Stocks Mixed Ahead Of Hormuz Deadline… And The Impact On Oil Prices 4/7/26

Why for the Nasdaq market site right here in the heart of New York City's Times Square? This is fast money. Here's what's on tab tonight, stocks clawing back some early losses. The S&B and Nasdaq finishing higher oil, taking a step lower as President Trump's self-imposed deadline for Iran looms large over investors like you in the markets. We'll get the latest on where things stand in the Middle East and how to protect against what is likely. A lot of volatility ahead, falling Apple. Shares of Apple dropping as much as 5% that on a report of delays bringing a foldable iPhone to the market and the one-time innovation leader find its footing again will discuss and debate. Plus, another black eye for the home-builder's group dropping on the heels of a Wall Street downgrade. How much more pain may be left for the group or are they a buy right now and right here. Hi everybody. I'm Brian Sullivan. I'm in from the list of leads tonight. Tomorrow and on Thursday. Come on. Yeah, it's it. Brother, how many live? I'm going to be in the studio B. The Nasdaq on your desk tonight. Tim Seymour, Karen Feynman, Dan Nathan and Guy Adamie. All right. Lots of do. But let's start with the macro markets. Okay. Kind of grasping for gains at the end of the session. And right now, folks, at 5.01 PM Eastern time, there is basically three hours left until President Trump's self-imposed deadline for Tehran to reopen the straight of Hormuz or else. Major averages, they had all been firmly down for most of the session. Small midcaps higher, big averages lower. But toward the end of the day, buyers came in, we got a bounce. That lifted the SMB and Nasdaq into the green. They ended slightly positive. One point. The Nasdaq had been down one and three quarters of a percent at its lows. That after Pakistan's Prime Minister requested a two week pause in escalating attacks. We don't know if that'll lead anywhere, but it was said at a high level. Wall Street so-called fear gauge though, the volatility index, the VIX, it remained elevated. Trading right around 26. Wall oil, WTI and Brent, each paired some recent gains after the settle, but still right around 100 bucks a barrel. So where do we stand exactly now at 501 Eastern Time? Let's find out and get to Megan Kassella, who is in Washington with more. Megan. Brian, chances of another extension in the President's deadline for Iran to make a deal appear to be rising at least somewhat after that proposal you mentioned from the Pakistani Prime Minister. So this proposal has three parties to it. President Trump would delay his deadline from 8 p.m. tonight for another two weeks. The Iranians then would reopen the straight-of-form moves for a corresponding two weeks, and there would be a ceasefire everywhere for two weeks. The White House has reacted to that proposal with White House Press Secretary Caroline Levy telling me in a statement, quote, "The President has been made aware of the proposal and a response will come." That comes after she told us earlier in the day that only the President knows where things stand and what he will do. Now, the Iranians also giving some reaction to the proposal, a senior Iranian official telling Reuters, "After it was released that Tehran was positively reviewing Pakistan's request for a two-week ceasefire." So nothing perfectly committled there, but a fairly significant change in tone after Iran's state-run press to be reported earlier this afternoon that Iran would firmly reject any proposal for temporary ceasefire, now appearing potentially to be warming to the idea. Brian. All right, Megan. Thank you very much. God, Dominic, we had a pretty muted market reaction. In that in three hours' time, President Trump, and I respectfully were quoting Iran, this is going to be, apparently, President Trump's decision what he does. The markets fairly calm. Why? Welcome, and welcome for the next ensuing few days to you. Obviously, why? Because I think the market has learned, I think it learned last April that the rhetoric is one thing, and if you try to get ahead of it, try to trade around it, you're going to be disappointed. And I think the way the market reacted in the aftermath of the back-off last April is what people are planning for now. They're like, I'm not going to make that same mistake twice. I'm not going to get short or under-invest in on the back of what could happen this evening or in the ensuing couple days. Problem, of course, is, despite the fact that oil came off today and you watch this very closely, still talking about crude oil north of 110, and you're still talking to Vick's year earlier point, around 26, which suggests about 1.7% intraday moves on any given day. So I think there's resilience in the stock market. I understand why. I think the equity--I think the--excuse me. The crude oil market is telling an entirely different story. Well, and I think there's also been a bounce at the stock market. I mean, we've now moved 5%. I mean, we're 5% off the lows. We've had this rally. And if you remember, this was a stock market. I'm not saying that if you remove oil and you remove all the ramifications of higher oil prices and the strain on infrastructure, which will lead to even higher oil prices, do markets go flying? Well, sort of, except for the fact that markets even going into the Iran War were sideways all the way back to October. So when you take 5% back, you're having trouble getting through the 200 day. No matter what we hear