Closing Bell - Closing Bell Overtime: Markets Search for a Bottom as Fed Pressure Builds and Energy Risks Mount 3/13/26

Episode Date: March 13, 2026

Markets grapple with fresh pressure from Washington and rising geopolitical risk. We discuss the latest around the Powell lawsuit with former Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher. After stocks hit new yearly lows investors debate whether a bottom may be forming: Steve Sosnick of Interactive Brokers and Sonali Basak of iCapital assess market sentiment, positioning and the path forward. Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta discusses how and when the current conflict could end and what tensions around the Strait of Hormuz could mean for global stability and energy markets. Chad Zamarin, CEO of Williams, discusses natural gas disruptions and what they could mean for supply and infrastructure. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The bell is bringing an end to the trading day at the NYSC, LTAMD skincare, ringing the bell and at the NASAC. Freecast is doing the honors. Welcome to closing bell overtime. We are live from Studio B at the Nazak Market Site. I'm Melissa Lee, along with Mike Santoli. Another down day for stocks wrapping up a bad week and closing on new lows for the year. Oil, once again, the focal point, as it nears $100 a barrel again, up roughly 50% in March

following the start of the war with Iran. But we begin with major breaking news on the Fed. as a judge basically tossing out the case against Chair Powell and the Trump administration responding just in the last little while. Amon Javers has the latest from Washington. Steve Leesman is looking at the impact on the Fed. So, Amon, fill us in with the details. Yeah, Mike, it's been an extraordinary afternoon.

What we saw here is a federal judge releasing an opinion in which he quashed the subpoenas that were sent by the Department of Justice to the Federal Reserve, the federal judge saying that, in essence, he did not believe that the motive. motivation for the subpoenas was a legitimate law enforcement one. He's opened his opinion here, citing President Trump's social media posts against Jay Powell of the Fed saying, Jerome, too late Powell, has done it again. He is too late and actually too angry, too stupid and too political to have the job of Fed chair. The judge here in this case, Judge Bostberg, suggesting that comments like that from the president indicate that this effort is an effort to pressure the Federal Reserve,

pressure J. Powell to either lower rates or step out of the way for a replacement who will do that, quashing those subpoenas. Then we saw Janine Piro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, who brought that case in the first place with a fiery press conference denouncing the judge as an activist saying he was wrong on the law, wrong on the facts. And here's what she had to say. He has neutered the grand jury's ability to investigate crime. As a reason, he has neutered the grand jury's ability to investigate crime. As a result, Jerome Powell today is now bathed in immunity preventing my office from investigating the Federal Reserve. This is wrong, and it is without legal authority. Now, the important thing to note here is that Piro says she's going to appeal this decision by the judge,

which means this investigation is not over with. It will continue through the process. process. That brought a response from Tom Tillis, the senator on Capitol Hill, who has been saying he won't vote for Kevin Warsh to be federal reserve chair unless this is dropped. Here's what he said on social media. This ruling confirms just how weak and frivolous the criminal investigation of Chairman Powell is, and it is nothing more than a failed attack on Fed independence. We all know how this is going to end at the U.S. D.C. U.S. Attorney's Office should save itself further embarrassment, appealing the ruling will only delay the confirmation of Kevin Warsh as the next Fed chair. So that's where we leave it as we look at this, Melissa. The investigation goes on.

The Warsh nomination is in limbo. The U.S. attorney says she's going to appeal. The president behind her has not sent any indication that he wants this investigation to stop. And so we are for the moment stuck. Amen, those posts on truth social certainly indicate bias on the part of the president against Chair Powell. But how the judge used it assumes that there is absolutely no evidence that was in the subpoena. Do we have an idea of what was presented as the basis for the subpoena? We still have not seen the actual subpoenas. And believe me, Steve and I have been working every phone number we can work to try to see if we can get a copy of the subpoena.

Nobody's released that publicly. So we don't know exactly what they were arguing. What we know is that Piro is saying she doesn't really need evidence. At this stage, at the grand jury stage of an investigation to issue a subpoena, you don't have to prove the case. You just have to suggest that you're concerned that there might be a crime there. So she says she has every right to do this. And what the judge says, and I'm just looking for the language here, is that his conclusion is there is abundant evidence that the subpoena's dominant, if not sole purpose, is to her. harass and pressure Powell, either to yield to the president or to resign to make way for a Fed

chair who will, that is, who will lower rates. All right. Amon, stay right there. Let's bring in Steve Leesman for a look at what this all means for the Fed and the nomination process of Kevin Warch, which sounds like it's on hold, basically, at this point. Yeah, I want to supplement Amon's reporting and point out that I believe there will be two separate legal continuing actions from Janine Piro's office. The first is a motion to reconsider that I believe goes back to the same judge, but also an appeal. That is a second one.

