they charge about 1.5% as opposed to 2.9% for using credit cards. If it is implemented, could potentially be disruptive to someone in that ecosystem. Now, is that Visa and Mastercard? Is it the banks who are actually taking a big chunk of that? I don't know that we necessarily know the final answer to that, but I know that merchants would love to pay a 1.5% fee instead of a 2.9% fee. That's potentially the case for this consortium, at least moving in that direction, a potentially more efficient way of moving money around and that will at least change who's got their fingers in the pie.

Tyler Crowe: That's fair. But I guess what I'm thinking of disruption, I'm thinking of tackling the institutions that have built up whatever problem this happens to be solving. When I look at this, it's like, well, stablecoins, payment processing, this was supposed to upend the Visas and Mastercards and all that. If they’re all implementing it, I don’t know, it almost feels like, were the Basel rules coming out of the financial crisis a disruption to the banks, or is it standard protocol that everyone adopted, and for better or worse, they can’t change the way they do that. This really does feel a little bit more entrenchment of the existing systems because now, for example, in this crypto world, think of Circle or Tether with any of the other stablecoins, what is their case? It seems they're just disrupting the disruptors, I guess, if you will, because it's taking something that was starting to gain traction but then immediate was every major entrenched institution is basically playing a better version of your own.

Lou Whiteman: I'm Team Tyler here. Maybe with semantics, we’re talking about words, but disruption means incumbents fall. I think incumbents get stronger here. Maybe there is a benefit for retail and if anything, if Visa and Mastercard can find a technology that allows them to keep their margins, but shut up all these critics that are always complaining about their high fees, that's a win for them. I think the incumbents win here. The technology may change. There may be a little benefit for the restaurants, retailers. But Visa and Mastercard, the idea that you should sell these stocks because technology that they can adopt too is coming. That to me, I don't get that.

Travis Hoium: The interesting thing to watch will be, how does this change under the hood? That fee structure, Visa and Mastercard actually don't take a huge percentage of that 2.9% that I talked about, they take a pretty small cut. The bigger cut goes to banks and ultimately, in a lot of cases, comes back to consumers with the cash back that you may have with your credit card. Is that something that consumers would be willing to adopt? Hey, instead of having that surcharge on your restaurant of three or 4% on your bill, you'll have a little bit less in money back. I don't know. That is changing consumer behavior that I don't know that we're necessarily ready for yet. But definitely something to watch, given all of the huge names that are involved here in adopting this new stablecoin. When we come back, we're going to get to Nike's earnings and why the stock is maybe up today. You're listening to Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing.

ADVERTISEMENT: Head to the beach and Abercrombie's latest summer drop. New 100% linen shirts are perfect for breezy days by the coast. They're easy to layer and go well with our new sea fade shorts. For days spent on the water, pair the ANF resort shirt with your favorite swim. Outfit your summer with Abercrombie in the app, online, and in stores.

ADVERTISEMENT: HBO Max is now on Prime Video, so many great stories. One destination. Journey back to Westeros with the third season of House of the Dragon. Draw your sword. Don't list the intense new season of Euphoria. What we didn't realize was how far we were willing to go. Follow Dr. Robby through a gripping real-time shift in The Pitt. It begins. You also get access to so many timeless shows from Succession to The Last of Us. Subscription required Ts and Cs apply, 18 plus, HBO Max is used under license.

Travis Hoium: Welcome back to Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing. Nike's earnings are out. On the surface don't really look all that good on a reported basis, revenue was flat on a currency-neutral basis. It was actually down direct to consumer sales down 7%. But Lou, the stock is up about 2% today, so what should we be taking from this earnings report?

Lou Whiteman: Mind you, still down 35% for the year, which I think is a bigger point.

Travis Hoium: It has not been a good run for Nike.

Lou Whiteman: But look, I got to be honest with you. I don't think these were great results if you are a Nike shareholder. I don't think there's much to celebrate here. They did beat expectations, so you have that headline there. But the bad news is expectations were rock bottom. Nobody was expecting much coming in. Even the good news was bad news, if you look under the hood. They earned 72 cents per share but 52 cents of that was related to tariff recovery. Same story with gross margins improved by 890 basis points. That includes 900 basis points of margin benefits. Margins would have been down without tariffs. Sales were down across the board, down in China. Look, this is not a company where individual quarters matter. What we need to see is that there is a turnaround in place, and I don't know how you can read this and say anything other than if there is a turnaround going on, we are very early here.

Tyler Crowe: Something happened within the most recent weeks that actually wasn't anything related to Nike, but I think it's emblematic to some of the troubles or challenges that we've seen with Nike. Steph Curry signed a 10-year shoe deal with Li-Ning, which is a Chinese footwear company. He was a free agent after he left Under Armour, and look, I get it that maybe Steph Curry isn’t the newest hot thing in the NBA right now, but this past year in 2026, he was still the top-selling jersey in all the NBA. Whatever brand he has, it still carries a lot of weight, and the fact that Nike, with this Elliott Hills win now effort and being obsessed with sport and athletes, I find it strange that it couldn’t land Curry. I feel that's emblematic of the challenges that it's been having trying to meet the customer where it wants to be and all that stuff. Look, I've done my best to help Nike. I have bought so many Paris Saint-Germain kits lately. I think they should actually be highlighting me in the conference call.

Travis Hoium: That would be a really nice callout for you. The thing that I wanted to just ask quickly as we round things up here is, is this a company that even can turn it around at this point? Tyler, I want you to go first.

Tyler Crowe: Yes and no. That's the weird disparity in their business, because if you look at the North America numbers, it's actually doing surprisingly well. Wholesale numbers were up double digits year over year for North America. The challenge is China, and this has not just been a one-time thing. They saw a 17% decline in retail sales quarter over quarter. I saw this on a Substack from the Science of Hitting who's been tracking Nike for a long time. Nike sales in China are down 30% over the past five years. It's gone from what was a structural tailwind for them for many years into a headwind, and I struggle to see when that decline reverses course.

Lou Whiteman: Great brand. Can they turn it around, as in, can they go up from here? Yes, because the brand isn't going anywhere. Can they get back to their heyday? No. Like Tyler said, it's a much more international market. Instagram influencers have made. You really just need one person on Instagram to promote a brand, not just the way they used to throw money and feel ubiquitous. That doesn't work anymore. The Nike of my childhood is never coming back. I do think it's possible that thanks to the brand, they can get their house together with how they do sales and grow from here. The challenge for me as an investor is that will that equal market-beating returns? I'm very much on the fence about that.

Travis Hoium: It's one of those stocks that people always are making the argument that it's a great value, and you do need to look at the underlying business, and are the long-term trends in their favor? One of the things that I look at, as I have little kids, and we're buying shoes is Nike is now a discount brand. That's not the way that it was when I was a kid, and you were going in buying Jordans, and they were twice as expensive as every other shoe, and you really stood out when you had them on. I don't think that's really the case anymore. Lots has changed for Nike. The stock is up today, but we'll see if they're able to implement any turnaround that lasts long term.

As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talked about in The Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows The Motley Fool's editorial standard. It is not approved by advertisers, advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. To see our full advertising disclosure, please check out our shows. For Lou Whiteman, Tyler Crowe, and Dan Boyd behind the glass, I'm Travis Hoium. Thanks for listening. We'll see you here tomorrow.

Lou Whiteman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Travis Hoium has positions in Alphabet. Tyler Crowe has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Beyond Meat, BlackRock, International Business Machines, Mastercard, Nike, Stride, and Visa. The Motley Fool recommends Under Armour. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.