from a New York Fed today that tells you that there is inflation, we've heard it from every different economic report that we've had in terms of inflation expectations today. We're part of the story. I just think that the markets now are in a little bit more of a weight in sea mode. I--look, I hope we find peace. We all know that two weeks helps both sides a lot. I'm saying that both sides are very happy to do nothing tonight. And I think this is a case where markets are appropriately cautious. So I agree. I think the VIX at this level really doesn't show a nothing remotely close to panic, right? We've seen panic several times before and last five years. This is not even close. Liberation day was much closer. So I hope that we do see cooling off of rhetoric and action everywhere. But I'm neither ready to jump in and buy stuff. It hasn't gotten cheap enough. Last night we talked about if there were-- if peace broke out tomorrow, what would I buy? I would buy energy, which would be down a lot. And I think it would be interesting there. But this right here, I'm sort of just not selling, not buying. Well, it's funny. You know, the opposite is Mark, if you look at the spy, it's implying about a 2.25 percent move in either direction between now and Friday's close. And that's either going to be really cheap or it's going to be really expensive, right? And so when you think about the sort of implied daily moves that we get, generally, they're under 1 percent. Coming in the week, we had a 2.5 percent move. And we had some volatility, right? If you think about yesterday morning, you think about this morning. And we're closing pretty flat. And I think to everyone, you know, his point here, listen, no one really wants to-- like, the rhetoric is the rhetoric. And what he's trying to do is kind of draw things back a little bit. And then they've given a bit of an off ramp here with this kind of two-week sort of ceasefire. And so when you think about it, we've kind of accustomed to this. Definitely during the war. We're too accustomed. But that's my point. As I worry a little bit, we're too-- But when you have people-- But when you have people-- Thinking all the markets always going to bounce back, and it has, by the way. Yeah. It sure has. But what if it doesn't? What do our viewers and listeners do if the worst-case scenario transpiles? There is no worst-case scenario. I mean, when you have Tucker Carlson calling for the generals to actually disobey-- you know what I mean? Like, not listen. Not listen to what-- it's just not happening. It's just not. What would really be the worst-case scenario is the Iranians do something really stupid. If there's some-- you know, got to forbid some sort of tyros that tack or something like that. I mean, then we got a problem. But right now, in this scenario where we really are in the driver's seat for the most part, I mean, I don't think-- So you're so-- So-- Guy, uh, OK, let's go around the-- everybody made great points. So Guy, Dan, we'll all engage in this. Markets to your point, Tim, 5% off their lows. By the way, small and mid-caps stocks are actually higher this year. But we do have a Vixit 26. Vix is not at 46, but it's not at 16. Are you comfortable with the level of risk that the market appears to be pricing it? No. I think the market's to be pricing in more risk to Karen's point. I think it's 26 Vix and she says this all the time. Anywhere between 21 and 27, you're sort of in No Man's land. It's got to do one thing or another. I think the one thing it's going to do is going to find its way into the low to mid-30s at some point. And then maybe that's a crescendo. Warren Buffett was on with Becky a week or so ago. And in response to a question that we're sort of having now, I think his response was on paraphrase and you really haven't seen anything yet. If you think this little move we've seen to the downside is all that's in store. I mean, he clearly is preparing for something not that he's been doing this recently. This is over the last year. They have now $380 billion to cash on the balance sheet. I think on the back of concerns around valuations. This is obviously one more thing to be concerned about. But he's obviously playing the waiting game too. I don't think markets are a price for any kind of growth scare. I do think that the Vix is underrepresented at least here where we are. I think said that. What I'll say is there is value in the top five market cap companies in the world that are not named Tesla. And I just sing because I don't necessarily want to own Tesla here. But I think if you talk about the rest of the mega caps, where they are in a relative valuation to the S&P is frankly very interesting. And I think it's interesting on a longer-term basis. I'm not sure investors are investors are thinking, do I need to go buy the market today? I hope you don't think you do because you don't. And I think this is an opportunity for people to wait. What do we heard from every major, you know, whether it's the IEA, whether it's the IMF? These are institutions that have been around for a long time. We've never seen this before. We've never had this kind of an energy shock. Let's stay there because Karen, you said something fast. If energy stocks go down, you'd be a buyer here. Because I want to say something. Do you have any work on earnings and oil from first quarter of 2021 to first quarter 2022 when Russian invaded Ukraine? Earnings for Chevron, Conoco, and ExxonMobil went up over 200 percent year over year each. We had one month of higher prices, March of the first quarter. I don't think oil is going back to $65 a barrel anytime soon. I don't know. And like it or hate it, it's going to be a lot of extra free cash flow and I think a huge surge in EPS in the second quarter. A grier disagree. Totally agree. 