Gene Piro is saying very specifically that there will be two actions. We're not only going to appeal. We're also going to do a motion to reconsider. So to some extent, I don't know what the timeline is on this, but Melissa, it could additionally drag out the timeline. We also, by the way, while Amon was speaking, we got a statement here from Senator Elizabeth Warren. She said today a federal judge ruled on what we already know. The Trump administration's weaponization of the Department of Justice against Jerome Powell amounts to nothing more than a witch hunt.

And I have to say the judge's comments were not much different from that. They didn't use the term witch hunt, but you heard what Eamon read. It was to me an extraordinary decision that really said you had no basis for bringing this. In fact, the basis for bringing this was because you didn't like Fed Chair Powell and what he's doing with interest rates. And as I said in the last hour, it's another case where the president's tweets have gotten the way of efforts by his Department of Justice to prosecute. There have been others as well. Amon, just to maybe relax you a little bit or relieve your anxiety, I think they're eventually going to post those subpoenas we've been after for a while.

The Fed filed a motion to unseal, and I believe that's at least been partially granted. So maybe those subpoenas will be available online shortly. But I'm just struck, by the way, guys, that the judge also put this as part of a pattern by the Trump administration to use the courts and use the Department of Justice to prosecute the president's enemies and to affect his will on different parts of the government. For sure. And, you know, Amin, really on that point, I do recall when U.S. Attorney Pirro did bring this investigation first in January, there was reporting that the White House was to some degree blinds. by it or maybe didn't explicitly try to push forward. Of course, the president denied he was behind it. But I do wonder if this was a little bit of a freelance operation and now the Suncost has her pursuing it further from here, even though maybe it wasn't even directed from above. Yeah, you know, it's difficult to say, right? I mean, that's the sort of invisible spider thread

behind this case that we can't quite see is the connection between Trump and Piro on this. Is there a direct order, was there an ask, was there a hint, you know, was there a, you know, sort of a general tone in the air that the Department of Justice picked up on and said, you know, we better dig into this. You know, Piro hasn't said, but I'm glad to hear Steve say that we might get a look at these subpoenas because one of my questions all along has been, you know, what is it that they're actually asking for as evidence here? Is there something in what the subpoenas are actually requesting that's embarrassing to the Fed. You know, the Fed could have put these subpoenas out publicly. They're not bound by grand jury secrecy. They could have told us what it

is that the Department of Justice is looking for. And so we don't, that's a key piece of this story that we don't know right now, is is there some embarrassing fact pattern here that the Department of Justice is looking into that the Fed doesn't want to talk about? Steve, what happens to the process? What happens if Chair Powell's term is up and there is no confirmed replacement in the end? Could he actually be in the seat longer than what the Trump administration had hoped? Yeah, it would be somewhat ironic, I suppose, if that happened, because all of this was perhaps about getting the Fed chair out of the seat there. Yes, he would continue as Fed Chair is my understanding. I believe it would probably take a vote of the Board of

the Federal Market Committee to make that happen. But yes, he would remain in that position until a replacement was approved by the Senate. The nomination has been sent up to the Hill, is my understanding. The Senate, however, is not going to hold hearings until these legal actions have been terminated because Senator Tillis has said they won't move in. Obviously, the Democrats are along with Senator Tillis on this issue. So it won't come out of committee. I guess they could try to bring it to the floor if they wanted to, but I'm not sure they have the votes there.

So it's an interesting political issue. It's an interesting dynamic issue for the Federal Reserve Board. And none of this gets at the other question you didn't ask, Melissa, which is even if Warsh is nominated and is approved by the Senate, Fed Chair Powell could stay on as a governor for quite a while. Right. That's a whole other dynamic. And all of this gets away from the thing that I think our viewers care most about, which is what's going to happen to interest rates. And right now, the market is saying that even Kevin Warsh comes in and doesn't cut interest rates, perhaps until December because of what's happening with the oil market.

