In this episode of Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing, Motley Fool contributors Jon Quast, Matt Frankel, and Tyler Crowe discuss:
- Diesel's record-high price and its economic impacts.
- The challenge of getting prices back down.
- Berkshire Hathaway's succession plan.
- The potential of a Berkshire dividend.
- Mailbag: Down stocks showing signs of life.
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 Sept. 21, 2026.
Jon Quast: The pain at the pump is getting worse. Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing starts now. Welcome to Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing. I'm your host today, Jon Quast. I'm joined by my friends and contributors, Tyler Crowe and Matt Frankel. We have a couple of things on the show today. We're going to talk some Berkshire. We're going to talk a question from the mailbag.
But first, we want to hit diesel prices. As of this morning, diesel prices are at a record high of $6.51 per gallon. That's according to AAA. That is up 76% from this exact time last year. I think that it's possible that maybe some of our listeners out there are saying, I don't see how this applies to me because I drive a gas car. But let me assure you this does indeed apply to you. This is a story that everyone in the country, I believe is going to feel very soon. Matt, what are some of the ways and why are we going to see this for everyday consumers?
Matt Frankel: Diesel prices have pretty widespread economic implications, not just if you drive a diesel-powered vehicle or have a diesel-powered boat or something like that. Trucking companies, the companies that move everything around the country, everything that you buy, everything I buy, they generally include fuel surcharges when they deliver items to their customers. They're directly tied to the price of diesel fuel. When diesel prices rise, and it's been a long time, I think since Katrina, before we saw a six on a fuel price sign in South Carolina, I don't know about where you are, but it's been a while, and it's going to cause some pain. You said a 78% increase; that's a lot to be passing on to your customers.
Tyler Crowe: When we talk about diesel, we could actually expand this out too to jet fuel as well because anything that is a refined product is way up. Obviously, diesel is much higher than gasoline in part because of what you said is where diesel is much more of a must-have for shipping for agriculture and things like that. It is the lifeblood of the supply chain industry and moving stuff from one place to another. Like I said, jet fuel is also another one we don't talk about as much because jet cargo is a thing, and while we're probably not moving commodities and things like that on a jet, it's still. Right now, jet fuel prices are about $200 a barrel, and that's two times the price it was pre the Iran conflict. That's increasing relatively fast as well. You're seeing those similar fuel surcharges on airline tickets as well, and I would not be shocked if we start to see things pop up in airline traffic coming in during the holiday season if we see these fuel surcharges really start to climb.
Jon Quast: Is there anything that we can do about this to bring prices back down? Because Senator Chuck Grassley coming out and suggesting that we ban the export of diesel fuel, to me, that idea makes sense because the price is set with global supply and demand economics, and so it stands to reason that if you ban the global demand that your domestic supply is going to start outweighing your domestic demand and bring prices down. But is that how it works?
Tyler Crowe: You could probably get a short-term swing here, but there are so many unintended consequences that would likely happen as a result. Let's just give an example. We export in total about 5 million barrels per day of refined products, whether that's gasoline, whether that's diesel, whether it's jet fuel, name it whatever it is. We also import about 2 million barrels per day of crude oil. On a net basis, we are a net exporter. But the challenge is we actually export a lot more diesel, and we actually are a net importer of gasoline. If we were to start banning diesel exports, then the countries that would suffer, mostly Europe, is where we do a lot of our gasoline and diesel trade with. Maybe they start banning gasoline or exports, and then all of a sudden, we're in some tit-for-tat of who bans what, where? It could probably have some short-term impact, but I would be more worried that it would cause more problems down the road than it would having some short-term salve.
Tyler Crowe: One thing to keep in mind, too is it's not just on the ban or whatever of exports. One thing that's really going to be challenging, no matter how we shake it is the fact that refinery capacity, like the utilization of refining is at the highest it's been since the early 2000, the Atlantic basin. That's basically all of our East Coast refineries in addition to European refineries are 97% utilizations. It's not just because of the Iran war, but also we've seen a lot of refineries knocked out in Russia, which is impacting European fuel demand as well. A lot of things are going on here and a funny thing we're talking about, if you want to say a hidden investment for the longest time, oil refineries in the United States, Valero, Marathon Petroleum. Incredible value creators for a lot of people, even in lousy oil environments. I think they were pretty hidden investments, but I think today when people are seeing the crack spreads or the difference between refined products and crude oil today, it's really changing the thing. I don't think anyone thinks those are hidden investments anymore.
