A reader left the following question/comment;

If we are looking to play defense against a falling market does the casual link works like this:

rising oil = inflation = rising rates = faltering stock market

If the above holds then I would think a defensive position should be in oil companies with proven reserves.

As part of a defensive strategy sure but yesterday oil was up, the market was down and so were a lot of energy stocks. This corrected some toward the end of the day but the sector may not work perfectly in the role of defense.

Looking at just one day is not exactly right of course. If oil goes higher or just stays where it is it creates some measure of headwind for the economy, perhaps not deathblow, recession or even slowdown but some sort of effect.

Energy stocks at a minimum have favorable conditions with oil at this price but it is not clear that this adds up to energy as a defensive strategy but perhaps just a bullish case for oil stocks. For now a bullish case for oil stocks may be a proxy for a defensive strategy but that may not stand up forever.