Markets, oil and AI drive outlook as risks and momentum build 4/30/26

 Oil hitting award time. Hi, I'm Morgan Brennan, and this is your morning call.
 Good Thursday morning and final trading day of April. Let's get a check on U.S. stock futures
 on this final trading day of April with a Dow riding a five session losing streak and
 poised open lower again this morning. The S&P and Nasak both poised to open higher the
 for the month. The S&P and Nasak are on pace for the best gains since 20 to 20. The Nasak is
 up 14% this month and the S&P is up 9%. But today it's really all about oil and tech. Brent at
 its highest level since the Iran War began. It's actually at a four-year high after a
 broke above $120 a barrel last night. You could see right now Brent has come off those highs
 but still up about 2.5% this morning at just about $121 per barrel. And we've got earnings from
 four tech giants, Google and Amazon. Both of those are trading higher. Alpha bed is up about 6%
 right now pre-market. Microsoft and Meta though, those are lower. Meta is the big underperformance
 down 8% right now. We've got much more on all of that in just a moment. We're also watching yields
 coming off of the Fed yesterday and what is going to be another big day of economic data here in the
 US this morning. You could see after a lot of selling in the bond market yesterday, take it a little
 bit of a breather this morning with yields lower across the curve. If you take a look at the 10-year
 treasury yield, 4.41%. And for the two-year, which is the Fed-sensitive treasury, yielding 3.918%.
 Also, if I just get a check on, I believe this is the 30-year, 30-year is actually higher right now,
 but it is below 5%, which across above yesterday, first time we had seen that,
 yesterday in trading since last summer. On tap, initial jobless claims, first read, a first quarter
 GDP, consumer spending, personal income, PC prices, and Chicago PMI. But for this morning,
 it's all about investors caught in the tug of war between big tech and energy prices as Brent
 hits its highest since the breakout of the war in Iran multi-year highs. This, as Wall Street
 digest a flurry of big tech results. With even more to come after the close today, let's start with
 those soaring oil prices and new fears of mid-east escalation, or I'll say re-escalation,
 with our Dan Murphy and Abu Dhabi. Dan.
 Well, good morning, oil prices hitting the highest level since the war began today. Brent
 crew touching $125 a barrel in Asia trade, and some physical markets are seeing even higher premiums
 right now as well. Axios reports President Trump is said to be brief today by Centcom Commander
 Admiral Brad Cooper on a fresh menu of strike options on Iran. Axios said the last time Cooper
 briefed Trump was February 26. Just 48 hours later, the region was at war. Options on the table here
 reportedly include a short and powerful wave of strikes aimed at Iranian infrastructure to
 break the diplomatic stalemate and force Tehran's hand on nuclear concessions.
 Other options reportedly include a Hormuz offensive, including ground troops to reopen the
 waterway, and another is a special forces operation to secure Iran's nuclear dust as the president
 calls it, or highly enriched uranium. And adding to the oil premium, Axios also reporting today,
 Axios, I should say, also reporting today, the president has already rejected Iran's proposal to
 reopen the strait in exchange for deferring nuclear talks. And of course, interestingly as well
 Morgan, the view from Tehran hasn't changed either. Iran's parliamentary speaker dismissing US claims
 that their oil infrastructure is crumbling. He actually took to ex a couple of hours ago to deliver
 another blunt warning to the global markets here, saying next stop 140, which is the last line
 if that post on ex there, perhaps a signal that Iran may be willing to ride out an extended
 blockade, even as the president signals that all options remain on the table back over to you.
 Dan Murphy, thank you, and of course all of this, as the UAE is pulling out of OPEC and signaling,
 according to Wall Street Journal, a new Middle East order, something you and I have been talking
 about even just earlier this week. Also, we're going to be talking more about commodities with
 Dwight Anderson of Osprey Management. That's going to be a key conversation coming up in just a few
 moments you don't want to miss following on to this. In the meantime, we're tracking sharp market
 reaction in Europe as well of two key central bank decisions. Steve Sedgwick is standing by in London
 with more on a busy morning for Europe, Steve. Yeah, good morning, Morgan. I think you're
 absolutely right. It's the tech story versus energy, but I'm just going to make it a little bit more
 3D, perhaps, and just a nod to what we saw from the Fed last night and indeed the central banks that
 are meeting in Europe today, because if the cost of money is staying where it is or going up
 in all parts of the world, then that does change the forward-looking profitability of a lot of
 these companies, doesn't it? So what have we got in Europe today? The European Central Bank and
 Bank of England are both delivering rate decisions. Both kind of have to really stay on hold.