Jon Quast: Man, I want to give you the final word here. It sounds from Tyler that it's going to be complicated to get prices down at least in the near term or even in the medium term. If we can't get these diesel prices down, where are we going to see that ripple through the macroeconomic picture?
Matt Frankel: Here's one interesting point that is really important. If gasoline prices rise, you see that show up in inflation immediately; energy costs rise. If jet fuel prices rise, it's a somewhat immediate effect. It affects travel inflation very quickly, for example. With diesel, it can be somewhat more of a delayed fuse it reaches consumer prices a little bit later due to higher freight costs. Companies resist passing on price increases, as we've seen this from the tariffs. Companies try to resist passing on price increases until they can't anymore. It tends to be a little bit more of a delayed fuse, and that's exactly what I'm expecting. We're already seeing the more immediate effects. In the most recent inflation data, transportation and warehousing services and truck freight transportation were two of the worst parts of the data.
ut looking forward, I'm really keeping an eye on a three categories in particular, food, these will not only impacts food transportation costs like the cost of getting food to the grocery stores, but it affects farm equipment. Farm equipment runs on diesel. The processing equipment that processes food, a lot of it runs on diesel. It affects food prices in a few different ways. Airlines, Tyler already mentioned that jet fuel is up. That's not a diesel thing, but airline fares are already up 23% year over year. That's not the percentage increase of diesel, so I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a little bit more increase in airfares going forward, especially as we head into the holiday season when there's a lot of demand. Then construction, heavy equipment runs on diesel for the most part. It goes without saying that the delivery companies are like UPS and FedEx. Their planes use jet fuel; their trucks use diesel. We could see that pass through to the consumer a lot. There are a few categories where inflation could get worse before it gets better.
Jon Quast: Of course, if inflation continues to be a persistent problem, that's going to make it really hard for the Federal Reserve to lower rates. That would be an interesting thing to watch as well. When we come back, we're going to talk some Berkshire Hathaway changes. You're listening to Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing.
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Jon Quast: Welcome back to Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing. The Buffett era is officially over at Berkshire Hathaway, or maybe I should say the Warren Buffett era is over because his son, Howard, is stepping into the chairman role of the company as Uncle Warren is stepping down, according to a letter that released on Friday. This is an interesting thing here. It does bring up an interesting topic because the change at CEO had already changed. Of course, Greg Abel running the company. But now his son, Howard, stepping into the chairman role. Many companies on the stock market, the chairman CEO is combined. I think this is an interesting case where maybe we can start to examine what is the difference between the chairman and CEO roles, generally speaking, and how is it going to play out specifically at Berkshire?
Tyler Crowe: As far as the separation, it really depends on the flavor of the company. Obviously, companies where you have founder leaders tends to be a combination of chairman and CEO, but there is a fair share where it's actually separated. Honestly, I think it's a better sign of good governance to have those roles separated to a certain degree. There are some separate things when it comes to compensation; when it comes to audits, you want them separated. Now, look, Berkshire has gotten away with some murky governance stuff over the years. They already had dual-class shares. But I think we all look the other way with some of the things that Berkshire Hathaway did with its governance because it was Buffett, and he seemed to always do right by investors. Now, his son automatically getting the executive chair, I think it is another example of slightly murky governance. Is he the most qualified? Maybe, probably I don't think he is actually. Even there was an article in the Financial Times over the weekend being like this was a bad move, so I'm not the only one saying this.
The other thing to consider, though, and perhaps the reason why this is the case is more than anything, all of the shares that Warren Buffett owned are going to be transferred to either foundations or family trusts or whatever. Most of those are owned or operated or run by his children. Howard being one of them, and they're all foundations run by them. Obviously, foundations want to own stock and probably want to maintain as much family control as possible so that as like not the majority, but I guess you could say the plurality shareholder, that's the best case you could make for Howard. Here's the fascinating thing I want to follow is that Berkshire Hathaway has always had a halo effect. Warren Buffett, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, valuation, everyone gives them the benefit of the doubt. How long does that last when Warren Buffett really isn't in the picture anymore?
Jon Quast: Matt, what do you think about the Berkshire-specific way that this is going to play out? Because Tyler is mentioning here, part of the perhaps motivation behind Warren naming his son Howard is the fact that he is transferring a lot of his wealth to his children, and where the company goes over the long term is important to him.