So there's another thing moving against what the president wanted to happen. Can you just back time everything, though, Steve? I mean, seeing what the deadline is, and if the Senate and the Hill, they were able to, you know, arrange all the confirmation hearings, et cetera, when would they actually need to start? Because it seems like even if they started today, it could be a lengthy process. I'm going to let Amy take the bulk of that. I'll give you a little piece of it, which is it depends upon when they began the background checks. That takes a lot of time. I'm assuming that those have been in process. But they can get it done relatively quickly if they want to, but it's going to

depend a little bit about vacations and other things that happen. I guess you have Memorial Day weekend coming up. May 15th is Powell's last day. I'll aim and take it from there on the timing of this. Yeah, Melissa, we're just getting a new filing in just now. Just been handed to me in the past couple of seconds. This is the government's opposition to the motion to quash subpoenas. This is what the government has just unsealed in their argument. This is from Janine Piro's office in their argument against the idea of quashing the subpoenas. And what they say is the board of the Fed has not carried its burden of demonstrating that the subpoena. were issued for an improper purpose, much less that impropriety was the dominant purpose for issuing the subpoenas.

So this was the DOJ's argument for why these subpoenas should not be quashed. The judge clearly has decided to quash them. In terms of the process up on Capitol Hill, they can do hearings relatively quickly. I mean, I think, you know, you would need a week or so to do it if you had the votes lined up. The process of the hearing is not the challenge there. The process is getting the votes, and Tillis is the vote that they need. And so until Tillis says that he's okay with this moving forward, you're not going to see any action up on Capitol Hill. All right. Guys, thanks so much. Amen, keep us post on any developments. You too, Steve.

Let's bring in former Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher. Richard, great to have you with us on a day like today. What do you make of all of this? This seems like a big step on the part of the judiciary in terms of checks, the power of the administration, and also a victory for the Fed. I think it's a victory for the Fed, but I think what has been missing in this discussion, Powell has been elected chairman of the FOMC for the year. There is a scenario if he decides to stay on. The FOMC, Federal Open Market Committee, even with the new chairman in the seat, can still have him chairing the FOMC for the rest of the year. No one has talked about that.

As far as Senator Tillis is concerned, it seems to me he's hell-bent on making sure that until they dismiss all this business, he's not going to exceed, even though he thinks highly of Kevin Warsh. The other thing I think that we don't discuss, and we should remember history, Harry Truman put McChesney Martin in the chair thinking that he would do what he wanted. He did not. Kevin's got to think of his long-term history. He's at 505. If he becomes chair and chairman of the FOMC at the same time, he's got to think about what his legacy is going to be 20 years from now. And he doesn't want to appear to be like Machesny Martin,

who finally gave him to Lyndon Johnson. As he said in his own memoirs, he went to his deathbed ashamed of himself. McChessie Martin was head of the New York Stock Exchange the age of 31. He was a boy genius, as some people claim that Kevin Warsh is. So there's a lot of history here. And I think Kevin Worse is a smart guy. I served with him for four years. We had differences of opinion. I dissented. He did not. But he's a smart guy. He's got to think about what's going to look like 10 years for now, 15 years from now. He could be the longest

serving Fed Chairman in history if he holds his course. Well, and to that point, Richard, as you know. I don't think this is clear. And with regard to Ms. Piro, she's a tough lady. There's no question about it. I think clearly she's just doing whatever she thinks he can do. The ruling indicates just to get rid of J-Powell. Since his Sunday broadcast, he's been in the driver's sheet.

And he is extremely well-liked on both sides of the hill. And it's not just Tillis. I think there are other Republican senators that would support him fully and clearly there are a lot of Democratic centers that would do the same. Yeah, obviously, as you're alluding to, Richard, in Chair Powell's sort of video response to this investigation, he did call it a pretext.

I mean, and that's the language that the judge just used in trying to put down these subpoenas. Just to get to your idea of, you know, Walsh will have to think about his legacy ultimately and sort of the long-term value of his reputation, that's about, you know, taking the current evidence in mind and trying to decide whether it's appropriate,

to lower rates. Now, what's happened with oil, with what's happened to inflation expectations, I know you were focused on that back in, you know, 08-ish, as was worse, actually, I think is relevant here, because he was also saying hawkish things while the Fed was on hold in 08. Yeah, I agreed with Kevin, or Kevin agreed with me that expanding the balance sheet drew in enormous risks. And the question really was, how do we get out of it once we see? start that process. By creating zero interest rates, expanding the balance sheet, making clear we're going to play that game for a long time and add to it, we were telling the market to discount the present value of future cash flows mathematically to infinity. There are some people

that would argue that today there still is that overhang, and that's what we're seeing in the private credit markets. But Kevin and I were on the same wavelength on that argument. I think the difference is that I dissented and he, working closely with Ben Bernanke, was very helpful to him, did not. But again, coming back to this effort to scare Chairman Powell away, I don't think it's effective. He's a man of great integrity. He has to worry how he goes down in history. And he is going to stick to his guns. And that Sunday night broadcast, unprecedented as it was, gave him enormous leverage on going forward on this case. We'll just have to see how it's resolved. Again, she is a tough prosecutor, but I have a feeling that she's going to lose these appeals.