 Investors are going to be looking out for the language, any signals of further increases coming
 in months ahead as the war in the Middle East upends forecast for inflation and sparked more
 concerns about the second round effect. Quick look at the sectors, best performing sectors today.
 Big moves in basic resources as well as some utility stocks moving to the upside. Of course,
 the oil names, BP, Shell, Total, all moving to the upside as crude prices continue those gains
 at you and Dan were talking about following those reports about fresh military action against
 Iran. Autos, oh my goodness me, I'm having a really poor day today. Stellantis shares
 really aggressively lower as the maker of RAM and Chrysler and Jeep have really disappointing
 results out of Volkswagen and as I say, Stellantis, which missed on revenue, which has sent their shares
 lower in European trade. Back to you. Steve Sedgwick, you're the goat. Thank you.
 Now let's get to those tech earnings. Four of the biggest tech companies show sales are
 growing, thanks to their AI tools, but that's coming at a cost, just spending on data centers,
 chips and other infrastructure keeps climbing and the cost associated with them does as well.
 Microsoft's third quarter earnings and revenue beating forecast, although its intelligent cloud
 unit, which includes AI and Azure, missed. Keep in mind though, Azure specifically beat.
 Microsoft plans to increase catbacks to $190 billion this year, which 25 billion of that
 reflecting higher component prices. You can see those shares are down about one and a half percent
 pre-market. Metas first quarter results. Those blue pass estimates on big gains and ad revenue
 that chalks up to AI driven improvements and targeting and tracking, but shares are following,
 as Meta expects catbacks of between $125 and $145 billion this year. That's up from previous
 estimates due to higher prices, data center costs. Also, they saw the impact from war in the
 Middle East and elsewhere on user numbers in Q1 as well, so some noise there. We see those shares
 are down about eight and a half percent. Amazon also reporting profit from AWS that jumped 28%
 in the first quarter. That was better than expected. Shares are higher up about 2% right now.
 Even as Amazon says, it spent nearly $60 billion more on property and equipment, mostly for its AI
 investments. Its retail business did better than expected too. Alphabet's first quarter profit
 rising more than 80%. Its Google unit, Google Cloud unit, which rents out space for its in-house
 AI chips, reporting $20 billion in revenue, and the company's backlog grew fivefold on strong
 cloud sales. CEO Sundar Pachai saying AI is, quote, lighting up every part of the business. And
 it's lighting up the stock too, because that's up 6% right now. Let's talk more about all of this with
 Matt McLean, managing director of the Madron Adventure Group, which specializes in seed startup
 series A, early stage tech investments, their invested in firms, including Smartsheet,
 AppTO, Gradio, currently investors in OpenAI, Anthropic, and Snowflake. And Matt,
 it's great to have you on the show. I don't know if it's still yesterday for you or early morning
 for you, but appreciate having you here to break all of this down. And I think we do. We have
 to start with the AI spend and how it's playing out for these hyperscalers.
 Well, it's yet again another phenomenal quarter for all the big hyperscalers.
 You know, if you think here's a way to think about it, just those three Google, Microsoft,
 and Amazon that we were talking about, collectively on an annual basis, they're doing over 320
 billion of revenue in just their cloud businesses. Look at the growth rates that you're seeing there.
 And it really is important to look at the dollar growth rates where Amazon still is in the lead
 generating over 8 billion and year over year growth with Google close behind. It's a little hard
 to break out those Azure plus cloud numbers in Microsoft. My best guess is that's about 7 billion
 of growth. So in aggregate, you've got these three businesses that were not the original businesses
 of these companies have in every case been around for less than 20 years, massively accelerating growth
 and generating over 320 billion of collective revenue. It's just phenomenal.
 Yeah, I'm going to feel to your point, AWS growth 28% year over year. Microsoft Azure
 growth 40% year over year. Google cloud growth 63% year over year. This does not seem to be a zero
 sum game the way perhaps it was in the past. So how is AI triggering a new surge in demand for
 the products and the services that these companies have to offer? And perhaps just as importantly,
 what then does it mean for the software companies that are some of the biggest customers?
 Well, those are both great questions. I mean, first of all, as Jensen likes to say, there's kind of
 there's several of these compounding effects. Training of the models that are the AI models
 was a big user of compute. And as we're seeing one of the interesting things is quarters, we're seeing
 it's not just GPU compute. It's also CPU compute that this in fact can be good for Intel. You
 might recall that in Bidian Intel did a partnership a few quarters back and now we're beginning to
 understand why it's useful to pay attention to the moves that Jensen makes. The other thing though is
 that it's also a time where all of these businesses are moving more workloads over to the cloud.
