This is The Takeaway from today’s Morning Brief, which you can sign up to receive in your inbox every morning, along with:

ABCD.

Always. Be. Connecting. Dots.

That’s your primary mission as an investor. It’s something you can control each and every day. And it’s something you should really be locking in on at this very moment.

Oil prices (CL=F) are back on a steep rise as investors watch disturbing images of exploding ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Reuters reported this week that Iran has warned the world to get ready for $200-per-barrel oil. I get the propaganda-like statement here, but still — eek!

Goldman Sachs is out with a fresh warning of its own on black gold. It sees oil prices averaging $98 per barrel through the end of April if the chaos in the Strait of Hormuz persists.

That’s not even the worst possible outcome!

“A more extreme upside scenario with a 60-day disruption to flows through the Strait of Hormuz could see prices average $145 in March and April before declining to $93 by the fourth quarter of the year,” Goldman Sachs strategists said.

You may be wondering, “Brian, how the hell does this all impact my Nvidia (NVDA) holdings, my Microsoft (MSFT) holdings, and my Apple (AAPL) holdings. These are cash-rich tech beasts that don’t pump oil! These are companies powering the unstoppable AI revolution! (Maybe not Apple, but you get the point.)”

To that question, I offer these friendly reminders:

• Good luck to Apple and CEO Tim Cook in selling a new $1,000-plus foldable iPhone this year if gas prices settle in above $4 per gallon and people are worried about job loss in an economic slowdown. They will stick it out with a two-year-old iPhone. If you think this is reflected in Apple’s earnings estimates here on Yahoo Finance, tell me how @BrianSozzi on X.

• Good luck to Microsoft’s important gaming division, underpinned by Activision Blizzard. Let’s see how digital download sales look when 18-year-old gamers need $20 extra just to fill up their 120,000-mile Kia. Or how holiday gaming sales look when the other $20 they have in their pocket has to go toward a higher grocery bill.

• And good luck to Nvidia in delivering on sky-high Wall Street gross-margin estimates as supply chain costs go up because of higher oil prices. Even the power radiating from CEO Jensen Huang’s iconic black leather jacket won’t help Nvidia keep its costs as low as analysts previously thought.

This is how you should be connecting the dots. If you aren’t doing this, get ready for some of your net worth to be vaporized.