Yeah, time's getting short. We'll see. It could be an interesting couple of months on this front. Richard, I really appreciate you jumping hot with us. Richard Fisher, former Dallas Fed president. Thank you so much for having me. Let's turn to what this could mean for the markets as we closed near the lows of the day, also down for the week. Joining us now is iCAPTal chief investment strategist, Shanaali Bassack and Interactive Brokers chief strategist, Steve Sosnik.

Good to see you both. I mean, Shanaali, start with, I guess, the market, all of the sets of concerns that it's been trying to digest, and really how the Fed, with or without today's move, fits into that. Listen, the Fed cut three times last year, and you saw the 10-year still take off. You're looking at a 10-year at 4.3% today, and we've got to keep an eye on that.

Listen, the two year and the 10 years rise since the war began is notable. And we believe that the Fed wasn't going to cut in the first half of the year anyways. It's the second half of the year now that we have to worry about. And if it doesn't cut, I think that we have to just rethink for a second, and I digest

what this really means for risk assets that did take off on the heels of expected interest rate cuts. I mean, the Fed not cutting or feeling it can't cut, Steve, I guess I'll go to you with this. would represent it standing pat as financial conditions otherwise tight. Right? I mean, we do have yields going up. You do have the dollar going up. You have commodity prices going up and you have market volatility rising.

Well, yeah, that's the problem, right? That's the fee. That's why stagflation scares the heck out of everybody, right? I mean, you know, as it turns out now, we're not even pricing in December. The market's pricing in sometime first or second quarter next year. But what can the Fed do? If you're staring at inflationary pressures, coming from energy, coming from all these other factors, they can't cut rates in the face of that. And on the other hand, you know, the two-handed economist, right? The labor market is not particularly friendly right now. So that's where the stagflation fears come in. And that's why you're seeing the sea change in the market, both in perceptions.

And also the way the market traded this week, right? Today we touched a new low for the year. Four out of five times this week we closed near our lows. Four out of five times last week, we closed well off our lows. So there's a big change in market mentality underlying that. Although in yesterday's session, in today's session, the volume was really anemic. So we closed on lows for each of the sessions, but not in a very convicted kind of way. And so how do you sort of piece that all together where we do seem like we're sort of coming to grips with what is going on around us in the market action, but not in a very strong way?

There is a fair amount of paralysis, Melissa, for lack of a better word. But that's kind of the problem. You can leak lower on low volume. to see rallies on high conviction, high volume. The problem is on the downside, yes, you could have these flush out days, and actually, I'll argue those are healthier than the days where you just sort of erode away, and that's telling you that nobody, you know, yeah, there's not much of a conviction to sell, but there's also nobody racing into buying. This morning we had a failed rally where you, we opened with a little bit of a bounce oil price was a little lower,

but we got ahead of ourselves, as we've been want to do, and that faded by the end of the day. Well, I wonder if that's partly because on the earnings picture, things have been still looking pretty good. But as the week has progressed, the word stagnation has come up more and more and more. And we've heard even more cries for the possibility that we may be moving into a position where the Fed may be equally at risk of raising rates or cutting rates, which is, seems nuts. We're totally at that juncture. And that's the problem.

I think that's why you're not seeing this massive sell-off, right? We're just flirting with that bottom of the 200-day moving average of that S&P 500. And you'll see a tactical cash allocation rising, maybe, ready to deploy when it feels a little closer to capitulation, you're not really there yet. That's the thing. And the longer this goes on, that's when that spillover risk really starts to come to the surface. The problem is the energy sector is not as large of awaiting as the S&P 500 as it used to be. So what would it take then for higher oil prices to start spilling over into other input prices to really meaningfully impact margins? That's when you start to worry. Listen,

the labor market itself, we're still talking about last week's print, right? If you stripped out weather, strikes, and the birth to death model, you're actually up by 10K. And so even the labor market is at that juncture, we just need more information. I will say this latest wave of uncertainty, though, is probably going to keep employers on hold for a little while longer. Although this week, I thought it was remarkable that you got mega bond deal pricing stuff in the middle of all this volatility. So Wall Street's not on full stop, not by any means. I was going to say that. I mean, a lot of times you get a 5% pullback in the S&P, the average stocks down more from the high, Steve.

And yeah, sure, treasury yields are up. Maybe the Fed's on hold. And you kind of look to the credit markets as a little bit of the referee to say whether that's all correct or whether it's creating opportunity. You can find whatever indicator you want in the credit markets, right? You could look at all of the hiccups in private credit and the liquidity issues there. And high yield spreads are kind of up in multi-month highs or something. But in general, the market is pretty flush in terms of investment grade.