 So if I'm an enterprise customer to get the most out of my data to get the most out of the models,
 not exclusively so, but primarily so, there's an actual mass of tailwind for the cloud because
 people are moving more workloads and use cases onto them, which is why you're seeing not just
 growth, but accelerating growth. I mean, the business of AWS is $150 billion business itself on an
 annualized basis and it's accelerated from like 14% to 28% in just the last three quarters.
 That's pretty phenomenal as well. Now you say, well, what's going to be the what's going to be the
 headwind? And one of the biggest headwinds, of course, is just the supply of all the components,
 whether that's the power and the shell itself or the chips, which really is the driving
 constraint. But a lot of the reasons you're seeing now, Amazon was I think a little out ahead of the
 game here, but those others increasing their cap X spend is because just the cost of the components,
 the cost of memory and the supply constraints of memory for building out those data centers is
 one of the constraints right now. I mean, to your point, Intel's up 114% this month. We've seen a
 record run for SEME this month. Second best performer in the NASDAQ 100 Sandisk, which reports after
 the bell two. Is the run and SEME is warranted then? I think the run in SEME is warranted because
 this is a rising tide for all of these major components, as well as then the cloud companies.
 And then you asked the question about the software businesses. This is where I think we could see
 some diverging interests. And let's put it into a few different buckets. I mean, first of all,
 each one of these cloud players, they get that they want to be able to play at the all the layers of
 the stack. So they themselves have, in the case of Google and Microsoft, well-established application
 businesses. And as you've seen, some of the other questions about Microsoft and these earnings,
 how many people are using an online with co-pilot. And that's going to be something to pay attention to.
 And then you also got Amazon, which just announced an expansion of some of their application
 businesses called Connect. And then of course, there's Google. The next group, though, is these
 SaaS businesses and the so-called SaaS apocalypse. I think here there's going to be some winners and
 there's going to be some losers. Now, I was skeptical a couple quarters back about Salesforce and
 that was probably a mistake. And I'm starting to see some pieces get put together because part of
 the magic of these AI systems, these reasoning machines is they take unstructured data. You train
 these models. You use even more of all that compute in inference. And then you take that unstructured
 data and combine it with structured data. Things like what Salesforce does with Salesforce, with their
 core CRM product. And I think it's this unstructured and structured where Salesforce has both Slack
 and CRM and another several set of components on the data side and the application side that sets
 them up. I think better than I was appreciating a couple of quarters ago. On the other hand, I'm more
 concerned with Adobe. I think that Adobe is a company that is a little bit lost right now and
 needs to find their way. And in fact, they can need to be careful that companies like a Gradio,
 like a high touch, like some of these, like an imperative. Like these next-generation players
 won't come in and take significant portions of their business. Okay. Matt McElwain.
 Marie, to have you on, appreciate it. Thanks for being with me.
 Thanks Morgan. Always a pleasure. We got a lot more to come here. I'm warning call. And I do
 mean a lot. We've got much more on this historic surge in oil prices. Why energy stocks are
 failing to ride that the rising tide? Plus, I speak with the CEO of Chipotle as his company hits
 what he calls an inflection point. And that stock is moving higher pre-market. It's up 2%. Later,
 the sense as the Fed at the Fed, as Jay Powell pledges to stay on as governor, even after his term
 as chairman ends in May. For some, we've seen that in 75 years. We're live in Washington with
 reaction and what's next for Kevin Wars. Very busy hours still ahead. Morning call. Be right back.
 You know, I'm literally staying because of the actions that have been taken. I had long planned
 to be retiring. And, you know, the things that have happened in really in the last three months of
 I think let me no choice but to stay until I see them through at least that long.
 Welcome back to morning call. We're getting a check on oil prices, which have come off the highs of
 the overnight session, but Brent is still trading around $121 per barrel right now. That's after
 tapping 126 highs levels since 2022 on a report by Axios that President Trump is set to get a
 briefing today on potential military options to try to reopen the straight of poor moose.
 It's worth noting the June Brent contract, which expires today. It's the more active July contract
 that's trading around $112 per barrel joining me now as Dwight Anderson founder of Osprey Management,
 which invests in commodities and derivatives and makes agriculture-focused investments through
 its venture arm as well. And it's new to the show. So welcome to you, Dwight. It's great to have
 you on a lot to get to here. But at the first, I think we do have to start with this move higher
 that we've seen in energy prices and your thoughts. This is sort of a price move that's
 inevitable if the straight stays closed and that, you know, OPEC productions run it down 9.14
 million barrels. And there's no way to replace that much volume. And, you know, the uncertainty
 here is how long it stays closed. But the certainty is the effects if it stays closed. And that's
 just going to be higher prices and all the knock-on effects that creates. Yeah, I've found myself
 having so many conversations with so many people across the world as in Singapore last week.