100%. I think that I'm worried that if, you know, hopefully, peace breaks out, that oil won't come in enough that people will say, all right, there is a new much higher floor for oil than there was before to your point, Brian, and that, I mean, I still think, I still want to, I'm long the space. I have not sold any here. I'd like to add, but not at these price. Yeah, I look at the Nasdaq 100 because prior to this war, right, we saw the top 10 names really selling off pretty hard, right? For the most part, we're seeing them down 15 to 30 some percent. If you're looking at Microsoft on the downside from the highs. So if you think about all the heavy lifting that those stocks had done over the prior three years and now discounting, I mean, listen, if you think about heading into earnings season, what these companies are discounting, given the fact that they've already given cap backs guidance for the full year, that was back in late January, early February. I think that the other 90 or whatever you want to call them in the Nasdaq 100, I mean, I think that, you know, down 10 percent in that index, given what we've seen out of the, you know, top 10 or something like that, that looks like a sort of unusual value and the sort of thing in this environment, even if we were to have another like lower, that you probably want a dollar cost average. To me, that's the most interesting thing. I see what Karen's saying. I see what you're saying about the free cash flow. When you see a parabolic move like we've seen in a group that goes from 3 percent to 4 percent of the S&P 500, I think that can be a nice way to invest a small part of your portfolio, but I think of the Nasdaq 100. I mean, that is the market for all intensive purposes. And I think you're getting some unusual values in the mega capital. Because I know, and I'm a, quote, Tim Seymour to Tim Seymour, you said a couple months ago, why don't we even talk about small caps? I get it. But they're higher this year and I only bring that up because it's a very domestic index. So people suggest it's an economic sort of indicator and if you believe that, small caps are telling us that the market for now doesn't believe the American economy is going into recession. I think that's right. And again, with all due respect to the small capters out there. I hate them. I hate you people. No. No, not at all. My point was the significance of investing in small caps relative to the rest of your portfolio was something I've always been surprised at how much bandwidth they get. But I'm going to say, yeah, we're on the show every night and we don't have to say something new every night. So I'm therefore going to say something. I've said a lot of times in the last three weeks. We're not going back to 65 oil and 65 oil in hindsight looks really, really good for consumption in this country and Walmart, which I love. You can't tell me the people that shop at Walmart. I know we're all shopping at Walmart these days, but you can't tell me it was as good as it's going to get for a while in terms of the tailwinds in terms of actually, there really was inflation that was under control, especially we were starting to even see food inflation come down. I think that's the most important part of the market multiple and where we may be looking out two to three months. You don't have to go right there. It's not necessarily recession tomorrow. It's telling you that things were pretty good. It does matter. Why not? The average American uses 50 gallons of gasoline a month. The average car gets 25 miles per gallon. It's about an extra at a dollar above where it was a year ago. It's about 50 bucks extra a month. It's a lot for some families, but it's manageable for others. What about that Plymouth Valarie driving that? That's eight miles to the gallon. It's no Chevy Vega. All right, up next. Your guest says worst-case scenarios for the market still are not priced in. Huh? You know, as PNC Asset Management's chief investment strategist, young, thanks for coming on. So what is the, and I'm not trying to be dire up here, okay? But we're kind of trying to look at all the scenarios. What are the scenarios as you and your team see them? Thanks first. It's great to be here. But worst-case scenarios, as I was talked about relating to the VIX and even oil futures curves are not priced in here. There's some risk priced in for sure. But if there were energy infrastructure to be destroyed and taken off line for a year to, that would certainly cause a much, much greater disruption than we have currently. And that is currently being priced in our anticipated into the markets now. We don't expect that's going to happen. We do think that is more of a worst-case scenario right now. But the markets are not braced for that even if it's low probability at this point in time. And again, we're, we nobody, nobody is hoping for this. But I will add that President Trump this morning basically said they're going to end civilization or whatever, whatever the words were. We don't know what they mean, but it's not out of the question to believe they could mean to your point, the destruction of a lot of that infrastructure that you referenced. Are you surprised by a VIX at 26, not a 46, not even a 36, by a market