Unfortunately, the answer to almost any question, Mike, is it depends. And that's really what's going on. Yes, you've hit the nail on the head between the amount of issuance that was able to get done amidst an eroding rate background where you have short-term rates going higher, you have longer-term rates, you know, edging up with year highs. You know, this is sort of the counter to all the risk management exercises that I've done over the years about what is the big black swan of the strait of Hormuz. And those involved $150 oil, no, up to $100 is still not pleasant.

You know, stocks falling 10%. No, we're down 3% year-to-date S&P, 5% off the highs, not any reaction. And flight to quality, moving dollar higher, yes, but rates lower, no. So this is just a completely topsy-turvy response, even to something that had been sort of out there in people's mindsets. It's a frustrating market at best. Yeah. Well, I was going to say other times when there's macro flux like this and you have all this conflicting evidence, you also sometimes would have like the mega cap tech stocks doing their own thing based on almost none of that, right?

It's almost exogenous. Do people want to own these stocks and pay more for them or not? And right now it's not really happening. Well, they didn't want to before the war broke out. No, no, exactly. I'm just saying that times the market allows you to kind of set this stuff aside right now it's front and center because mega cap's not controlling the case. The FCF story was the story for so long, and therefore you had a safe haven bid in them. And now when you put that in question, that narrative doesn't hold up in this market anymore.

So what you want to do is the old storybook, right, buy cheap, sell high. And so looking for value in sectors that have been beaten down and taking a rifle shot approach rather than going for entire indices is really the move that a lot of people are looking to make right now. Software. I think the last time you're on, we talked about the IGV. And right now it's sort of a different picture. And what I thought was interesting is, you know, when you want to find areas of safety in an environment like this where oil prices could be the wild card when it comes to pressures on margins, et cetera, one of the most immune sectors out there is tech and software. And big cap tech, people don't want it and didn't want it before the war. And software, they didn't want it, except it got so cheap. People ended up going in.

And here we are. Could this be a safe haven, quote, unquote, on a relative base to the rest of the market? In some ways, yes. I think you have to be selective to Sinali's point because not all software companies are the same. But one of the thought exercises I always put to people when there's geopolitics is, what does this mean to Microsoft? And you can make that argument for a whole bunch of other software companies. In most situations, it doesn't mean much to a lot of these tech companies.

In this situation, it can because if you're talking about higher interest rates and you're talking about a weaker economy, et cetera, yes, that spills back. So I also think, though, that to a certain extent rotation trades tend to peter out around now. And I think we're sort of seeing that run its course even amidst all the other. The last two weeks have been a complete 180 from what happened before. Yeah, absolutely. Guys, thanks very much. Thank you. Appreciate it.

All right, the Fed is meeting next week as a tough spot develops for policy. Oil prices are skyrocketing, threatening to spike inflation. But the labor market may be starting to pull in the other direction. Closer look at signs of labor market softening. That's coming up on overtime. Welcome back. A Fed meeting looming next week, and it comes as rising oil prices are threatening to spike inflation. Well, at the same time, there are concerns about jobs, especially due to a threat from AI.

Here's what Service Now CEO, Bill McDermott, said on CNBC this morning. I think it's very natural to be concerned about jobs. I think young people coming at a university today is like 9% unemployment. I think it could easily go into the mid-30s in the next couple of years. The mid-30s? I do. And McDermott isn't alone. Anthropics Dario Modi made headlines in the past saying he thinks AI could wipe out half of entry-level white-collar jobs in the next several years. Mike, you're taking a look at some other data points, which may point to you might point to you.

which may point a pretty tricky picture for the Fed. It does. Now, the low-hire, low-fire environment was supported by today's Joltz numbers, job openings, labor turnover survey. But in general, what it's still showing is fewer job openings than the total number of people currently unemployed. So if you remember during the pandemic, it's tight, tight, tight labor market. It was like two openings for everybody employed. So this has been hovering below one for a little while, though it did tick higher in the latest month, so not quite as bad. But where AI might be, more relevant is in a subset of this data, which is business and professional services employment.