 And the messaging seems to be even if the straight were to reopen today that you're talking about
 potentially energy prices and other commodity prices that are going to be higher for longer. And
 part because maybe it drives different behavior by countries in terms of stockpiling and the like.
 Well, it's going to be higher for longer in terms of where they were. If, you know, when the state
 straight reopens, you know, within about three months, you know, crude prices will come off
 decently as long as there's no further destruction. So, you know, if you take a look at the forward
 prices, they've not moved up as much as the front. But, you know, the effective of that is going to be
 yellow, be stockpiling. And we won't go back to the $60, $65 price immediately. But, you know,
 what we do believe is if there's no further damage, you know, by next year you will be back down to
 those prices. It'll just be a stickier, slower fall. Yeah. How do you invest for this? Given the fact
 that it is so uncertain and macro and headlines that is driving so much of the action on a day-to-day
 basis? Well, some of these effects are already starting to occur to have a long data defect. And that,
 you know, the event occurred at a time was actually good for where fertilizer had been sent out to
 upcountry for the northern hemisphere planting. But you are now creating material shortages
 for the southern hemisphere. And so, you're sort of locking in forward food inflation going
 forward so that, you know, you have lower yield, the different plan of decisions, and even some crops
 not planted because it's not economic with diesel prices and fertilizer prices here. And so,
 come next winter, you have the aspect of that's when we have the higher food prices kicking in.
 So, that is, is each week that goes by, basically, we're raising our price for corn by about 1%
 because we're taking the yield down by a push-all. So, you know, that is, that's getting locked in
 each week this continues. Do you feel, do you think that's fully understood or realized in the
 market right now? What this is going to do to food inflation and food prices? You've had a bunch
 of, you know, some aspects where it's been priced in, that we're going to have a reopening
 reconciliation. And really, this week, you're seeing in the energy markets that go to realization,
 you know, that some of this damage in the cost has to actually be priced in today. And so,
 for some of the markets like corn, especially relatively to wheat because it's so fertilizer
 intensive, it's not. And then, in terms of meat prices, something like when you look at a hog
 or pork prices, those aren't even going to reflect that sort of forward supply demand and cost push.
 Yeah. And the weather piece of this, I think, is particularly key too. I know beef prices,
 for example, cattle prices here in the US have been getting some attention in recent days.
 You're down in Washington for the XM bank conference. I was there yesterday as well.
 I think one of my takeaways from the conference is the fact that, yes, we're seeing
 higher energy prices, commodity prices, push out here in the US. And even just this morning,
 we've got a new average gallon of gas for the state of California that's crossing $6 a gallon.
 So, certainly, consumers and businesses are seeing it and feeling it, but relative to the rest
 of the world, we're pretty insulated. I mean, record US energy exports as well. So, I just want to
 get your thoughts on how this stacks up the US versus the rest of the world when we do talk about
 all these different commodities. So, you're right, Morgan. As a country, we're blessed. And also,
 if you think about us as a continent, we're much more integrated in terms of the refined product
 production that you have here. So, the absolute shortages that you might actually risk in
 country sick, Australia, New Zealand, or certain emerging markets, we're not going to face. But,
 I mean, the effect is real, and especially on the bottom two quintiles of the American consumer.
 So, the overall economy in terms of GDP will benefit from the fact that we're in net
 calorie exporter. But, you know, every dollar in a higher-end gasoline affects the average two
 driver household income by about $70 a month, or over $850 in a year. And so, for the bottom 40 percent,
 that's a really material hit to income, and you're already going to start to see the effects
 of them cutting back discretionary income. And so, while the US is in a much better shape
 than most other areas of the world, there is a real segment of our population that's
 taking a real hit to their income right now. Dwight Anderson, it's great to have you on.
 Please come back soon. We'll straight ahead. An automotive triple threat has red arrows across
 the board for some of the biggest names in the business. But first, we're watching stocks over
 in Asia and South Korea's cost be specifically, closing out its best month since January of 1998.
 It's got nearly 31 percent gain over the past 30 days, actually also, in terms of market cap,
 overtaking the stock market of the UK as well, in size. Outsized gains led by tech heavyweights
 SK high-nix and Samsung, up 60 and 35 percent this month respectively. But for the year, up 624 percent,
 297 percent. We talk about mega-cap tech driving the gains in the US. It's happening in other parts of
 the world, too. Morning call, you're right back.