that is flat to maybe higher over the last week? Well, I'm a little surprised. I think a little more risk should be priced in here, but I don't think dramatic more risk should be priced in here. I don't think we should see VIX at 40. I don't think we should see a extreme drawdown in the equity markets here. I would like to see a little bit more nervousness out there and people not jumping as quickly on the smallest tidbit of information to try to get long here. Like we saw that rally in the last 30 minutes of the day. But that said, I think the market is probably being rational here. There's some element of the wisdom of crowds that this probably isn't going to get to those more extreme scenarios. And the market is looking at some of the underlying pillars, some of the, some of the plays, there where there are value in the market right now and wanting to make sure they don't reduce their loans the way that they did in April of last year when there was that type of concern that turned out to be largely misplaced. How does China insert themselves into this conversation and potentially what does it mean for their markets? Well, China has leverage over Iran. Certainly, China has a strong vested interest in seeing stability in the Middle East. China has a lot of investments throughout the Middle East and Iran buys a tremendous amount of its infrastructure and goods and electronics from China. So, to the extent that Iran relies on China, China has some ability to influence those discussions and China is looking for peace in the region or at least stability in the region given the extent of its investments not just in Iran, but especially across the Middle East. So I think there are a lot of backdoor channels at work right now that are applying pressure in various directions, both in Iran and in the U.S. and that amount of pressure that's being applied right now probably leads to somewhat of a de-escalation in the coming days. But is China front foot or back foot? And I asked that going into Trump, Xi Sumit, and I asked that as a member of the global markets who wants to see a stronger Chinese economy, who, if anything, was starting to show a little bit of traction. So, China front foot or China back foot? Well, it kind of depends with the dynamics. There are a lot of geopolitics in play that China is being influenced by here as well that are also in flux. I would say that what is interesting about China right now is the extent of its innovation in technology and innovation in AI and that is not slowing down and that is going to remain kind of neck and neck with the U.S. in a leadership position globally. So I do think if we're looking past the current events, we're looking, you know, nine, twelve months out thinking about where China's growth is coming from, it really is going to come from the tech sector, from innovation, from AI as well. So yeah, I think their tech sector is probably pretty well positioned, but of course the geopolitical questions around China can cause a lot of volatility, especially in the short term. Yeah, but you know, you worry you look at South Korea, look at Taiwan, even China to a point they rely so heavily on energy imports from that region of the world, young you, you just wonder, will they have to stimulate or would that be the exact wrong move because you want to bring down your economy to mitigate the loss of energy? I just don't know why we're not talking more about negative impacts to markets globally even more so than our market here, which luckily or thankfully whatever word you want to use is relatively energy independent. Yeah, some of these countries such as Taiwan and especially China have reserves that they can use for a while, but if this lasts another couple of months, certainly a lot of those reserves are going to be drawn down, even countries that have more robust reserves. So you're getting to a crunch point very quickly in the global economy, which is why that pressure is building so much here. You know, I think right now the market is a little bit complacent. I was talking about this and how perhaps more risk to be priced in, a little bit too complacent that some of those pain points are well appreciated that could take place in the coming weeks. I think the administration understands that. I think a lot of world leaders understand that and a lot of global companies, but I think right now the market is hoping that that doesn't come to the fore right now. A lot of hope out there. We'll see what happens, Jung Yu Ma, PNCS, Imaginette, Young Yu, a real pleasure, Karen, you're take. So I agree with what he says that it's surprising that it's priced here, but I think history with Trump has shown us that this is the far, far, far more likely way to bet that it'll work out in the near term. All right. We've got a lot more fast money coming up and coming up. Apple, think it's worth staying about about a month. And something new with a foldable phone will give you the news, the trade and more coming up. Stick around. (upbeat music) All right, welcome back to Fast Money. Let's talk about Apple, because Apple stock fell as much as 5% today. It was a report from the Nika in Japan that production issues may cause a delay in the release of a foldable iPhone. Now, later on in the day, a Bloomberg story refuted those headlines, saying the device is still on track for a September launch. The stock came back, but only by about half. So it finished the day down, about 2%. Dan, you were talking about the big tech stocks earlier on in the