Oil And Gas Stocks On Retail-Investor Radar Heading Into New Week As Elon Musk Pleads For Increased Production

Heading into a new trading week, oil and gas stocks are seeing high interest from retail investors amid the escalation in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Stocks such as Occidental Petroleum Corp. OXY, United States Oil Fund LP USO, iPath Pure Beat Crude Oil ETN OIL and Exxon Mobil Corp. XOM are among the ten most discussed stocks on Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum as at press time early Monday.

United States Oil Fund, Indonesia Energy Corp. Limited INDO, Exxon Mobil and Occidental Petroleum are the top four trending tickers on Stocktwits.

Meanwhile, activist investor Carl Icahn has in recent days sold the last of what was earlier a nearly 10% stake in Occidental Petroleum, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.

Why It Matters: Crude oil prices continued to surge early Monday after it was reported that the U.S. and its allies are considering a ban on Russian oil and natural gas imports.

Surging oil prices have stoked concerns about inflation as Russia is the world’s second-largest oil exporter.

Gas prices in the U.S. have reached their highest levels since 2008 as the Russia-Ukraine conflict escalated last week.

The surge in oil prices prompted Tesla Inc. TSLA CEO Elon Musk to plead on Friday that the U.S. should immediately increase oil and gas production.

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