White collar. Take a look at the job openings for that category. This is just total job openings in professional and business services. It has gone vertical to the downside here, and it brings you back to these levels. You know, it's like in the early 2010s, mid-2010s in terms of total demand for new workers there. Now we don't know if it's AI. We don't know if it's the kind of companies that might be considering AI, emphasis. exercising productivity or not, but it's definitely something that inflames the fears of, and by the way,

those AI executives, tech executives might have a little bit of an interest in conveying this notion of it's going to be huge, you can't ignore it, you have to have us help you figure it out, but nonetheless, you're starting to see maybe it show up in the numbers. That's a stunning chart, yeah. Time now for our CNBC News update with McKenzie Segalos, Mack. Hey, Mel. President Trump today reportedly signed a pair of executive orders on housing affordability. The Associated Press reports that under one order, the federal government will reduce its own housing regulatory burdens to make it easier to build homes. The second order would reduce regulatory burdens tied to mortgages.

In the Financial Times reporting that Elon Musk has ordered another round of job cuts at XAI, after growing frustrated with the performance of the AI startup's coding product as compared to competitors such as OpenAI Anthropic. He's apparently forcing out several co-founders and bringing in fixers from SpaceX and Tesla, to audit the company. And Sesame Street is suing SeaWorld. Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit behind the brand, filed a lawsuit looking to end the decades-long partnership, alleging the theme park failed to honor contractual obligations

and pay royalties. A spokesperson for United Parks, formerly known as SeaWorld, said the company looks forward to setting the record straight in court. Back to you guys. Mackenzie, thank you, Mackenzie Sagalos. Coming up, the US intensifying it strikes against Iran with reports that Pentagon is moving

more Marines and warships to the Middle East. We'll speak with former Defense Secretary and former CIA director Leon Panetta. That's next. And as we had to break, take a look at this week's biggest S&P 500 winners, memory and fertilizer names dominating the top of the index. Welcome back to overtime. A wild week closing out with losses for the markets. Let's get to Christina Parts Nevelas for a look at today's big movers.

Christina. Thanks, Mike. Well, we did have a strong open to end week two of the war, but equities faded as oil crept higher yet again. Energy finishing as the top S&P sector on the week. On the other hand, financials, the week's worst performer. Though today they managed to eke out some gains. Alternative asset managers led the recovery, ERIS and Blackstone,

both up at least 4% closing the day out today. But zoom out and the picture's a little bit uglier. Most have lost about a fifth of their value as investors really tried to pull capital from the biggest semi-liquid private credit funds. Crypto, on the other hand, did have somewhat of a stronger week, Bitcoin, above about $71,000 right now, up about $7,000. 7% just in the past five days on pace for its best stretch in months. That lifted the whole complex, strategy, coin base, both closing higher.

Fertilizer names were just a little bit of a different story today. They had a run-up on shipment stuck at the Strait of Hormuz, but today they traded that trade reversed coarse hard. You had Mosaic and CF industries both closing at least 4% lower today. And Alta Beauty fell on cautious guidance. The cosmetic retailer has been expanding in the Middle East, but flagged geopolitical uncertainty and ongoing cost pressures as headwinds for the company going forward. Christina, thanks, Christina Parts Nevelas.

The U.S. intensifying its strikes against Iran with reports that the Pentagon is moving more Marines and warships to the Middle East. This comes after Defense Secretary Pete Hed Texas says the U.S. has wounded Iran's new supreme leader. This has pushed oil prices. They continue to move higher, ending near $100 a barrel today. So where do we go from here? Joining us now is Leon Panetta, former Defense Secretary, former CIA, director and former chief of staff under President Clinton. Mr. Secretary, we can go in a lot of different directions to you, but I first want to start

off with the Strait of Hormuz. The Defense Secretary had said that we shouldn't worry about the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The markets are clearly very worried about the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. What's your take on how we are handling this particular pain point, given that seems like one of the biggest sources of leverage that Iran actually has against us as well as allies? I think that's the problem. The problem is that as long as they feel they can keep the Straits of Hormuz closed,

they know that it's going to produce tremendous pressure in terms of the price of oil. We've got the largest disruption in oil in recent history, and there's been, as we all know, a dramatic increase in the price of fuel. And so that gives them leverage. And for that reason, I think the United States, United States, I'm a little surprised that there was no plan here to deal with the closure and provide destroyers to provide escorts for ships so that the straits would not be closed. I think it's very important for the United States to open up the Straits of Hormuz.

For several reasons. Number one, because it's economically important to be able to do that and impact on the price But secondly, what you're doing is taking away some of the leverage that Iran would need if we ultimately want to come to negotiations on a ceasefire. What's your take on how we got here in terms of, you know, there were miscommunications about whether or not the Navy could or was escorting ships through the Strait of Hormuz? We're at a point where, you know, there could be drones launched to attack ships. There could be small vessels packed with explosives.

