Morning Call 5/1/26

 Apple shines a stock sit at
 record highs. I'm Morgan
 Brennan and this is your
 morning call.
 Good Friday morning.
 Let's get to start with the
 US stock futures right now
 with the S&P 500 and the
 NASDAQ both kicking off the
 new trading month at new
 highs. The S&P closing above
 7200 for the first time ever.
 That index along with the
 NASDAQ seeing their strongest
 monthly performances since
 2020 in April, which just
 wrapped yesterday. You can see
 right there on your screen though
 here in the futures market.
 S&P and Dow futures are both
 higher poised for a higher open
 the NASDAQ is under a bit of
 pressure this morning.
 Prediction markets think there
 is plenty of room to run this
 year though with 14% of those
 on Calche thinking that we could
 end up landing at either
 25% of the S&P sales period
 that last year are between
 7475 and 7599 or 7600 and
 7799. That's for the S&P by
 the end of the year. Big stock
 story of the morning. Apple
 following its latest earnings,
 more on those results in just a
 moment. If we take a look at
 and you can see shares of apple
 up about 2 and a half to 3% this
 morning. If we take a look at
 share at treasuries though
 where we've seen some pretty
 interesting activity this week.
 but the US 10 year treasury yielding 4.386% this morning.
 So down a little bit right now.
 Turning to the dollar index with the dollar software
 against other major currencies this morning.
 98.02 with the level on the dollar index.
 What's really in focus here,
 we're gonna talk about that a little bit later this hour two,
 is the yen and what is believed to be some intervention
 by officials in Japan in regards to that currency.
 Finally, let's take a look at energy prices.
 As we see, oil a bit higher this morning.
 WTI is up about 7.10% of 1%,
 just under $106 per barrel.
 And Brent is trading just below $112 per barrel.
 Our bog gasoline is also higher,
 about 1.5% right now.
 And so it's not gas.
 We're gonna talk more about that too.
 And the broader energy complex with EQTC,
 Otobi Rice, that's coming up a bit later.
 Don't wanna miss that.
 Let's get to our top story right now though.
 Apple shares jumping on the back of Q2 results.
 Topping expectations with the tech giant offering
 a better than expected revenue forecast for the current quarter.
 The company is seeing strength across its product lines
 with the exception of the iPhone.
 Those sales just missing estimates,
 but despite that shortfall,
 CEO Tim Cook on the earnings call,
 touting the iPhone 17,
 calling it the most popular lineup
 in the company's history,
 both Cook and Apple's CFO,
 highlighting supply constraints around critical chips
 for both the iPhone as well as Max.
 And Apple's board declaring a dividend
 of 27 cents per share.
 This is a 4% increase.
 Also authorizing as it tends to do
 at this time of year,
 an additional $100 billion stock buyback plan,
 so adding to the plan already in place.
 All of this coming on the back of last week's announcement
 that Tim Cook will be stepping down
 to CEO in September
 with hardware and product spots,
 John Ternus replacing him.
 Now, on the call,
 Ternus touting an incredible road ahead for Apple.
 Let's talk more about Apple's latest quarter right now.
 Let's dig into the numbers.
 Nancy Tengler, CEO and CIO of Laffer,
 Tengler investments.
 Great to have you on this morning.
 And Nancy, what was your key takeaway from the report?
 Morgan, I thought the most interesting thing,
 well, I loved that they beat in China.
 So China was up 28%.
 That was good news.
 Margins were better, also good news.
 But I think the conversation around
 no more cash neutral tells investors
 that Apple is going to be investing more in R&D.
 And they actually talked about that,
 that they were investing faster than the company was growing.
 So I think it's time for that.
 I loved that Ternus got on
 and just kind of made a brief statement,
 but a statement nonetheless.
 And so I thought it was a great quarter all the way around.
 I'm not sure why the stock isn't up more,
 but that's this earnings season, isn't it?
 Where you can deliver beat, beat, and raise,
 and still underperform.
 Yeah, I mean, case in point,
 what we're seeing with Sandisk, right?
 I mean, blow out and what's traditional to a certain extent?
 I mean, blow out earnings for both of those.
 I want to ask about that in a minute,
 first a little bit more on Apple here.
 And that is the comments you just met
 about investing into R&D and a shift away from cash neutral.
 Any sort of sense or idea
 of what that could potentially entail at Apple?
 I mean, we already know that they're striking
 a partnership with Gemini in terms of the AI rollout,
 but investors also do want to see more in terms of
 some of those cutting edge technology possibilities too.
 Yeah, I mean, I think it's got to be around AI.
 They talked about how AI is embedded in the neural engine.
 That is in fact true, I suppose,
 but I'm a longtime Apple iPhone user, Mac user.
 And I really haven't seen the benefits yet
 of AI integrated throughout the system.
 I don't know about you, Morgan.
