Gas prices are headed back up
Marketplace
Marketplace
4.6 • 8.6K Ratings
🗓️ 8 July 2026
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
President Trump called off the a ceasefire with Iran Wednesday morning, sending the U.S. back into a military conflict — and sending oil prices back up after weeks of steady cooling. In this episode, Kai calls up economist Robin Brooks at Brookings to explain how a reignited war will affect global oil markets and prices at the pump. Plus: Retailers stock up early for the 2026 holiday season, businesses surpass homes’ energy use for the first time on record, and corporations issue more shares to raise capital.
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Read the stories in today’s episode:
- Trump calls off Iran ceasefire, a move that "obviously will push oil prices up"
- Some business owners are stocking up early for the holidays
- Why public companies have been on a tear issuing new shares
- Businesses are using more electricity than homes for the first time on record
- What the energy shock means for the decarbonization industry
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | That ceasefire that wasn't really a ceasefire? |
| 0:06.4 | Well, it's over and the economy would like a word. |
| 0:11.5 | From American public media. |
| 0:13.9 | This is Marketplace. In Los Angeles, I'm Kai Rizdahl. |
| 0:27.2 | It is Wednesday. |
| 0:28.8 | Today, this one's the 8th of July. |
| 0:30.5 | Good as it always is, to have you along, everybody. |
| 0:32.7 | The president is on his way back from that NATO summit in Turkey. |
| 0:36.7 | Before he left, though, he did say the ceasefire |
| 0:40.2 | was over. And both sides, according to reporting as of this moment, are shooting at and or bombing |
| 0:46.3 | each other. And for those of us, for whom the economy is our concern, I mean, here we go again. |
| 0:56.4 | We've gotten Robin Brooks back on the phone to talk things over. He is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Robin, thanks for answering the phone |
| 1:01.3 | when we called. Yeah, of course. Great to be with you, Kai. Last time we had you on talking about |
| 1:07.6 | the subject at hand, you said at one point in that conversation, you know, I think |
| 1:12.5 | traders have to get their risk premium realigned. They're not pricing in the eventualities, |
| 1:18.5 | as it were. And congratulations, I guess. Yeah, you know, when you and I last spoke a couple weeks ago, |
| 1:26.7 | I think we said oil needs to trade in a range of $80 to $90 a barrel. |
| 1:34.3 | And of course, it fell quite a bit below that. |
| 1:38.3 | Before the most recent flare-up, we were all the way down to $70, $72 a barrel. And I think the reality is |
| 1:46.8 | the world is a complicated place. This peace deal is a complicated piece deal, and so, yeah, |
| 1:54.3 | better to be cautious. Crude today, either one of your main benchmarks, Brent or West Texas, up six and a half, seven-ish percent. |
| 2:03.4 | Going to go up a little more, right? Crystal ball this for me. |
... |
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