Are these scenarios that we should have anticipated? Yeah, without question. All of this should have been anticipated before we went to war. Normally there is a national security console process. Normally, that's the place where you discuss options and you discuss consequences of war and prepare for those consequences. I don't think the administration went through that process. And the result is that when the Straits of Hormuz were closed, we suddenly found that we were in a bind rather than, frankly, making clear that we were going to keep the straits open, going after any of the Iranian forces that were there.

look, it is a very tight strait. Make no mistake about it. And because it's only about 20 miles, any ships in that strait can be targeted very easily from forces on the Iranian side. What the United States should have done is basically blown the hell out of all of the capabilities that are alongside the Straits of Hormuz. And then secondly, had destroyers prepared to guide ships through the straits and made clear to Iran that the Straits of Hormuz would not be closed. That message needed to be heard. And now, unfortunately, we're in a situation where it becomes a lot more dangerous to do this. That's why destroyers are hesitating to provide those escorts because they could very well be hit as a result of being

in a very tight target area. Mr. Secretary, given that nearly everyone agrees that the straits just simply can't be closed for an indefinite period of time, maybe not for more than a few weeks. What's the process by which you would expect the U.S. through military action and others will set the scene for whatever kind of negotiation, right? I mean, it seems as if to make ship traffic feel safe enough to go through, there has to be some kind of acknowledgement by Iran that they're not going to do any more of these drone attacks. You know, I think the president is facing two choices right now. One is the choice of whether you stay and try to get regime change. The president made clear that initially the purpose of this mission was to produce a regime change. That is not going to happen right now.

We've got a new leader. I think the regime is much more entrenched than they were before. and they're feeling like the war is moving more in their direction. The second choice the president has is to embrace the military mission that we had as the key objective, which is to go after Iran's ability to conduct war, to go after their missiles, go after their drones, go after their navy, go after their military capabilities. And I think we're doing that. We've hit well over 7,000 targets, and we're continuing to hit those targets.

I think there's a point in which the president can then declare victory that we, in fact, have obtained the military mission that we intended. Then the issue becomes trying to negotiate with Iran so that we can arrive at a ceasefire. I think that's the best path forward, but it's not going to be easy unless we continue to show Iran that we have the capability not only to continue to strike at them, but to open up the Straits of Hormuz. What would you be the most concerned about at this point in terms of targets and seeing that Iran knows that it can bring the global economy almost to a halt when it comes to controlling

the strait? It seems like the next possible target that would be critical would be oil infrastructure, because if you destroy that, you really set the industry back, even if you open the straits back up. What would you be doing? How do you think about the areas that would be the most fruitful for Iran to target? Well, I think, look, Iran has been preparing for this kind of war for 47 years. They're prepared for an all-out effort here. And because of that, there's no question that they are entrenched.

They have the capability to reach out and hit the region. They've gone after 12 other countries in the region. They can go after their oil-producing capability. They can continue to go after tankers. They can continue to keep the Straits of Hormuz-Kloat. They have a lot of economic targets that they can focus on. The United States has to make clear that we're not going to let them do that. And the only way you do that is by continuing

your military mission, continuing fire at their targets, continuing to make clear that we are not going to allow the Straits of Removes to be closed. And indeed, I think we've got to provide some air protection for oil facilities throughout the region in order to make sure that Iran does not turn to trying to destroy the entire oil infrastructure. So there's a lot of targets, There's a lot of effort that we've got to put into this if we're going to eventually be able to say this war is coming to an end. Mr. Secretary, thank you so much for joining us. We do appreciate your time. Leon Panetta. Coming up on overtime, Nat gas prices across the globe with soared as the Strait of Hormuz continues to essentially be shut.

While U.S. prices have remained steadier, at what point will the pain be felt here? We'll get the outlook from the CEO of Nat Gas for Williams companies. That's next. Welcome back to overtime. As oil prices have taken off, so have gas prices across the country. The national average now stands at 363 a gallon. That's up 35 cents in a week and 65 cents in a month. The price of diesel has climbed to $4.83 a gallon in the U.S. A 28% jump since the war started.

UPS and FedEx have already bumped up their fuel surcharge rates. Oil has played a huge role in determining the direction of equities this week, but we're also watching the rest of the energy complex. Natural gas falling today after hitting its highest level in more than a month overnight. Natural gas in Europe and the UK seeing much more extreme surges since the start of the Iran war, both up over 50%. Joining us now to discuss the fallout for the complex, both here and abroad, is William's CEO, Chad Zamoran.

Williams' core business is natural gas processing and transportation. And, Chad, it's great to have you to kind of take us through this. Obviously, it's a regional market for natural gas. Obviously, there's liquefied. There's others. Is there disruption globally in supply? How is it bearing on your network and your business? Yeah, thanks, Mike.

