Small business owners have grown accustomed to operating in uncertain conditions. But uncertainty has a cost — and right now, businesses are feeling it in everything from fuel prices and borrowing costs to hiring decisions.
This month, William Stern and Dean Lyulkin look at three areas small business owners should be watching: continuing turmoil in energy markets, the rising cost of long-term capital, and a labor market where employers aren’t doing much hiring — or firing.
Higher Fuel Costs Could Linger
Continuing conflict in the Middle East and attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz are keeping pressure on oil prices, and Stern says businesses shouldn’t assume that pressure will disappear quickly even if conditions improve.
“The market can handle bad news when it knows what the bad news is. What it struggles with is uncertainty,” Stern says. “Right now, there’s no clear timeline for when normal shipping conditions return, and until there is, that risk premium is going to stay embedded in the price.”
For small businesses, Stern says diesel prices are particularly important to watch.
“Small business owners in trucking, delivery, construction — anything diesel-dependent — are getting squeezed on margins they can’t pass through fast enough,” he says.
And lower oil prices wouldn’t necessarily translate immediately into significantly lower prices at the pump. Stern points to limited refining capacity as another factor keeping pressure on fuel costs.
“You can release barrels, but you can’t manufacture refining capacity overnight,” he says. “That’s the piece people keep missing when they assume one policy announcement is going to suddenly reset fuel prices.”
For business owners dependent on transportation, delivery, or fuel-intensive equipment, that means budgeting for elevated costs rather than assuming relief is imminent.
Borrowing Costs Aren’t Just About the Fed
Business owners waiting for interest rates to fall may also need to look beyond what the Federal Reserve does next.
Lyulkin says pressure on long-term yields isn’t confined to the United States.
“We’re seeing pressure on long-term yields in Europe and Japan as well as the U.S.,” he says. “That looks less like a Fed story and more like a global repricing of the cost of long-term capital.”
One reason is growing competition for money.
“Governments are issuing enormous amounts of debt at the same time private markets need capital for AI, data centers, and infrastructure,” Lyulkin says. “All of that is competing for the same pool of long-duration money, and investors are demanding to be paid more to part with it.”
For small businesses, the important takeaway is that lower short-term interest rates don’t automatically mean every form of financing will quickly become cheaper. Owners considering major investments such as real estate, equipment, or expansion should evaluate financing based on the rates and economics available to them now rather than assuming significantly cheaper long-term capital is just around the corner.
A Low-Hire, Low-Fire Labor Market
The labor market presents businesses with a different kind of uncertainty.
Lyulkin describes the current environment as a “low-hire, low-fire economy.”
“If you have a job, you’re doing fine,” he says. “The problem is if you don’t have one, it is getting harder to find one.”
That can make headline employment numbers look healthier than the experience of people looking for work might suggest.
“A labor market can look healthy in the unemployment rate while still becoming increasingly difficult underneath the surface,” Lyulkin says. “Businesses aren’t necessarily cutting aggressively, but they’re also not adding people the way they normally would.”
For small business owners, that environment creates both caution and opportunity. Slower hiring may be another reason to think carefully before adding permanent overhead, but a less active labor market could also give businesses that are ready to hire access to candidates who might have been harder to recruit when competition for workers was stronger.
What Small Businesses Should Watch
The common thread running through energy, capital, and labor isn’t necessarily that conditions are deteriorating across the board. It’s that businesses can’t count on a quick return to predictability.
Fuel costs can remain elevated even after an immediate crisis eases. Long-term borrowing costs may not follow the Fed neatly downward. And a labor market can remain relatively stable while becoming considerably harder for job seekers to navigate.
For small business owners, that makes flexibility particularly valuable. Plans for pricing, financing, hiring, and expansion should leave room for conditions to change — because, at least for now, uncertainty itself has become one of the costs of doing business.
Dean Lyulkin is the founder of The Dean’s List, a San Diego–based registered investment advisory firm focused on capital markets research, portfolio strategy, and long-term wealth building. He works with investors and entrepreneurs to help them better understand how economic cycles, credit markets, and policy decisions shape real investment outcomes.
Dean frequently writes and speaks about financial markets, private credit, interest rates, and the intersection between investing and business growth.
William Stern is the founder of Cardiff, a San Diego–based small business lender focused on speed-first capital and technology-driven underwriting. Since 2004, he has helped businesses access funding more quickly through AI-powered credit models and modern lending infrastructure.
Cardiff was named America’s Favorite Small Business Lender (2024–2025) and won the Digital Bankers Global SME Banking Innovation Award (2026).
Rieva Lesonsky is the founder of Small Business Currents, a content company focusing on small businesses and entrepreneurship. You can find her on Twitter @Rieva, Bluesky @Rieva.bsky.social, and LinkedIn. Or email her at Rieva@SmallBusinessCurrents.com.
Photo courtesy Getty Images for Unsplash+