 Sometimes I find some of the AI prompts annoying,
 but generally speaking, it needs to be more robust.
 And I think they understand that.
 So we'll see, I mean, they were very KG.
 There wasn't really any mention of where they were going to focus.
 That's always the case with Apple.
 And we know that Tim Cook thinks,
 and at least that John Ternus is the product guy.
 So I'm hopeful we'll see some innovation.
 We've owned the stock since 2013.
 Cook has been an amazing steward of the company and the stock price.
 But I think it is time for some innovation.
 Yeah, well, we just touched on it,
 but just to give the rundown for our viewer,
 Sandesk's chair is falling despite blowing past expectations.
 Third quarter results.
 That was thanks to strong demand for data storage products.
 The company also guided higher,
 approved a $6 billion share by back.
 As you mentioned, those shares are lower right now,
 six and a half percent lower.
 But Sandesk is up a whopping 2,000 percent or so
 since it was spun out as a standalone company
 from well, Western Digital, which is also lower,
 despite a similar story in terms of a beat.
 A strong beat on the top and bottom lines, raising guidance.
 Those shares have also been on a tear, Western Digital.
 Those have more than doubled in 2026.
 And have been one of the top S&P 500 performers so far this year.
 But you can see they're down about 8 percent this morning.
 Nancy, do you want to get your thoughts on this?
 Especially given this is huge, dramatic re-rating.
 We've seen overall for semis over the past month.
 Yeah, it's so interesting we haven't been in this business
 for probably longer than you've been alive.
 I've seen these cycles where memory stocks were left for dead.
 And they were never going to grow again.
 They were cyclical plays.
 And now we have this just amazing growth
 stratosphere ahead of us.
 I think what happens in this environment
 is when you get these stock price movements
 like we've seen in memory stocks.
 It takes a while for the earnings growth to catch up.
 The multiples expanded pretty rapidly.
 Even though they're still reasonably valued,
 it is typical that we would see some sell off.
 And usually it's the hedge funds, the algorithms
 jumping in day after and selling.
 And that's what we've seen every earnings season for the last,
 I'd say eight quarters.
 So I'm not worried about the underlying story.
 You heard from the site.
 We all heard from the hyperscalers
 that they're going to be spending.
 They're going to continue to spend.
 We have played it through micron and lamb research.
 We missed Sandex, disc unfortunately.
 But again, I don't think there's any underlying
 fundamental crack in the story.
 Yeah, overall earnings have been pretty strong
 so far this season.
 Tech has really been charging, leading the charge higher.
 But are there other parts of the market
 that look compelling to you right now?
 Yeah, I mean, we've been,
 we're advocates of tech.
 We called in our shop, we called the bottom on April 6th.
 We were fourth, we were a little bit late.
 But we went in buying on April 7th.
 And we bought some of the software names
 and that always feels hard in the near term.
 Just like it did during deep seek Morgan,
 where we had the narrative,
 which was everything got slaughtered
 and including the infrastructure names.
 We've also been adding to those.
 And then we really like consumer discretionary here.
 So we recently, in the last three, four months,
 we added to Starbucks, Ulta, TJ Maxx.
 And of course, then there's Amazon.
 I don't know how you characterize that company.
 But so we're overweight industrials.
 We're overweight consumer discretionary financials in tech.
 Yeah, see everything stores, everything stock.
 Nancy Tangler, great, great to have you on.
 I don't know, April 6th sounds pretty good
 to start jumping back into this market.
 Looking at the month we just had, appreciate it.
 Thanks for kicking off the hour with me.
 Let's head overseas to our Ben Boulos in London
 with a look at the market action
 that we're seeing internationally on this May day, Ben.
 Yeah, good morning to you
 and happy first of the month.
 It's a very light trading day across Europe.
 This morning, mainland European markets
 closed for a Labor Day holiday.
 Still some trade on the markets in the UK and Denmark, though.
 And we are seeing a negative print
 on the FTSE 100 Blue Chip Index
 pulled lower by negative results
 for that West, the Big Bank, and some weakness
 in the mining sector.
 This comes after, well, an upbeat month for stocks here
 in April, the Pan European Stock 600
 delivering its best month since January 2025.
 But not quite matching the tech driven positivity
 we saw on Wall Street.
 The UK market was weakest of the major indexes,
 oil majors falling in the month as investors
 reassessed the outlook amid war in Iran.
 Worth mentioning Asian stock markets
 also mostly closed today, but we saw some gains in Japan
 than in K225 driven mostly by some key tech stocks
 picking up on the tech gains we saw on Wall Street yesterday.
 All eyes, though, on the currency, the yen.
 Just before 3am, Eastern time,
 the currency suddenly jumped against the dollar,
 which also weakened against other currencies.
 But we have seen those gains
 pair back over the past two hours.
 This comes a day after a reported intervention
 in the currency market from a Japanese government
 boosting the yen in Thursday's session.
