Well, it's a straightforward economic scenario: High gas prices mean consumers, a group that represents nearly 70% of U.S. GDP, have less discretionary income. Less discretionary income hits a broad swath of sectors that are home to myriad companies that are loyal oil purchasers. In other words, the impact of

You've probably heard it before: High gas prices act as a tax and a regressive one at that. One factoid frequently mentioned is that for each penny gas prices increase, $1 billion is sapped from the U.S. economy. That means if gas goes from $4 a gallon to $5 gallon, $100 billion in spending basically disappears. And remember this: Gas price are historically high in the summer time because that's when folks are taking vacations, but the stock market is historically weak during the summer months.

Of course, it must be noted that high oil prices adversely impact refining margins; so integrated companies like Exxon and Shell are slow to respond, if they respond at all, to rising oil prices. Meaning the better way to play the higher oil/gas theme is with an independent name like Anadarko Petroleum (NYSE: APC) or Apache (NYSE: APA).

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