show, a little headline battle with Apple. Does it matter? This does not matter. I mean, the fact that-- I didn't even know they were making one of these. You kidding me? And this one had 5% move? No, it was really odd, right? And just tells you maybe investors were looking for a reason to sell. If you think about it last year in 2025, there was like 1.2 billion cell phones that were sold globally. Apple has about 20% market share. Samsung has about 20% market share. Samsung owns, they own the photovolve market. It's like 2% of total. I mean, they are the only one shipping them. And I just don't think it moves the needle. It's a very premium niche, that sort of thing. But I think obviously the biggest expectation for Apple is what are they going to introduce in WWDC in early June? What is Apple Intelligent looks like? How are they integrating Google's Gemini? What is Siri going to be at the tip of the spear? And if they get that right, then it will be good for the hardware in the fall. It will not be an upgrade super cycle. But then we really start modeling in services as it relates to applications on top of AI. That's the story for Apple. A 253.50 per share is Apple a good buy? For what time frame? I mean, I don't own it. Tim's owned it. And that's worked well. I don't know. I've just sort of always found it to be expensive. I agreed something like this story doesn't matter at all. And I always think-- It did. It stopped to sell 5% for some reason. Yeah, just nervous holder type. Nervous market? Yeah, I think so. I don't think it'll long to means anything. Well, my earlier comments mean that Apple's probably less interesting than it was a couple months ago. If you look at the rest of tech that's come down in multiple, Apple's not cheap. But again, today's headline is an excuse to sell Apple. A foldable phone? Were we counting on that technology? I think people are excited about a foldable phone. Wow. It wasn't expected right away. But if you wanted one, you would wait no more. I've always wanted a foldable phone. I mean, I need a foldable phone really badly. Having said that, I spent a lot of time at least reading research and reading Apple research. I'm not an Apple analyst. But the fact is, this has not even made the radar screen for what people were talking about in terms of drivers for the stock. I mean, I'm really surprised this is a trigger for the stock. I think there's a big seller out there. I think there was a couple dynamics. And I would be buying weakness. If the world evaluation ever matters again to Karen's point and Tim's mid-single digit revenue growth, high single digit EPS growth, margins that have been flat lining ish. Obviously, they're install bases ridiculous. At 27 times next year's numbers, it's not cheap. And if people focus on valuation in this new market or new world, I think Apple is an expensive stock. Well, apparently they did for a couple of minutes. There's always a headline lived out there. All right, coming up, the next move in housing as one Wall Street analyst turns more bearish on the builders seeing bigger drops ahead. Plus, President Trump's deadline for an Iran deal is approaching fast about 2 and 1/2 hours from now. What will it mean? Oil, energy, and the markets. We're going to talk about all of it coming up. You're watching Fast Money Live for the NASDAQ Market Sight and Times Square. [MUSIC PLAYING] All right, welcome back. Let's talk about home builder. Because home builder stocks fell today. Seaport securities downgrading the sector, saying, slower job growth puts a cap on any potential upside. In fact, the analyst there saying names like Lanard, KB home, PULTY could fall another 15% and seaport adding stocks are currently trading somewhere between a quote guy, value trap, and catching a falling knife. Never mind those terms before. Yeah, a lot of euphemisms there, but it's a pretty big call, your take. I could not agree more of the call. I think they're late, but better late than never the saying, better to plan a treat today. Or you should have planned it 20 years ago, but today is the next business. You almost pulled off that joke, but then by screwing that I screwed it up. Oh, because I rushed it all over. You rushed it. It was a little-- That's a little-- Because I saw where you were going. You were trying to double the trigger. And then-- OK, anyway. That said, I mean, Pulpachard had told brothers. It made it high two and a half years ago. Brought our markets done extraordinarily well over that period of time. The home builders have not participated. People say when rates come down, the home builders will win. Negative. It is about the labor market. And I'm with them on this call. Rarely you just see initiation as sales. They have a cup of them. I agree. To your point guy, Tim, it's-- Because there's so few sales. You almost feel like you have to listen to them a little bit more because they are so rare. One of the seven percent or 10 percent whatever caron of the market. It's a pretty big call. Do you have a take on the home builder group or any stocks in it? Well, I always love to look under the hood, especially of the XHB. And if you look under the hood, there's no home builders in the top 10 in there. I'm looking at Owens Corning. I'm looking at Allergen, William Sonoma, Johnson, Controls, Moscow, Train, DR Horton, number 10. So there are other places and other ways to play in here. And clearly, some of these names also fall under data center and infrastructure build out and things that really do continue to