While a slowdown in the global economic recovery continues to weigh down on the stock and bond markets, smart money believes surging oil and gas prices will offset it, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Supply shortages are causing oil to jump above $80 a barrel and natural gas to continue to surge full steam ahead. Other industrial commodities are not faring well as a result, the Journal says.

On Monday morning alone, U.S. crude oil was up more than 2% to $81.50 a barrel, a seven-year high. Since the end of October, U.S. crude oil has surged mroe than 120%.

Citing the Dow Jones Market Index. the paper says that "oil is now on track to outpace copper this year by the largest amount since 2002 and is topping an index of raw materials by the biggest margin in more than a decade. Copper prices are about 10% below a May record, while rallies in some other materials such as sinc and lead have largely stalled."

Other concerns currently wiehging on the market are a slowdown in China's GDP growth and further fallout from the Evergrande debt crisis; traders expect the real estate behemoth will collapse any day now.

Traders are also paying close attention to the economic impact of the Delta variant of COVID-19 and the price of oil and gas in general. They point out how the energy sector remains dependent on a post-pandemic recovery fueled by consumer spending on things like travel, and goods and services.

Another key question worrying traders concerns the global supply chain disruption. Already, mainstream media outlets are encouraging American consumers to rush out to buy Christmas gifts.

The weekend edition of the WSJ also noted how economists are saying that there are many other factors and data sets at play in the post-global pandemic world, such as people's willingness to work as opposed to receiving unemployment or COVID-19-related relief, as well as some people's palpable apprehension about venturing out into society for fear of contracting the COVID-19 or Delta variant.