 Welcome back to Morning Call. We're watching Shares of Chipotle. Those are popping this morning
 up about 2 percent pre-market. Fast-casual restaurant meeting earnings expectations,
 posting a surprise gain in same store sales growth of half a percent last quarter,
 and also expecting a decline at after several quarters of slumping sales. Flat-full,
 your sales guidance reiterated, but I did speak with CEO Scott Boatwright before the earnings
 call. And he said, despite that conservative guidance that's tied to a macro-driven consumer,
 he sees Chipotle at an inflection point. I asked if consumers are ordering differently.
 On balance, you know, the pickup has been really broad-based across all income cohorts,
 as well as age cohorts, which is giving us positive signs that the recipe for growth strategies
 really working. You know, the high-protein launch and delivering an approachable price point
 for every consumer around $3.50 had a meaningful impact on the lower income consumer.
 We're seeing a pickup of about 34 percent increase year-over-year in protein usage,
 which is encouraging, because people know, regardless of your diet or lifestyle, if you want
 high-quality, great protein, that is clean and good for you to Chipotle's your go-to place.
 So, protein packing, a punch that's been a big bet by Chipotle with its menu. Still, the
 company is navigating headwinds, higher food costs, war in the Middle East, which has been a big
 part regionally of the Chipotle international expansion strategy.
 We're supporting our partner in the most meaningful way. We have 14 or 15 restaurants.
 I think we just opened Abu Dhabi just yesterday, so we're making great progress in the region still
 yet. We really don't have an insight into how it'll affect development for the year.
 We expect a modest slowdown, but that's not fundamentally driven. It's because of what's going
 on in the market as it relates to supply chain disruptions and or tourism that has been
 negatively impacted for the region as well. But we still see the market as being hundreds of
 restaurants for us in the future. We see some inflationary pressures around dairy
 stake as well as avocados at present. I think we stayed in our last earnings call. We're going to
 see somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 to 5 percent cost of goods inflation throughout the year.
 Of course, we are underpriced that inflation, which is causing a little margin
 dislocation for our year, but it's our way to invest in what we believe is the right thing to do
 for the consumer in this environment. Commentary, they're on pricing and the fact that they're not
 taking pricing at this point in time, any longer than what that's doing to margins as well.
 You can see shares are just totally up pre-market. We'll continue to keep an eye on that.
 You can watch the full interview, which Chipotle CEO has got bootright on cmbc.com.
 We'll still on deck. An uncertain path ahead for the Fed after Jay Powell's decision to stay put.
 And I don't just mean with rates. Would you need more assurance from the Justice Department before
 stepping down? Is that what you're waiting for or what else? I'm waiting for them for the investigation
 to be well and truly over with finality and transparency. And I'm waiting for that. And I will leave
 when I think it's appropriate to do so. As America celebrates its 250th anniversary,
 cmbc spotlights the leaders driving business and the nation forward.
 I think what powered America's success for the last 250 years and the combination of
 the idea of democracy, the ideas of freedom of religion combined with capitalism
 done the American way, and anybody can recognize an opportunity. And what that means is for centuries,
 literally people have come to this country no matter who they were and it could make their way.
 And that opportunity possibility is what makes America very different. And that will go on. I hope
 for the next 250 years and lead this future success. But that combination democracy and capitalism
 in the opportunity that creates really makes America special.
 I'm Morgan Brennan. Welcome back to morning call. Let's get a check on you with stock futures on this final
 trading day of April. The Dow riding a five session losing streak poised to continue as of right
 now here today with Dow futures under pressure. The S&P and Nasdaq are both poised for a higher open.
 Keep in mind, we're talking about the best gains for the S&P and the Nasdaq since 2020 monthly gains
 with the Nasdaq up 14% right now, the S&P up 9%. We're getting ready for two central bank decisions
 this morning as well. Bank of England, that's in less than two hours and the ECB is right after at 8am
 Eastern. Both expected to keep rates on hold. It will be the forward guidance that investors will
 be focused on and whether we could see rate hikes in the coming month. Checking the action in Europe
 ahead of those rate decisions, though you could see it's a mixed picture. Futsi is up right now,
 German Dax up fractionally, but the CAC is down about a tenths of 1%. Energy also in focus is oil hits
 its highest level since the war in Iran began. You could see right now it's a mixed picture here
 in the last call at 10 minutes or so. WTI crude is basically flat, but just under $107 per barrel.
 Ice Brent is down about 1% right now, about $117 per barrel. That's after we traded to 2022 highs
 overnight. Energy may be an overhang, but big tech certainly set to drive the trading day ahead,
 even before Apple reports after the close today. First up, let's take a look at meta-platforms,
 those shares are down about 8.5% right now. After missing on user growth and disappointing
 capex numbers, revenue did jump 33% on the year, fastest pace since 2021. We're also watching
 shares of Alphabet after its first earnings miss since February 2023. It's now having 12 street
 quarters of EPS beats, company boosting its full year capex plans to as much as $190 billion
 with a quote significantly increased expected next year over this year's upwardly revised numbers.