look interesting in this country. So no, I don't like home builders. I've rarely invested directly in home builders. The sector, I agree with the call here, which is very interest rate sensitive. But even if interest rates were your friend, I'm not sure I'd be a buyer. I agree with you. I do like the negative calls, actually. We saw yesterday the test leg, the SJP Morgan reiteration with a very, very significant target price of 150 something. It's bold to make those calls. But I don't know. The balance sheets are in OK shape. I can see them getting cheaper for sure. I do think, though, that idea about employment and what AI unemployment might do could weigh on the home builders. Yeah, and apparently I have to apologize, because I don't think it's a euphemism. Euphemism is something different. No, but I sort of-- I-- You screwed it up, and then I screwed up. No, you're thinking aphorism? That's it. OK. Thank you. See, Karen, University of Pennsylvania actually Wharton, which is different. Really? No, bold. Just us Quakers, we don't get to say Wharton. All right, coming up, tech in the middle, men. Black keys right up, middle, men. Two Georgetown, two UPends in a pair of twos. State school, get here we go. All right, guess who's hosting? Coming up, oil price is pulling back. Head of President Trump's deadline on Iran, but where do we go from here? The front of the contract on oil at 110 bucks. We're back right after this. [MUSIC PLAYING] All right, welcome back to Fast Money. Kind of a wild Tuesday. Stock staging a pretty solid late day rally. The NASDAQ erased the nearly 2% loss. It was down 2% earlier in the session. And the NASDAQ actually closed with a slight gain. That index and the S&P both up five days in a row. The Dow won't point down 455 points. It did end down, but just barely. Inside the market shares of volleyball are dropping more than 2% today. Stocked out at its lowest level since last August. It's lost 20% so far this year. What about some after hours action? InnsMed is down, saying that phase two trials for its inflammatory skin disease drug did not meet objectives at stocks down just to touch. While Levi Strauss higher, they topped earnings and revenue estimates stock up almost 6%. In the meantime, of course, we, the markets, the world, watching energy. We approach President Trump's, again, self-imposed deadline tonight for Iran to basically reopen the straight of four moves and come to the table with some more good faith negotiation. Now, WTI, the oil traded here in Brent crude, both up 50% or more since the beginning of the Iran War, of precious and industrial metals, have fallen. Let's talk about all this joined on set by John Conn. He is director of Greenlight Commodities, institutional brokerage for event-based contracts, John, good to have you on the program. Thank you for having me, especially on a day like today. Well, it is. And we don't know what's going to happen tonight, by the way, where two and a half hours away from this sort of deadline, we're not sure exactly what it means, what might happen, or what may not, by the way, happen. There's a variety of scenarios. Worst case, base case, best case. How do you see the variety of outcomes and the impact on what you talk about? A lot of things could happen today. I have faith that something will be resolved by a clock. By the time the president, his self-imposed deadline, comes about, I think that aftermarket prices, price action, we're seeing oils off just a tad here. I believe training 110. That price action tells me that we probably have a resolution. Why? What about 110? Says that to you, John. Well, I thought so. 115 was resistance. If we saw-- if we went north of 115 post-codes, I think maybe the next stop in the local was 151.75. The fact that we've traded off a little bit just gives me an indication that-- something's going on behind the scenes. Perhaps the prime minister of Pakistan, his-- Is that relevant, you think? I mean, I know the market did move a little bit on that, but I mean, is that where we are now? I believe that, yes, that's where we've been for a long time. People will are very reactionary, markets who react to you these days. You see a tweet or a headline. And I think sometimes that's what people put their faith in. Well, Karen and I were having a conversation in the commercial break, and we were talking about earnings growth because between the first quarter, 21 and the first quarter, 2022, and Iran, or a Russian-Veducraine, oil-doubled earnings doubled. For Exxon, Chevron, and Connick O'Fillips, year over year, we saw prices spike in March, so one of the three months of last quarter, only. Do you have any gauge or thought, John, on how long oil prices stay-- maybe not at 110, maybe at 90, 85, but not 65? I think we stay here for a little bit longer, but I think we probably trade off here. I think that with-- even with the Straits, the Sphere of Moons, and the issues we have going on over there and the possible disruption of the East West pipeline in the kingdom, I think that we're probably here for a short time. John, where are your clients positioned? I mean, to me, the most fascinating thing is really where the institutions-- and again, sitting in Houston, your commodities broker, resource funds, some of these energy funds are big, giant, sophisticated players. Then there's people across the pond. Anyway, so I'm just curious how people are set up for this trade. Most people have-- the war risk trade is put on a long time ago. And I think most people right now