 All right, Big Ben, that's my new nickname for you,
 Mr. Boulos.
 I hope you have a great weekend.
 Appreciate it.
 We got a lot to come here on morning call,
 including the first big test for the Aval era.
 What investors are looking to hear from Berkshire Hathaway's
 new CEO ahead of that conglomerate's earnings,
 which dropped tomorrow.
 Plus, a look at the state of the American manufacturing sector.
 We got the CEO of packaging giant grife here.
 And breaking down the big week for Big Tech,
 our morning call crew lays out what mag seven results mean
 for the tech trades next steps.
 In a market with the S&P at a record high,
 we get a big hour ahead when morning call returns.
 Welcome back to morning call.
 Watching shares of grife,
 this the industrial packaging giant down nearly 2% this week,
 getting it on the back of second quarter results
 with the war in Iran presenting challenges
 for the company in the quarter.
 But it's also highlighting strong cash flow,
 balance sheet, sheet improvements.
 And for more, we are joined by Greg President and CEO
 Olay Roscard.
 Great to have you here on set.
 Welcome to you.
 Thank you, thank you for having me.
 We get ISM manufacturing here in the US this morning.
 I just want to start with a macro question.
 And that is the state of manufacturing,
 the state of the industrial economy.
 What you're seeing here in the US,
 what you're seeing in the rest of the world right now.
 Well, our industry has been in an industrial recession
 for the past three years with very low demand.
 But grife having almost 250 plants in over 40 countries
 has been very resilient in this sort of industrial recession
 period we've been having.
 We see, we don't really see any inflection point
 in the nearby future.
 So we are focused on helping ourselves
 by optimizing almost everything in the company,
 which has given us the strongest balance sheet
 in our company history.
 Yeah, and it's interesting to hear you say that
 because you are, I do see you as an early indicator
 of the industrial side of the global economy.
 So in light of that, what would you be looking for
 to see an inflection point and how much our geopolitics
 specifically the war in Iran factoring in here?
 What we are looking at is interest rates,
 market rates in our industry or in,
 we serve the chemical industry, the food industry.
 Everything we transport has our ingredients
 that's used to make up stuff.
 You open your fridge, our packaging has been used
 to transport those things and store those things.
 So we follow interest rates, we follow existing housing sales,
 auto sales, and those are all bellwaters for what's to come for us.
 Acro, the acrochemical sector is the same.
 We provide packaging for inputs, fertilizer, pesticides,
 but we also provide packaging for outputs after the season.
 So we see very early what's going on in the market.
 So in light of that, looking across the different end markets,
 what are you seeing and how much is war
 in the Middle East affecting it?
 If it is.
 All prices are high.
 That means that raw materials are going up
 and that affects everyone including us.
 One of the benefits that we have is that we have price adjustment
 mechanisms with all our customers.
 So when raw materials go up, our prices,
 they are just automatically where everybody is affected,
 including us is really on the demand side.
 Higher prices means higher inflation,
 people spend less money and that affects
 most of the industry.
 This AI infrastructure build out that's so much
 of the focus particularly here in the US
 and you certainly see it translate into some of the economic data.
 Does that have any impact on your business
 or where some of these flows of packaging and materials go?
 Not really, not really.
 We use AI every day.
 Before us, it's not the holy grail, there's not one thing.
 It just makes us much more productive
 and operating as big as the plant network as we have.
 We make a small improvement in one place
 and then you multiply that by 250.
 So you have a compounding effect on AI.
 And that's where that benefits us.
 But in terms of the environment we operate in,
 we are safe haven for our investors.
 Manufacturing is not necessarily sexy.
 I think it's sexy.
 But yeah, but we're very resilient.
 We've been here before, you know,
 whether it's the Sue, remember the Suez Canal
 were closed for a while.
 We had the port strikes, we had COVID.
 Russia invaded Ukraine.
 Now we have an other issue in the Middle East.
 We've been there before and in the Middle East
 we have a strong presence.
 We know what to do.
 The first priority we always have is to save the insecurity
 of our people.
 And then we move on to helping our customers solve their problems.
 Okay.
 Well, it's great to have you on, Oleh Roskart of Gryff.
 The CEO of Gryff, it's great to have you here.
 Thank you.
 Thank you.
 Well, straight ahead.
 In videos absence from China,
 reportedly set to provide a big boom
 for one homegrown chip player.
 And as we head to break,
 let's get a check on Roblox shares
 because those are dropping to say the least
 down about 23% right now, huge move for that stuff.
 The online gaming platform,
 slashing its guidance for the full year bookings
 with second quarter bookings guidance
 set to come in below estimates.
 They're blaming some of the changes they've made to users.
 But Reddit surging this morning
 after a double digit growth in ad sales,
 social media companies, revenue forecast,
 also topping estimates.
 And you can see those shares are spiking
 up 15 and a half percent right now.
 Morning call, we'll be right back.
