Markets Point Upward on Positive Headlines Regarding Iran Talks

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: To help set up the trading day, welcome in Kevin Hanks, live at the CBOE for our pre-bill playbook. Taking a look at the futures, we had a record for the Dow, and S&P 500 may have a record today too. We'll have to wait and see. Good morning to you, Kevin Hanks. [00:00:15] Speaker 2: Good morning, Nicole. Yeah, looking at 7,600 on the S&P and probably higher to start the day. We're feeling good about crude oil. Scott Besant making comments this morning on TV, talking about a potential deal in the next day or two. Crudol, that traded $86 two days ago, down big yesterday, traded over $82, and then his comments took another leg down for crude oil. So the market feeling good about that. Yields back down to 4.67%. That's lower on the day. The market feeling good about that as well. So, yeah, Scott Besant making some comments, some good earnings overnight. McDonald's missed, but the stock is higher. Palantir had good earnings. So we're looking at an up market to start the day, Nicole, on good macro fundamentals and some good news out of Treasury Secretary Scott Besant. [00:01:13] Speaker 1: All right. Yeah. I mean, and it was interesting. He was talking about it's not a K-shaped economy anymore. It's a C-shaped economy. It was a really interesting interview, and it was nice to hear from Scott Besant directly because we haven't heard from him recently, I feel. I mean, I haven't seen a lot of comments from him directly. So it was definitely uplifting, and so we may see some records along with that. When we see oil, I mean, the Strait of Hormuz, which really ended up being the Red Sea and the Houthis and really started to expand throughout the Middle East. It gives a little sense of clarity that maybe, he said, even as near as today, and then you see oil down 3.5%. Let's move on to what's going on in the world of AI and the very latest as we have a meeting at the White House. Tell me a little bit about that. [00:02:01] Speaker 2: Yeah, there's going to be a meeting today, Tuesday, at the White House, where AI leaders, and here's some of the companies, Meta Platforms, Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, they'll all be at the White House to review completed voluntary framework and also discuss testing of cyber capabilities. Obviously, as we get closer and closer with AI rollouts, the worries about cybersecurity and overall safety of these platforms, you know, there's stories out about problems with some of the platforms. So I think the Trump administration is bringing in some of the leaders to talk about these frameworks and make sure that they're all on the same page. So it's helpful. I'm sure we'll get some headlines coming out of that meeting. It'll be high profile, obviously. AI is on the tip of everyone's tongue. So a lot of the leaders, Google Alphabet, Meta Platforms, and then obviously OpenAI and Anthropic all at the White House today. [00:03:06] Speaker 1: Yeah, and we know that there has been a consortium, an open alliance, and those names weren't necessarily involved in this idea, but that they were all working together to understand how AI works, how we need to use it productively versus against ourselves, particularly after we had what, you know, AI agents sort of going broke, really. You know, it was AI agents against AI agents, and so that brought on some concerns. I think about what's going on with the inflation picture, the jobs picture. So inflation, we got a good CPI print for the month of June, and we did have Tom Lee who was talking about, if you can get another print like that for July and then another for August, then the Fed really did the right thing by keeping rates unchanged. So we'll wait on more on inflation. In the meantime, we're watching jobs, and on Friday, we'll have the jobs report. Today, we have the job openings, the jolts, and that's key, isn't it? Tells us the story. [00:04:07] Speaker 2: Yes, for the next four days, we're going to get labor market data coming out at 10 o'clock Eastern today when we get jolts data, job openings and labor turnover survey. We're looking for a number around 7.35 million. That's lower than a month ago, but if you remember, last month's number was a big jump when it got up to 7.594 million. So remember, with a jolts number, you want a bigger number. That's indicative of a stronger labor market, more job openings. So, yeah, watching for that number. The expectations are for slightly lower than the big jump we had a month ago. So something around 7.35. We'll see how that comes out. [00:04:51] Speaker 1: Yeah, and look, I mean, I think about what we're seeing so far as far as earnings are going. I mean, Palantir, we're going to be talking about it, but really an incredible quarter, blowout quarter, whatever you want to call it. That's been a great performer. But so many other names on our radar this morning, including you have Diamondback Energy, Clorox, Vertex. You know, another thing, now that I talk about the energy names that are reporting, because we'll have COP tomorrow, I also remember how the president was saying that Exxon and Chevron really pressuring the energy companies that they're making too much in profit with what has gone on with energy itself. So that, you know, saying bring down those gasoline prices, we'll see, right? What do you think? [00:05:37] Speaker 2: This is a tricky conversation for President Trump to have, because he understands that crude oil is priced off a world market, not off a U.S. market. The U.S. does not have a supply shock when it comes to crude oil. There's been no lines. There's been no shortages here. However, the price is based off that world price, and there's been disruptions in the world price. And it's easy, it's low-hanging fruit for the president to say that people are paying too much, but the reality is they have their price that it costs them to bring crude oil out of the ground and get it to market. They don't determine what price they sell it at, and that, you know, ebbs and flows with the overall market. The good news is, if we get through all this disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz and other places, the world is flush with crude oil. Do you realize Venezuela, right, a company that we removed their leader several months ago, they put out in June 2026 the most they've put out since 2019 in terms of output. And so the overall supply of crude oil is growing and growing from all these countries, but we have to get the disruptions and the price down. You could see crude oil significantly lower by the end of the year, and I don't think that President Trump will be saying, well, they're not making enough money now. So it comes and goes. I think it's easy to talk about that when prices are high, but remember, these energy companies, they don't determine the price of crude oil. [00:07:15] Speaker 1: All right, Kevin Hanks, great to see you. Thank you so much.