are sitting on their hands, and it's a wait and see game. I think if you haven't positioned yourself, head yourself properly at this point, you're probably too late. John, the '70s had two separate instances-- instances of oil crises. Put into context what we're seeing now versus what we saw in the '70s. I think '73 and '79, I believe it was. I think what we're seeing now is worse. I hope I'm wrong, but it seems like the 12 million barrels a day we're missing because of the close of the Straits is worse than '73 and '79 combined. So I hope that's the worst of it. So let me ask you if peace breaks out tonight, and there's a unified-- I don't know-- opening up the strait. Where does oil open to? I think we open up down five bucks, at least. Only five. At least, maybe 10? Boy, would you agree, John, that '85 is going to be the new '65 for months or quarters to come? We're not-- by the way, I see nothing to indicate. We're going back to '65. Karen and I were talking about-- I talked to people all the time in Texas. There's been no drilling rig counts down, but no increased significant increase in activity in the Permian Basin, indicating that the exons, the Chevron, the conicos, and diamond backs, and whatever. They're not indicating, at least, stuff I've read, talked to them, heard about, whatever, any major jump in capital spending plans. So that said, are we likely to have that risk premium in oil longer than we might think? There's that possibility. In '85, the new '65, that's probably right. But I don't think you can hang your hat on earnings for just for oil prices. That's what you're asking. Ish, I'm trying to gauge how long oil might stay elevated versus where it was before, because it falls directly to earnings per share. Gotcha. I think we stay here another two or three months. OK. But not two to three years. I don't believe so. No. John Conlon, hey, John, real pleasure to have you on. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. On deck, what your next guest says, investors may not be taking into account around AI. All right. Welcome back to Fast Money. SSNC Technologies. We're in the closing belt in NASDAQ today. The AI enabled software and services company marking its 40th anniversary. Congrats to them. And Chairman and CEO Bill Stone joining us now in Studio B. Congrats on the 40th anniversary of SSNC. It's a big one. Employees happy. Thanks, my friend. All right. So you're in the space where AI-- everybody's jumpy. They're nervous. What is AI going to do to anything that has the word software or services in it? What does AI mean to you? Well, SSNC was built on intelligence. So we know we're a big place. We've got 29,000 people. And there's a lot of human intelligence. We're not losing human intelligence because we get some artificial intelligence. All we do is ensconce artificial intelligence in what we do. And it'll do some things a lot better. It's going to put risks into things. You don't really want it to put risk into it. So you've got to monitor it. You've got to put risk. It does. That's interesting. I'm sure it's going to put a lot of benefit, too. But what is AI risky about? Well, it's models. It's almost large language models that come out. And if you run those large language models, you're not going to get the exact same answer every time. Get close. Pretty close, baby. Close enough. I mean, I have a lot of very large portfolio managers that close enough don't cut it. Right? They'll slice the last basis point. So you've got to be accurate, very accurate. Because you guys do a lot with banking and wealth management and finance, which is one reason you're by the way on this fast month. Fantastic. We're the largest hedge fund administrator in the world. Almost every-- Let me ask you more directly. Is AI going to kill half the jobs in finance? No. Now every time you get new technologies, it starts off everybody scared to death. And then it's like, OK, well, well, it's giving them some better jobs. It gives us some more opportunity. Now, look, people don't work hard. It's going to be a problem. But people that embrace it, understand it, and work at it, it's going to be an advantage. That's what it's going to be for us. It's a tailwind. It's not a headwind. So let's talk a little bit about the disconnect, between the way investors see SaaS models. When you think of a lot of your customers, your technology works alongside probably a half a dozen, at least, SaaS protocols that are within financial institution, that sort of thing. And so a lot of that's being discounted right now in the investor community. Talk a little bit about the replacement cost. You want to rip this stuff out. I mean, this is one of the things I think it's probably underappreciated when you see the baby with the bath water a lot of these software names. Yeah. When you look at us, we're the look a record. So you base your tax returns, you base your SEC reports, you bake your Ossi reports up in Ottawa, or the Ministry of Finance in Tokyo, or the Australian Stock Exchange reports. We do all that. All the large global macro funds are our customers. Hi IQ, low patients. So you deal with that on a day. >> Those two things go together? >> It's kind of opposite on this desk. >> Yeah. >> I was not going to agree with that. But I do think that people forget that it's that relationship, that trust, that ability to have a couple of our clients might do 5, 10 million trades a day. So they trust that we can get those in and just them, process them, and have their positions ready