Matt Frankel: My biggest pushback is why didn't the Financial Times published this article 15 years ago. The reason I say that is this move has been known. Warren Buffett said on TV in 2011 that this was his plan, that his son Howard would move into the chairman role for the specific role, not to play any role in the company, but just to preserve the culture if a future CEO went rogue, for example, and started micromanaging the operations, which Berkshire prides itself on being a decentralized culture. Just as one example, Howard could step in and do something about it. That's his sole goal for being there. Tyler's right. Maybe he's not the most experienced. He's been on several; he's been a director at Coca-Cola. He's been a director at Conagra Foods. He's been chairman of a few boards throughout his career. To be fair, it's probably because of his name and his connection to Berkshire that he got those roles. But he had them for quite some time. He's been on Berkshire's board since 1993. He’s been on Berkshire’s board since I was 11 years old. He's got some experience there. He's been in the boardrooms. But I don't know why this is an issue now when it was a known succession plan for a long time.
Tyler Crowe: I think there's a fair point of, it's more of a problem now because Howard's already 71. Greg Abel's already 64 years old. Maybe 15 years ago when it was the executive chairman in waiting, he was 55 and seemed like a relatively reasonable thing here. Part of my contention with the idea, too, is for the longest time, Warren Buffett was always like, we've got Ajit Jain in charge of insurance. Greg Abel is going to take over. Howard's there to do the executive chairman. But these guys are all now already approaching retirement age, and there's this assumption that they're going to be on the top of their game into their 70s and 80s. That was a rarity for Warren Buffett to use one of his quids; he won the birth lottery, if you will, with genetics and being able to stay as sharp as he did for as long. There's no guarantee that the people that he has already hired are going to be as good into their 70s and 80s as he was. If not, where's the bench in the lieutenants after that? Because if I am a Berkshire Hathaway investor, part of me starts to wonder, what happens post-Abel post-Howard Buffett cause that really changed things pretty quick.
Matt Frankel: To be fair, that's the best criticism. Howard isn't young. Him and Greg Abel are both at what I would consider to be retirement age in any world other than Berkshire’s. That's my biggest question mark is, I want to see the next steps in the succession plan. I wouldn't be surprised if the next Berkshire shareholder meaning that's an ongoing question topic that people are asking Greg Abel is what happens next? Because he's, like you said, not exactly young. Who's going to preserve the culture after Howard? He could retire. He's 71. I know there is a bench of Buffett nephews and sons and grandsons who work in the financial industry. But stating the plan would definitely help at this point.
Jon Quast: It's certainly suboptimal when your succession plan already needs a succession plan. But basically, what I'm hearing from you guys with this plan that is in place, the idea is, for Berkshire to not change, at least in the ways that have made it great. That's what Warren is thinking about. But let's talk about a change that might be for the better or at least that some shareholders seem to want and maybe this is the time to do it. Warren Buffett has historically been very averse to paying a dividend and there is a growing little murmur out there that maybe this is the time.
Tyler Crowe: I think over the next 18 months, they will declare a dividend and for the most benign reason possible. Again, the Buffett ownership stake is going to foundations and trusts. Foundations and trusts need money and they'd probably prefer to use dividends instead of having to sell their shares to do so. I think with that much vested interests from foundations and things like that, we could see a push from the board to go towards a dividend to fund those operations at those foundations. Very similar to what we see at Hershey, they're majority owned by the Hershey Trust, which is basically all they really care about is the dividend.
Matt Frankel: I'll gladly take the other side of that argument. I don't think Berkshire will pay a dividend within the next five years. When I say that, that assumes that both Greg Abel and Howard Buffett are going to be in their current roles in five years. That's a big assumption. Abel has already shown that making investments and buying back shares are his priority. He's making statements about that in his first couple of quarters as Berkshire's CEO. I'm not saying it's not possible. I'd probably give it about a 20% chance that Berkshire pays a dividend and only if the stock traded well above its intrinsic value for a length of time because after all, both Abel and Howard Buffett are there to preserve the culture. It's clearly stated in Berkshire's capital preferences that it will pay a dividend if it exhausts all other options, including buybacks.
Jon Quast: We'll have to keep an eye on that as Howard steps into that role and time moves forward. When we come back, we're going to hit a question from our mailbag. You are listening to Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing.
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Jon Quast: Welcome back to Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing. Quick note. We love taking questions from our mailbag, and that email address is [email protected]. Send in your questions to anyone on this show, especially if you can keep it concise, if it stays Foolish and if you remember that we don't give out personalized investing advice, that email address again is [email protected].