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 Okay.
 Biggest takeaway, what are you watching from Berkshire this weekend, especially since
 they have so many different pieces to the investment puzzle?
 Well, we're just impressed that the succession strategy is moving forward.
 Warren Buffett taught the world how to invest and now he's going to teach the world how
 to transition.
 So one of those steps happens to be that Greg Able is putting all of his salary into buying
 Berkshire Hathaway.
 That's a huge commitment.
 So we're very impressed with Berkshire Hathaway and we're very impressed with Greg Able and
 we're very excited to see what he does next.
 Yeah.
 And of course Buffett is still there in the chairman role and has a certain amount
 of decision making throughout this transition as well.
 Well, he's still in the building.
 Talk about how hard is it to transition when you've got the leader that's still in the
 building down the hall and this is why we spend a lot of time with our members talking
 about transition.
 We have a rising leaders program where we teach members how to transition their businesses
 and then we teach the next generation what to do when they inherit it.
 Greg Able is getting a very challenging reaction from Wall Street and it's probably unfair.
 He's doing everything right, he's continuing the Buffett legacy, he's buying back stock which
 is an enormous commitment on his end and he's putting his own personal salary behind
 it.
 Yeah.
 And of course, we know that Berkshire is sitting on just a massive stockpile as well.
 How important is it going to be to potentially see some sort of acquisition or deal struck under
 Able, I guess, to your point to establish that street credibility?
 So I don't know that he has to do anything in the short term because patience is also
 a strategy and this is another thing that our members are very consistent about.
 He can sit on that pile of cash for a very long time.
 It's not that it's not earning any income.
 He's earning 4.5% in treasury bills.
 So he can just continue sitting on that making his $13 billion annually from it until he
 finds the right thing.
 So patience is a virtue in this case.
 We're very impressed with every step that he's taken.
 And as I said, it's hard to have the person who built the company sitting down the hall
 and still continue doing all the smart moves that he's doing.
 Yeah.
 Of course, Berkshire is also invested in a number of names and a number of stocks that
 we talk about including ones this morning but we haven't talked about yet and I'm curious
 to get your thoughts on how meaningful this will be.
 Within earnings and within the portfolio is the energy piece of this.
 As we do await some of the big energy or the big oil, I should say, a company is reporting
 results later this morning.
 Well, the good news is Warren Buffett somehow miraculously again anticipated what was coming
 and he increased his holdings in Chevron right before the Iran War started.
 So every step of the way, you see this incredibly disciplined thinking at this company,
 which is why our members are so bullish on Berkshire halfway.
 And we don't think that the succession anxiety is realistic.
 This is more about people getting used to the next leader.
 This is exactly what happened to Tim Cook at Apple.
 So we don't think that there's anything to worry about here.
 Yeah.
 Sounds like if I'm reading the tea leaves correctly, sounds like you say this is a buying opportunity.
 Exactly.
 All right.
 Barbara Goodstein, it's great to have you on set.
 Thanks for joining me.
 Thank you.
 Of course, you have quite a few members that are going to be at the shareholder meeting in
 Omaha this weekend as well.
 Yes, we do.
 We'll be watching.
 Well, CNBC will have complete coverage of Berkshire halfway's annual shareholder meeting.
 That's tomorrow starting at 9.15 a.m. Eastern.
 And you can catch that only on CNBC.com.
 Well, still on deck right now.
 Open AI is a CFO on the defense.
 Elon Musk getting grilled on the stand.
 Your headlines are coming up next.
 And as you go to a break, let's get a check on Intel shares that make our coming off.
 It's best monthly performance.
 And it's 55 years traded on the NASDAQ.
 You can see we're under a bit of pressure this morning, down about 2% pre-market.
 But keep in mind, more than doubling in the month of April.
 The stock is continuing to test fresh records after those blowout earnings last week.
 Morning, Paul.
 Continue next.
 I'm Morgan Brennan.
 Welcome back to morning call.
 Let's start with a check on U.S. stock futures with the S&P and NASDAQ kicking off the
 new trading month at New Highs.
 You can see it's a mixed picture on your screen right now with both the Dow and the S&P
 poised to open higher than NASDAQ poised to be under a bit of pressure at the opening
 bell this morning.
 As of right now, both of those indexes, though, the S&P and the NASDAQ seeing their strongest
 monthly performances since 2020 in the month of April, let's turn now to the treasury
 market.
 We've seen some pretty interesting activity this week in bonds, but you can see right
 now a little bit quieter, mixed picture here across the curve.
 You got the U.S. ten year treasury yielding 4.388% right now.
 And a similar situation in energy, in the sense that energy prices are higher, but certainly
 off of where we traded at the highs earlier this week, which brings us to two big oil
 companies that are reporting before the bell this morning, Exxon Mobile and Chevron,
 which shares of both of those ahead of those results.