to train again. And once you don't do that, because there's 5, 10 million coming tomorrow. And then 5 or 10 million coming the next day. So you know, it's an avalanche. And so you always have to be prepared, you have to be ready, you have to do it. You know, you can't talk about it. >> So Bill, by the way, as a former client, yes, you guys are definitely been a standard in the hedge fund space for a long time, congrats on 40 years. What does this mean for margins in your business? I mean, let's talk about why your company's worth more on the back of AI. And maybe you're not, that proud group of employees you have are not necessarily in jeopardy, but why are they more creative to the bottom line? >> Well, you know, again, right? You're gonna have to move people to places that, you know, drive margins, drive the business, right? And make sure that, you know, the stuff that's repetitive, that AI can do easily, or add to doing easily, you gotta let it do it. You can't sit there and, you know, touch boy in the diet, right? You can't do that. You gotta say, oh, hey, we can do this better. And we're gonna do this better. But that doesn't mean you lose your job. You only lose your job if you're unwilling to do anything different. Some people can't, you know, can't change. That's a problem, right? But that's true with every industry, not just yours. >> Yeah. >> Any industry that you're in. >> Yeah, so how's Wall Street doing? Because you benefit if Wall Street grows. When I say Wall Street, I mean the global world of finance, it's kind of the euphemism. >> Nice job, Brian. >> For global finance. >> Good term, you gotta write this time. >> Yeah, I think that Wall Street's doing pretty well. You know, and you're gonna see good earnings this quarter. And, you know, we be revenue and be earnings for three or four quarters in a row. And our stock gets re-rated and our stock follows 40, 25%. And that everyone has how come. So Wall Street, it's a herge. One person is here, said, there by runs. >> Yeah. >> You know, and somebody finally looks above the bush and says, well, maybe it's not so bad. You know, and so then they start coming back. And I say, well, maybe it's not so bad. So like last year we generated a billion 750 and operating cash. That's $7 a share. Plus we pay a dollar eight dividend. So every share we buy back, we get $8 a make-thit. Stock straight into $68, that's about 12%. >> Yeah. >> So we can buy back stock and make 12%. >> On what we think is cheap. Well, 40 years is a heck of an accomplishment. To Tim's point to everybody's point, Bill Stone. We're really glad that you're here. Congratulations to you and your entire company and team. Thank you for coming on Fast Money. We appreciate it. All right, thank you. Coming up, we're going to talk about Medicare Moons because some insurance stocks surging on the latest payment plans out of the White House. We'll change gears. We'll talk about that in Fast Money Returns, two minutes. [MUSIC PLAYING] All right, health insurance catching a bid today, this after the Trump administration finalized better than feared Medicare Advantage payment rates. Managed would increase above the $13 billion United Health by far leading managed care providers higher up more than 9% for its best-aid care and since August United Health has a lot going on all around it. What's your take on UNH? Well, that news, that CMS news yesterday was really, really good. We were talking about last night where it was trading much higher than here on that, even on the sell-off from that terrible CMS number, what came out yesterday was great. So I think it's much more interesting here than it was then. I like it. You like it? I do. Because there's still some things that are going on with the company. There are, but I think they have gotten out of the disappointing guidance business. And I think they're writing the ship. I think at least on the MA front, this gives you something to trade off of. And I think there's a lot of concern about even near-term earnings power. And therefore, a company that's very cheap relative to its recent self and a company that was almost too good to be true for five or six years in terms of their earnings profile. Carter talked about the chart that way. I think you're buying it here. All right. That's a good take. UNH Better Care Advantage rates. That was your MA, I assume. Yes. Was it a euphemism for MasterCard? It was an abbreviation. We'll get a fair point. Get good at Georgetown. Next, it is your final trade. [MUSIC PLAYING] All right. It is final trade time. Tim, kick it off. Brian, enjoy the euphemisms tonight. Apple, is a euphemism for you. You're not selling it because of a foldable phone. Yeah. I'm on the other side of it. I'm not buying it. Because of it. Yeah. I think you weighed a little. Not trading. Yes. Ollie Barba. We talked about a little earlier. It had a really very steep drop over the last couple of months. I think it's overdone. Remember, they have a ton of cash. And guy down. We dig Bill. Bill's own. So it's-- There's a learning of some evidence bill in the end, which is a lovely city. Hard up against that river there. The river being-- What does that mean? It's a one of the rivers. Oh, Ohio, I think. The Ohio River. I believe so. You know, people all like this, but marathon petroleum, the energy stocks still work for Insolven. All right. Appreciate it, guys. We'll see you tomorrow night. Thanks for watching Fast Money, everybody. Mad money starts now. 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