This question today starts off by saying greetings from Chile. When looking to open a position, whether dollar-cost averaging or not, on a stock you absolutely need to own. Do you look at technicals before determining the entry point? Put another way, if a stock is trading at all-time highs, do you blindly buy, example, Intel during the height of the dot-com era, or conversely, if the stock has been a dog for the past five years, think Nike, do you want to wait for signs of life before buying?
Thanks, Vicente. Vicente, we appreciate the question, but we are going to reframe a couple of things here to make it a little bit more Foolish. I'll let you guys go ahead and jump in here with a couple of premises in the question that you want to reject.
Tyler Crowe: One of the things that I can't say that I agree with is the idea of something being a need-to-own stock. I feel like when we get that itch where we have to own something immediately, it's like we've studied it and you have made all these decisions, it's a little bit more of a sunk-research fallacy where you're like, I've put so much time into it, it must mean I have to buy it. It's not necessarily the case. Now, I just took some shots at Warren Buffett for corporate governance and whatnot, but he had some real bangers of lines in terms of investing advice. One of my favorite ones is actually, there's no called strikes in investing. You don't have to go out and buy something. You don't have to own it. There's always opportunities elsewhere. Sometimes you need to look further afield than others. One could argue now is arguably a further afield time. It's just one of those things where I don't necessarily think that's the best way to look at investing in general.
Matt Frankel: I agree with Tyler completely that there's no such thing as a need to own stock. Having a sense of urgency in investing in general is one of the top reasons that people overpay for investments. The question is not what the chart is doing. It's what you're paying for a business's future earnings because at the end of the day, that's the goal is you want to pay less than the present value of a business's future earnings. That's investing 101. Saying things like it used to trade for $100, but now it trades for $80 is not a reason to buy.
On the other side, it's at an all-time high is not necessarily a reason not to buy. But to my investment strategy, if I really want to own a stock, not need to own, but if I really want to own a stock because I think it's trading at a fair price relative to its future earnings, but I might be a little concerned about the current valuation, as the question is implying, that's when I really like to build positions incrementally, not necessarily completely textbook dollar-cost averaging, but maybe buy a little now, buy a little in a month, buy a little in another couple of months. I prefer that to using technicals to determine an entry point in the stock.
Jon Quast: Basically there, Vicente, just reframing a little bit, they're saying not necessarily any stock is a have-to own. You can just stand there and wait for a better pitch at some point. Then also the technicals. Matt, they're highlighting the future earnings is really more what we're concerned with. But dollar-cost averaging is certainly an approach that we’d like to use. But I thought, guys, we can now actually turn to this question a little bit here. He talks about dogs, stocks that have been dogs that are starting to show signs of life. I thought I'd throw this out there to you guys just to leave with something a little bit more positive. Are there dogs out there right now that you’re seeing, hey, these are actually showing some signs of life, and this looks like a decent bite to me?
Tyler Crowe: I cut my teeth on cyclical commodities, which I don't know, just maybe means that I have some masochistic streak in me where I just love pain. But one of the things I did discover in that vein is that the dog days sometimes can be those windows of accumulation. It may take several years for them to pay off. I've been looking in a couple of different places. If you're looking for dogs with signs of life. I really want to start looking at small and regional banks. Lots of these businesses are trading for less than their tangible book value right now. That's actually one of the more common traits, and they do tend to be uncorrelated. I know that we see rising interest rates, but for a lot of them, they don't have to pay much on their deposits, and they can charge more for what they're lending. It could be a pretty interesting time for some of those businesses.
Jon Quast: Matt, how about you?
Matt Frankel: One that I think actually fits the question really well is Target, TGT. Their comp sales were up by almost 4% in the second quarter. That's among the best numbers in a tough retail environment. I know we've talked a bunch of other retailers that weren't doing so well with comp sales, strong digital sales. The stock is up by 67% on a turnaround so far. But I would actually argue that it's lower risk now than buying before the turnaround; the signs were really clear. It's still well below its all-time high. They're executing well on a turnaround. It's a really good example of it's up 67%. Maybe I'm going to tiptoe into a position and build it over time, but you're clearly seeing signs that the turnaround is working. It's one that is on my radar right now.
Jon Quast: Thank you, Vicente, for writing in. As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about, and 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 Motley Fool editorial standards and 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 show notes. Thanks for our producer Dan Boyd and the rest of The Motley Fool team. For Matt, Tyler and myself, thank you so much for listening to our show today, and we will see you again next time.