 You could see Exxon's up about three quarters of 1%, and Chevron is up about 1%, pretty
 market.
 We're also watching, and those will be key, by the way, because it's going to be some
 of the biggest insights we've gotten so far since this war in Iran started from major
 oil companies, global oil companies.
 There's also a number of stocks moving on the back of earnings.
 Let's talk about Sandisk, Western Digital, Reddit, Roku, Chlorox.
 You can see big moves on the screen right there.
 And Sandisk and Western Digital both posting below out quarters, but after the big run-ups
 we've seen in those stocks, you can see under pressure this morning, Reddit up 16% after
 better than expected results as well.
 And if we get a check on some of the morning's latest headlines, Apple Share is jumping
 on the back of better than expected Q2 results, also offering a revenue forecast for the
 current quarter that was above analyst estimates, the company seeing strength across its
 product lines with the exception of the iPhone with sales just misting estimates.
 You could see shares of Apple are up about 3% right now.
 President Trump officially signing a bill to fund most of the Department of Homeland
 Security.
 That ends the partial government shutdown that began in February.
 The House approving that bill yesterday after the White House warns that emergency funding
 for DHS would expire as soon as today.
 OpenAI's CFO, apparently pushing back on worries, about her company missing internal
 targets, Sarah Fryer saying OpenAI is meeting objectives and sees quote a vertical wall of
 demand for its products, according to Bloomberg, that's citing a new interview.
 Fryer apparently also acknowledging that the company has ambitious internal goals
 that can be different than the ones it shares publicly.
 Well if we stick with OpenAI, the trial between that company and Elon Musk is set to resume Monday
 after some tense cross examination on Musk's final day of testimony yesterday, Musk being
 girls on how much he knew about OpenAI's plans to convert to a for-profit company claiming
 he doesn't know everything the company has done.
 OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman is expected to take the stand on Monday.
 And the financial times reporting that Huawei expects revenue from its AI chips to jump
 by at least 60% this year from 2025.
 The FT says that demand is being boosted by Chinese companies seeking homegrown alternatives
 to US offerings, including Nvidia, given Beijing's ongoing regulations around US chips and
 the US's as well.
 Well to the energy complex, data out this week showing the US is now a net exporter
 of crude on a weekly basis for the first time since World War II.
 The country shipping a record 6.4 million barrels per day to refiners in Europe and Asia,
 scrambling for supply because of those disruptions from the war in Iran and what it's done
 to the Strait of Hormuz.
 It's not just oil, exports of US LNG are sitting in your record highs, which shipments to
 Asia up about 30% versus this time of year ago, that's according to Kepler.
 And this as US producers continue to try to build out infrastructure to meet that global
 demand.
 Well joining me now is Toby Rice, president and CEO of EQT.
 This is the largest natural gas producers here in the US and therefore in the world in
 Toby, it's great to have you back on the show and that's exactly where I want to start
 with you.
 How this conflict is reshaping the demand picture globally for some of these commodities
 like natural gas?
 Morgan, good morning.
 This conflict is really highlighting one of the strengths of America which is our energy
 independence, specifically focusing on natural gas.
 It is America's superpower while international prices have been up, we've successfully insulated
 Americans from higher natural gas prices.
 Natural gas prices around the world have gone up 50%.
 They're actually down in the United States.
 And so what this we think this translates to in the longer term is a rush towards more
 US LNG and we think this is going to be an incredibly part of the energy dominance campaign
 that's happening in America domestically.
 What energy dominance means is that we're going to continue to preserve America's energy
 advantage.
 This is going to continue to pay the lowest natural gas prices in the world.
 This is going to be a tremendous advantage when it comes to manufacturing big things,
 whether it's intelligence, steel, cement, plastic, fertilizers.
 It means that energy dominance means we're going to win the AI race in the West.
 It means we're going to provide energy security to our allies.
 It means we're going to have the opportunity to replace the petro dictators that have weaponized
 energy whether that's what Russia has done in Europe or what we're seeing in Iran today
 where petro dictators have translated their oil and energy sales into bombs, tyranny,
 and terror.
 That influence needs to be replaced with American influence.
 And overall, I think the bigger picture here on energy dominance means we need to dominate
 energy poverty, which is struggling, which billions around the world are currently struggling
 with.
 Yeah, and certainly something you're focused on as well with your energy core that you've
 stood up here in recent months with a number of partners.
 Energy dominance has been a big theme this week.
 I think about the XM bank conference, I was there earlier this week.
 I know you were there on stage yesterday as well.
 How does that play out for EQT in terms of bolstering that dominance, especially when you
 think about something like infrastructure, which I know you're focused on, and which has
 been a choke point for the American natural gas story.
 We think the XM bank is going to play an incredibly important role in bringing energy dominance
 to the world stage.
 The XM bank is really there to strengthen U.S. markets by facilitating exports and imports.
 It would be strengthening supply chains.