 Revenue at Alphabet grew 20% year on year. It's the fastest since 2022. Those shares are up
 6%. Cloud did well too. Microsoft's similar story with Azure beating expectations reporting
 in earnings and sales beat for its fiscal third quarter to revenue from Azure and cloud services
 division popping 40%. Company also raising its full year capex outlook, even so shares are
 down about 1.5% and finally Amazon. First quarter, top and bottom line beat as cloud computing
 revenue stored nearly 30% on the year. That was well ahead of street estimates and those shares
 are up 2.5%. And it may not be a Mag 7 member, but we're also watching it anyway, shares of
 Qualcomm soaring, despite a disappointing third quarter outlook. Investors instead focusing on
 comments from CEO Cristiano Amon that it will begin shipping data center chips to quote a large
 hyper-scaler within the calendar year. Those shares are up 11% right now. CEO will be on
 money movers in a first on CNBC interview later this morning. Now let's turn to Washington.
 Big news out of Federal Reserve chairman Jay Powell's news conference yesterday, his final as chair.
 He said he will stay on as a Fed governor after his term as chairman ends on May 15th.
 At the same time Kevin Warshmooch closer to becoming the next Fed chair,
 but it's still going to take some time. Emily Wilkins joins us now from the capital with more
 on all of it. Emily. Good morning, Morgan. Well, yeah, look, U.S. Senators,
 they are planning to have Kevin Warsh in place as Fed chair by May 15th. Warsh's nomination,
 it was advanced by the Senate Banking Committee 1311 yesterday. First time a Fed chair nominee has
 gotten through on a party line vote not picking up any bipartisan support there. But then again,
 he doesn't need it. Well, you're going to see Senate Majority Leader John Thune. He's going to
 begin team up Warsh for a full vote in the Senate that's expected today. Although none of those
 actual votes are going to take place until the week of May 11th, that's because Senate was always
 scheduled to be out next week. They're taking that recess. But when the Senate comes back and they
 do vote, they're going to be doing a number of votes here. They'll need to vote on both Warsh
 joining the Fed as a member and then vote on his being Fed chair. Now, Warsh is, of course,
 expected to get that simple majority needed to become Fed chair. Although it's not clear,
 if any Democrats are going to vote for him, aside from Senator John Fetterman, now he's crossed
 the aisle to support several GOP nominees. And as reportedly said, he's going to vote for Warsh.
 Senator Elizabeth Warren said even though the investigation into Powell was dropped,
 her faith in the Fed's independence has been shaken by Trump's actions.
 Made clear that he doesn't care what term you have, what's been passed by Congress, what the law is.
 He is willing to go after people criminally, even when they're in office if they make decisions
 that he doesn't like. And that remains a threat to the Fed.
 I asked Warren as well as Senator John Kennedy if either of them had any sort of comment on Powell
 staying on. Both of them told me and granted this was ahead of his press or yesterday
 that it was up to Powell alone to make that choice. Morgan? All right. Emily Wilkins, thank you.
 We're going to continue to watch the tick-tock of all of that, especially since that nomination
 that was advanced yesterday was on a party line vote first time ever that we've seen that for a
 Fed chair. Joining me now in all of this Bob Diamond, so much more as well, founding partner
 CEO at Atlas Merchant Capital. He's also chairman of hyper-liquid strategies, chairman of the advisory
 committee of the US export import bank. Bob, lots to get to here. So great to see you and
 have you on the show. Welcome, welcome. Let's start with your reaction to what we did see from the Fed
 yesterday. I don't think we could have a more qualified candidate to be the successor to chairman
 Powell than Kevin Worsh. I think his history with the Fed. He's an expert in regulation. He's got
 tremendous deep successful experience in markets and in the private sector. I think this is going
 to be a very smooth transition. When you get away from all the noise that's going on politically,
 chairman Powell is staying for a period of handover. Kevin coming in, I think it's all positive.
 Yeah, I mean, to me what's interesting is the fact that, and he talked about this in his
 testimony last week, Kevin Worsh, he basically said there needs to be a bit of a shake up here in
 terms of how the Fed is approaching some of the economic data and just as importantly how it's
 communicating and signaling about it, which I think is particularly poignant when you realize
 that three regional Fed presidents yesterday broke publicly with Powell, not on the rate decision
 itself, but on the language explaining the decision as we do see energy prices and elevated inflation
 perhaps becoming more of a risk this year. Yeah, and I think Morgan, there's two issues there. One is,
 I think Kevin's going back to a period of Paul Volker in Greenspan when it was more about the actions
 than it was about signaling what actions are coming next. That's stylistic in my mind.