Thanks for having me. I think what's really important in what this highlights and your chart highlights is that we have had very little impact on domestic natural gas prices, but obviously the global impact has been much greater. That's because natural gas production in the United States is truly our country's superpower. We are the dominant global producer of natural gas. We actually produce on any given day about 110 billion cubic feet of natural gas. We only consume domestically about 80 billion cubic feet a day.

So we're producing 40% more energy than we consume. By the way, natural gas constitute about a third of all of the energy in any form that we use here in the United States. So it's a big part of the energy mix, and we significantly overproduce it. So when you have disruption like we do right now, the United States is the largest exporter of natural gas. gas, we export a third of global LNG supplies. We only export about 3% of global liquid fuel supplies. When you think about creating that ability to weather geopolitical events, crises, being a dominant producer is truly our country's superpower,

and that's why natural gas is so important. And of course, the Nat gas here saw a smaller spike since a war began versus in other places, Chad. Can you walk us through, though, like talk to the American people, tell them, you know, why they shouldn't worry and that the 10% increase in that gas prices since the start of the war. I mean, that is a ripple effect, even though it is a localized market, isn't it? It is, but, you know, Melissa, we actually produce natural gas. At the price it is today, you're showing it near $3, that's about a cost energy equivalent of 40 cents per gallon gasoline. So this is by far our country's most affordable energy resource.

It's why we really do believe from an affordability perspective, we have to continue to lean into the superpower we have, which is producing. reducing low-cost, affordable, reliable, clean natural gas. And so, yes, we've seen modest price increases, but frankly, most of what we've seen have been seasonal. If you go back six weeks back into the winter months, natural gas prices were actually quite a bit higher than they are today. And so we are at a relatively seasonal norm from natural gas, and we are very well supplied as a country.

I say this often, it's oftentimes not understood. We have almost three trillion cubic feet of natural gas in storage here in the United States. In a daily market of about 100 billion cubic feet a day, that's the same. It's weeks of energy supply that we have here in the United States stored. You know, it's the world's largest battery, charged up and ready to be delivered. That creates a tremendous ability to buffer these volatility events that occur. And so, you know, I do think that we will continue to see natural gas be one of our most stable energy resources here in the United States.

And yet, for as much as the country overproduces, and we already are a large exporter, there's not really much ability, is there to kind of flex that export capacity and get it where it needs to. to be around the world. It is a challenge, but we are the most flexible provider of LNG. You know, an important stat. The United States was able to double LNG imports into Europe when Russia invaded Ukraine. I mean, imagine had we not been this dominant producer of natural gas and the largest exporter of LNG, imagine had we not been able to double exports into Europe when Russia invaded Ukraine. The reality is, yes, it is hard to create incremental capacity, but we're in the process of building

additional export capacity. We should reach, today we can export about 20 billion cubic feet a day of natural gas. That should reach close to 30 billion cubic feet a day of natural gas that can be exported in the form of LNG by the end of the decade. So we are expanding our capacity, but that does take time. That takes infrastructure. That's what we're in the business of building. And so we're advocating for permitting reform. We need to build more infrastructure as a company and as a country in order to address these issues. Chad, good to see you. Thank you. Thanks, Melissa. Chad Sangerin, William's CEO.

Coming up, we'll get you set up for next week, a week that will be dominated by two key players, Jensen Huang and Jerome Powell. Closing bell overtime, live from the NASAC market site. Be right back. Let's get you set up with the key events to watch next week. On the earnings front, retailers will take the spotlight with Dollar Tree on Monday,

Lulu Lemon on Tuesday, Macy's on Wednesday. Wednesday also brings Micron and General Mills. Thursday, we'll hear from Alibaba and FedEx. On the economic front, We'll get pending home sales on Tuesday, PPI and durable goods on Wednesday, and initial claims on Thursday. The big event will, of course, be the Fed rate decision that comes on Wednesday. And finally, InVidia will host its tech conference with CEO Jensen Wong, said to give his keynote Monday afternoon. And, you know, that stock did not escape a lot of the pressure on parts of chips.

It's not exactly been flying into this big conference. Exactly. I mean, there's some news today that Amazon had a deal with cerebrus, and so there's other players. coming in, but that combined with MU could be an interesting set up for the chips. Micron has been a little bit of a different story. And of course, the overall market, the overall S&P 500 kind of sagged, just to right above its 200-day moving average, and it's all converging on a pretty good test, probably into the Fed meeting. That's going to do it for overtime this week. Fast money begins right after this quick break.