 They're doing some really innovative solutions, like project vault, and under the leadership
 of John, Chairman John, we had a great conversation yesterday at the XM conference, super amount
 of engagement, record attendance, and we were really grateful to have the opportunity
 to share the stage with Senator Dave McCormick from Pennsylvania, and we were able to
 talk about one of the great solutions that we have here in this country, unleashing U.S.
 energy to bring peace and prosperity, security to Americans, and security to our allies.
 It's a really great opportunity in the infrastructure that it's going to take to make that happen, banks
 like XM are going to play a key role in making sure that this infrastructure gets built
 and we clear the pathways for a more prosperous future.
 How long is it going to take to see some of this infrastructure get built?
 I know that's a really big, broad, based question.
 A lot of this is tied to location and local regulation as well.
 But when I see big tech reporting capital expenditures that are now poised to top a trillion dollars
 in 2027 amid this AI infrastructure build out, it is a key question.
 Time seems to be of the essence.
 That is the question.
 It's not, it's not can we do it.
 It's how fast we have the natural gas resources to be able to power this.
 We've seen the demand for natural gas.
 The questions of what's going to power this AI revolution are behind us.
 It's going to be natural gas.
 We see the supply chains for the turbines are maxed out.
 We see that spilling over into alternative technologies like fuel cells and reciprocating
 engines.
 Natural gas is going to be there.
 The infrastructure to get that natural gas to where it needs to go is going to be the
 biggest question.
 I think Senator Dave McCormick made a really fascinating point yesterday.
 It takes us longer to build pipelines in this country that it took for us to win World
 War II.
 Fortunately, everybody is aware of this issue.
 The fact that Americans energy bills are up over 40 percent.
 This is happening before Iran.
 This is happening before data centers have hit.
 Americans are asking questions of why their bills are up.
 Their demanding answers and the reason is very simple.
 We need to get back to building infrastructure in this country.
 Perm reform needs to be the top focus for our legislators here in DC.
 We think it's going to be a solution that is going to lift all industries.
 I get us back to building in this country because we are on the precipice of one of the
 biggest buildouts of energy infrastructure in the history of mankind and the prize could
 never be greater, winning this AI race and also bringing energy dominance to the world
 stage.
 It's going to bring a tremendous amount of opportunities to Americans.
 Okay.
 Before I let you go, Toby, I want to ask what is maybe a very basic question, but the fact
 that Nat Gas here in the U.S. is actually down, despite the fact that we are exporting
 record or close to record levels of LNG to other parts of the world right now.
 And we are talking about this AI infrastructure buildout.
 Why?
 Why is Nat Gas lower right now?
 How does it perhaps counter the narrative that we've heard for a long time that if you
 export more prices are going to go higher?
 Yeah.
 First, let's just address the whole export narrative that exports is going to increase
 prices domestically.
 That narrative, that concern, it's a valid concern, but we're seeing that narrative be smashed
 right now.
 We've never exported more natural gas than we are right now, and prices are still low.
 What does that tell you?
 That speaks to the superpower that natural gas is for America.
 It is the most affordable, most reliable, and we have a ton of it here.
 And our goal is to take these great resources that we have and share these with the world.
 It's incredibly important while the world is seeing the conflict in Iran, it's certainly
 showcasing the power of American energy.
 It's also showcasing the weakness of the energy security of our allies.
 That does not mean that we're stronger when our allies are weaker, we are weaker.
 We need stronger partners to make a stronger America.
 And that's why we want to share these resources with the world because billions, not only
 are our allies struggling billions around the world are living in poverty, and we believe
 that there's a lot of problems in this world.
 But we believe that getting people access to energy is going to solve one of the biggest
 issues the world is struggling with, which is poverty.
 That's why we started energy core.
 And our vision is to make the world prosperous by getting them access to energy.
 And what we know is that getting people access to energy is going to increase wealth.
 The more energy we put in this world, the better it's going to be.
 And energy core is going to help us achieve that vision.
 And it's going to be a vehicle to bring energy projects to the people around the world
 that most need it.
 Okay.
 Toby Rice, the EQT core.
 Great to have you on.
 Thank you.
 Thanks a lot.
 We got a market flash for you.
 Shares of Viva systems.
 Those are up strongly this morning after being added to the S&P 500.
 The Life Sciences Software Company will join the index before the bell next Thursday.
 It's going to replace Cotera Energy.
 You can see Shares are about 11% right now.
 A lot more to come here on morning call.
 As always, we got a red hot prediction market, finding themselves left out in the cold
 for one of Sporting's biggest betting events.
 Contessa Brewer is going to break it all down.
 And what's the Kentucky Derby?
 That's what we're talking about without some spirits.
 Let's get a check on Shares of Spiritmakers.
 After President Trump announced, he will lift tariffs on Scotch Whiskey from the UK.
 The President making that move as a gesture to King Charles during his royal state visit
 that just wrapped up.
