We could pay up to $7 at the pump.

In fact, “Drivers best start bracing for another surge in gas prices amid the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and years of under-investment by the oil industry, warns one veteran energy strategist, as noted by Yahoo Finance. 

“My guess is that you are going to see $5 a gallon at any triple-digit [oil prices] … as soon as you get to $100. And you might get to $6.50 or $7. Forget about $150 a gallon, I don’t know where we will be then,” Energy Word founder Dan Dicker said on Yahoo Finance Live. Dicker said oil prices could shoot higher to $150 a barrel, or in line to the ‘super spike’ highs from 2007.”

Of course, that’s the worst case.

But it could happen, as fears of war storm the markets – again.

All after the U.S. says a Russian invasion is imminent– well, again.

According to CBS News, “The Biden administration said ‘evidence on the ground’ showed Russia was ‘moving toward an imminent invasion’ of its neighbor,” adding, “the United States and its NATO partners have dismissed Moscow’s assertions of an initial force drawdown along Ukraine’s northern, eastern and southern borders, saying that President Vladimir Putin’s military appears, in reality, to be bolstering troop numbers, not reducing them.”

One way to protect your portfolio from potential war is with oil dividend stocks, like Exxon Mobil (XOM).  Should oil push higher, you could make money from stock appreciation, and from XOM’s 4.49% dividend yield.

Markets

The Dow is down 117 points to 34,734

The S&P 500 is down about 20 points to 4,450.50

The NASDAQ is down about 80 points to 14,520.75

Gold prices are up about $25 to $1,894.87

Bitcoin is down 2.8% to $42,694.25

Oil prices are down about 86 cents to $92.80

The VIX is up about 1.40 points to 25.65