 I think in terms of what are the next steps, it's very, very hard to analytically think that there
 are rate cuts coming soon with the uncertainty around Iran and the straight with fears of higher
 inflation. And the thing that you and I have talked about over the years, the biggest worry
 in my mind are the debt levels and certainly the situation in Iran is increasing the outstanding
 U.S. debt. So I think that there's enough storms if you can say that or small storms around inflation,
 around U.S. debt levels around the weaker credit market. But I think it's going to be very, very
 hard to rationalize rate cuts going forward. And I think that's what you see in the dissension on the
 vote. Yeah, you just mentioned a weaker credit market. What is your take on the credit market right
 now? Especially as we did come into the year, at least in the U.S., with a relatively strong
 economy. But to your point, you have all of these different pieces that are coming together to
 create some uncertainty. Sure, but look, if we go back to 2008 in the great financial crisis,
 it's been a benign environment for credit. And some of the cyclical issues of a more benign
 environment for credit, long periods of zero interest rates, probably easier conditions for credit,
 it's not surprising that we're going to have some bumps in the road. And with more questions about
 are we getting rate cuts, or are they going to stay at the same level? So we're going to see some
 noise in the credit markets, but I don't think there's anything systemic. I did mention that
 you're the chairman of the advisory committee for the export import bank. They're holding their
 conference over these past two days. I was there yesterday as well. One of the topics that was
 coming up in conversation, both on stage and off, is this idea of supply chain resiliency.
 Given the geopolitical landscape, the geoeconomic landscape, and also some of the policy
 changes we've seen here in the US, how do you see that? Listen, I, you did a great job on your panel
 yesterday on just that issue, the supply chain, critical minerals. I think what the chairman,
 John Jovanovic has done with bringing in his team, focusing very much to get Congress,
 to get focused on reauthorization. I mean, we have some real challenges here. And John is
 bringing in a very, very strong team. He's got an ambitious plan. I'm working as chair of the
 advisory board with some great CEOs from minerals, from energy. You know, we have opportunities
 in continuing the US energy dominance. We have huge opportunities here in American jobs.
 I think we have huge opportunities here around critical minerals. So this is a very exciting time.
 I think it's been a just an incredible couple of days. I appreciate you being here. But
 the representatives of the treasury of commerce, it's real benefit. It's been a great show here in
 Washington in terms of the ambition, the energy of John and the new team at the XM bank.
 Bob, I got to ask you one more question before I let you go here, because you're also the chair
 of the hyper-liquid strategies. And I think this is particularly important for investors here.
 The impact of on-chain trading, 24-7 trading, that it's having on certain markets,
 because we've seen some interesting behaviors and things like gold this year as well that are
 not necessarily tied to fundamentals. Well, thank you for asking. And I think, you know, hyper-liquid
 is now trading oil. It's trading silver. It's trading S&P futures. It's trading Tesla. So
 people talk about the potential in the future of having real world assets, equities, commodities,
 trading on-chain, 24-7, instantaneous settlement, a fraction of the cost. And it's actually
 happening right now. And I think the conflict in Iran has raised the profile of these real
 world assets, particularly oil, and many of the minerals trading 24-7 in a very, very important
 time. It's been important for airlines to be able to manage their risk to energy prices. It's
 obviously been important for investors around the world. So we're very pleased in the native token
 hype. If you go back to the beginning of the year, hype has up, you know, about 50 percent while
 Bitcoin's down 50 percent. So even within the world of crypto, we're seeing a real decoupling
 with the opportunities that hyper-liquid is presenting. Yeah, so I think to continue to watch. Bob
 Diamond, great to have you on. Thanks for joining me. Thanks Morgan. Well, as we had to break,
 three chip stocks that should be on your radar this morning. Chip equipment maker KLA,
 sharply lowered, despite raising quarterly revenue guidance, shares down about 7 percent, shares
 have more than doubled over the past year, though. Samsung shares lower, despite a more than 750 percent
 increase in operating profit. Those things to high demand for its chips, shares are 300 percent
 over the past year. And finally, Intel, about to close out its best month ever. It's more than
 doubled in the month of April and up another 2 percent pre-market right now. Well, the president
 even posting to truth social to mark that occasion saying he is very proud of that company
 in that he is responsible for making the USA more than 30 billion dollars in the last 90 days.
 Remember, the US has a stake in Intel morning call. Be right back.