 And you can see some of those names under a bit of pressure this morning, nonetheless,
 morning call.
 We'll be back after this.
 Welcome back the biggest horse race in the country and the biggest sports betting event
 of the weekend.
 Did you know that?
 The Kentucky Derby takes place tomorrow.
 But if you're looking to make a bet on Calche Polymarket or other prediction sites, well,
 you can't.
 Contessa Brewer is here to explain why.
 Hi, Contessa.
 Oh, yeah.
 So, Morgan, it might seem odd given the vast number of options available on every other
 sport.
 There are no Kentucky Derby event contracts.
 In fact, horse racing as a category doesn't even exist.
 And that's because horse racing is kind of its own little fiefdom.
 It enjoyed special legal status, even when the Supreme Court decision that allowed states
 to legalize sports betting by federal law happened.
 Any platform that wants to offer wagers on horses has to get explicit permission from
 the host race track, the horseman's group that's made up of owners and trainers, and
 the state racing commission where the race is held.
 That's by federal law.
 The CEO of Churchill Downs told me predictions getting those permissions, well, that's unlikely.
 You need to actually go to us, those who own the racetracks to cut a deal.
 And from our perspective, that's not something we're interested in doing, prediction markets
 are not something that would be good for horse racing or the economic paradigm under which
 our industry works, which involves funding purses for the winners of the horse race.
 And here's the thing, states also insist that operators need explicit permission, A.K.A.
 gaming license to offer sports wagers, and prediction platforms argue, no, they don't
 need permission because it's not sports gambling, but investing, trading, hedging, whatever
 you want to call it.
 And that is regulated by the commodity futures trading commission.
 The CFTC is now suing some states for trying to enforce their state laws.
 And Tucky legislation right now would explicitly ban horse racing licensees from offering predictions.
 That would have a major impact on Fandall, for instance, which has a fairly large racing
 business.
 I asked the CFTC, I asked Polly Market, I asked Kalshi Fandall draft kings to talk to me
 about shunning, horse racing, and event contracts, and nobody wanted to go on the record
 about it.
 But I will tell you, they say the enthusiasm over sportsbook gambling is very high.
 Cesar says that the amount wagered is outpacing expectations at this point.
 Yeah, that was super interesting.
 I had no idea that there was such a fight, so I'm going to come to playing the ponies,
 if you will.
 I want to shift gears with you, Contessa here, and I want to get your thoughts on what
 we saw with US senators banning themselves, or moving with a rule to ban themselves unanimously.
 I might add, for a prediction market's trading, what has gone into this and not just senators,
 but their staff as well, that what they're saying is you cannot go in and make a bet on
 prediction markets, because there are issues that come up before the Senate, that the staff
 knows, or the Senator knows, that might provide the opportunity for insider trading.
 As we know with the capture of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, or the actions that have happened
 in Iran, right now there's a US military service member who has been charged with using
 information that he got confidential, classified information, and using it to bet and make a lot
 of money on the Iran action, and he's been arrested for that.
 So what they're saying is, let's remove that danger and just not have any dealing with it.
 There's a similar legislation pending in the House right now, but I think this issue
 of insider trading, not only with prediction markets, but across the board, is going to be
 a big deal and has something that even companies are going to start having to take very seriously.
 Interesting.
 We'll see how all that progresses.
 I guess government officials are going to have to stick to their stocks and other investments
 that they are still seem to be able to make.
 Contessa Brewer, thank you, appreciate it.
 Straight ahead.
 The morning call crew, team up the trading day and what the earnings season says about
 the exploding AI buildouts, stay with us.
 It's time for your call sheet where we look at the topics driving the trading day ahead.
 The crew members today, Ryan Dietrich, Chief Market Strategist at the Carson Group, and
 now, and I haven't gotten to say congratulations for this, coming part of the family, CMBC
 contributor, Steve Saznek, Chief Strategist and Interactive Brokers and Daniel Newman, CEO
 of the future.
 I'm great to have you all here.
 Lots to get to.
 Let's see how much we can cover.
 Let's start with the big rally for April, Ryan.
 You called it.
 You also talked about before we got to April, the banana peel sell-off, but now that we're
 here, selling may go away.
 Not yet, Morgan, thanks for having me back and I hope you've recovered from all the
 jet lag from flying all over the place, but welcome back.
 Think about it, yes, selling may go away.
 We're going to hear a lot about it.
 The war six months are right now coming up.
 Nine to the last ten years though, these were six months for hire, but let's take a look
 at April.
 Just for a second quickly here.
 Second best April ever for the S&P 500, at least come back to 1950.
 Out of the best ten April's ever, the next month is May.
 May's been higher, nine out of those ten times with some really strong returns and the rest
 of the year was up like 12% on average more than double the at any time returns.
 Morgan, bottom line, this is stillable market, lots of positively into that.
 I don't think you should sell a man go away this year.
 Okay.
 Steve, want to get your thoughts on this market, too?
 We just had the best month for the S&P in the Nasek, which are both sitting at record
 highs now since 2020.
 And yet, oil is about 50% higher than when we started this war in Iran and yields are
 higher as well.
 Well, Morgan, first of all, good morning.
 This shows you the market's ability to just put aside things that are relatively inconvenient
 to it.
 One of my mantras all along is equity markets are terrible at pricing and geopolitics.
 And to a certain extent, what we saw this month is it's actually better in some ways to
 just pretend they're not there.
 I mean, if I had told you at the end of February that we would have oil $40 a barrel higher,
 that we would have 10-year yields 40 basis points higher, and we would, by the way, take
 away pretty much any chance of rate cuts for the rest of the year.
 Did you tell me we'd be zooming higher this way?
 Of course not.
 So, it's about other factors.
 It's about momentum.
 It's about earnings enthusiasm.
 It's about basically a Russian to the tech stocks.
 I mean, were we, we had a 40% rally in Sox in April, were we that mispriced before?
 Are we that mispriced now?
 It's tough to say.
 But this is a momentum monster.
 And to a certain extent, it is about earnings, but yes, sure, we had, we were processing
 the, what I would call the four horsemen of the artificial intelligence trade.
 And three, you know, two were down.
 One was meh, and the other one was terrific.
 And yet that was, that was a backdrop for a monster rally.
 This is momentum writ large right now.
 We haven't had the catalysts to Ryan's point that often bring big bull markets, such as
 a change in positive change in monetary policy.
 But the, you know, markets will go up as long as people believe they're going to go up
 at as long as people put money in them.
 Yeah, momentum monster.
 I'm going to, I'm going to borrow that one.
 I mean, big rally, Dan, led by big tech, you are our tech guru on this panel, talk us
 through it.
 Yeah, I mean, I think it all started with the alphabet result, 63% growth.
 They have absolutely been terrific and they've really done it across all parts of the
 stack, right?
 Infrastructure, cloud, they have the advertising business.
 So they're making money, they're creating cash flow.
 They did have those big gains from the investments, but that's what Google Ventures do.
 They invest and they make very good choices, SpaceX andthropic.
 But the overall tech Koreans were very good.
 I know some of it sold and some people were worried about the free cash flow, but every
 one of these CEOs, Zach, Sundar, Andy, they all understand that they need to over invest
 here.
 Under investing is a, you know, it's an existential risk to their business.
 And so what we're seeing here is a build out the sustains.
 If you want to take some of the risk off the table and tech, invest in the picks and shovels,
 the companies that don't really have risk of putting services behind the AI that they're
 building.
 But if you look at these big cloud providers, all of them have the capacity, the ability
 and the understanding of what it's going to take.
 And Apple was a bit of a wildcard there, but Apple delivered, you know, as well.
 The China headwind, wasn't a headwind.
 The iPhone number was a tiny little miss.
 Their services numbers look great.
 My only concern there is Ternis is Ternis going to be innovative enough, disruptive enough.
 You've got companies like OpenAI and Qualcomm working to build the next device, the future.
 But I still think the iPhone is going to be the future for some time, and they have
 distribution and they haven't had to spend the catback.
 So I think we came out of this Ternis looking very good.
 Yeah.
 Ryan, I mean, we saw the semi-surge last month, and yet you see Western Digital and Sandisk
 under pressure this morning, perhaps not surprisingly.
 But the next thing on Ternis is going to be big oil.
 So how much are Exxon and Chevron and some of these other energy players going to matter
 to this market?
 Well, they're going to matter a lot.
 You know, you look at earnings estimates so far this year, Morgan, up 10% forward 12-month
 earnings.
 And where's most of that coming from?
 Tech, energy, and materials.
 You know, most other groups are kind of flat to down.
 So it's not like a broad-based earnings explosion so far this year.
 We know those groups are coming from, but listen, techs or earnings, energy is a small
 part of the S&P 500 still, but it's still going higher and these earnings are going to justify
 in our opinion.
 All right.
 We got like 40 seconds left.
 Let's see how quickly we can get through this.
 Steve, your thoughts?
 What you're watching this morning?
 Again, if does the moment to continue, first day of new month, you often just get a reflex
 of rally on it.
 And as we go forward, let's see if the momentum just persists in today.
 Yeah.
 Dan?
 I want to see if that Apple number holds up this morning.
 Big after market move, people seem to like it, and it's a sign that the tech rally can
 continue.
 All right.
 Look at that.
 Thank you to our morning call crew.
 I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, but of course, we've got a trading session to
 get through before we get there.
 In the meantime, it is a mixed picture of four futures this morning with the NASDAQ, a
 little bit lower right now, but the S&P and the Dow poised for gains.
 We'll watch how the day goes and the meantime's clock buck starts now.