 Let's take a look at some earnings movers. More earnings movers this time in the auto sector.
 Volkswagen says tariffs are an intensifying competition for China. Wait on its results.
 Resulting in a 14 percent drop in first quarter profit. Ford raising its full
 of your guidance after beating first quarter earnings expectations by a lot.
 The results were helped by a $1.3 billion tariff refund benefit after the Supreme Court deemed
 some of President tariffs, Trump's, President Trump's tariffs illegal. The stock, though,
 turning lower pre-market. Stellantis also helped by a tariff refund, but we cash flow sending
 those shares sharply lower. A big jump in carbon, a mean time after 52 percent increase in revenue.
 And the company saying it remains on track to deliver quote significant growth this year in retail
 units sold and adjusted EBITDA. There's shares up 10 and a half percent straight ahead.
 Morning call crew team up the trading day. Lots to get to. One crew member sees a real risk
 in the AI build out. Stay tuned.
 It's time for your call sheet. We're going to look at topics driving the trading day ahead.
 This is going to be a lightning round crew members today. Sean Smith, Jay Woods and Jimmy Pethikoukis.
 And I do mean lightning round with a lot to get to. Jay, I'll kick this off with you.
 Oil prices, your thoughts. Oil prices higher for longer. That's going to have a drag.
 I think the Fed set it up perfectly with their statement that, you know, this is going to be
 concerned. And we have to watch what happens in the Middle East. This is not going to be a quick exit.
 And we're going to get that drop back anytime soon. It's going to infect the inflation numbers.
 Exxon Chevron earnings come out tomorrow. So it'll be interesting here what they say.
 Technically, you know me as a technician, they're holding levels where they came back in
 and retraced. I think they're poised to go higher over the next quarter.
 Okay. Speaking of the Fed, Sean, are your thoughts yesterday?
 And not too much. That was too surprising yesterday. I think one of my big takeaways was some
 of the descents that we saw, right? And ultimately, what that means going back to what Jay was just
 talking about when it comes to the inflation picture right now, higher energy prices.
 Obviously, introducing this variable that is uncertain right now for the markets.
 And I think it sets up or should be walking into a complicated situation just in terms of what
 exactly these next few months or several months could potentially look like.
 Yeah, Jimmy, complicated, super complicated, extraordinarily complicated.
 Yeah, listen, a washing smart guy is going to need to be a smart guy.
 We have a divided Fed. We have an inflation impulse which is getting worse.
 I'm really a stack, inflationary impulse. Oh, and by the way, we have AI which presents all kinds
 of interesting macroeconomic challenges. Big, big job. Yeah. Okay. Speaking of AI,
 mega-cap tech earnings. We got four yesterday. We got another one after the bell today with Apple.
 Jay, thoughts. Yeah, the big winners aren't even trading today. They didn't have their earnings.
 You see, it's Nvidia. It's Broadcom. They're going to continue to rally.
 And then you look at the memory chip makers. You saw Cgate technologies yesterday
 explode to the upside. I can't wait for Sandisk on Thursday, micron. The momentum continues
 to be there because of that capex spend. So the real winners, I still believe Google was the
 biggest of them all, but the real winners didn't report earnings that that capex spend will
 continue to see those other stocks grow. All right. To that point, Sandisk,
 disc after the bell as well, huge mover. Semi's in general just surge in April. Does it continue?
 They certainly have. And I think we will see what these numbers look like. I think the expectations
 are obviously higher, just given the bounce back that we have seen. But I think what we learned
 yesterday from the reports that we've seen so far, very much reinforces the fact that we're
 still in the early endings when it comes to this infrastructure trade, when it comes to the
 chip makers, when it comes to the data centers, we expect this, this, this trade at least to the
 upside to have legs. And I think yesterday the capex numbers reaffirming and even moving it to
 the upside with three of the names that are reported, very much reinforces that narrative.
 Yeah. So more earnings on tap today, economic data on tap today. And oh, by the way,
 two more central bank decisions, Jimmy with ECB and BOE, final thoughts, final words,
 things you're watching as we close out the hour.
 I'm just like everybody else. I'm watching tech. I'm watching quarterly earnings. It's not
 going to be any fun once these companies don't have to report on a quarterly basis. It seems to be
 coming down the bike. Really? We have to watch that too. All right. Well, you know what? That was
 lightning rounds. And now I'm going to get a check on US stock futures because those are mixed this
 morning as we finished the month of April. But keep in mind, we're on track for the best monthly
 gains for the SAP and the NASDAQ since 2020. Also keep an eye on treasuries with yields
 lower this morning. But energy prices also coming off the overnight highs. Squat box starts now.