Closing Bell - Closing Bell Overtime: Oil Drives the Tape as Oracle Delivers and Iran Risk Looms 3/10/26

Episode Date: March 10, 2026

Our Pippa Stevens breaks down oil’s latest move before CSIS’s Clayton Seigel and Clearview Energy’s Kevin Book take a deeper look at supply dynamics, geopolitical risk and what could push crude higher or pull it back. Oracle earnings give investors the state of cloud demand and AI infrastructure spending; Patrick Walravens of Citizens JMP breaks down the numbers. Tim Hayes, Chief Global Investment Strategist at Ned Davis Research, evaluates the broader market backdrop and explains how positioning may shift from here. Michael Froman, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, analyzes rising tensions with Iran and what they could mean for global markets. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The bell's bringing in end to the training day at the NYSC. Bungi ringing the closing bell at the Nazak Saki for South Asian survivors doing the honors. Welcome to closing bell overtime. We are live from Studio B at the NASAC market site. I'm Melissa Lee along with Mike Santoli. Sox basically flat. The downtown about 80 points, S&B 500 off less than half a percent. But that does not tell the story of what a very wild market day it was.

Well, oil, the big driver of the market action, it did end up down about eight, almost nine percent, had been even lower. for part of the afternoon, but came back as the White House said, the Navy did not escort a tanker through the Strait of Hormuz. There was a prior tweet that it had done so, much more on this huge and fast-moving story coming up. And about a flat day, a little bit worse than flat for the S&P, it probably shows more confusion and indecision than anything else. It's really a tricky one, because you could make the plausible case coming into today that we know the moment of maximum uncertainty is when you're supposed to be a buyer, or not a seller. Whether the complete panic surge in crude overnight Sunday was that moment

or not is the big question. I do think you could look at the way the market has acted in the last week and say, hey, maybe we just had to rebalance some of the most extended parts of the market. Foreign stocks came in much more than U.S. stocks. Semis and software kind of corrected a little bit. You saw the equal weight kind of come back to the pack for the S&P. I'm not saying that's definitely a done deal and we're off to the races. But it really is interesting how the market wants to cling to this possibility. Yeah. I mean, I think what is important that's happened in the past few days alone is that we've gotten a glimpse at maximum pain, which is that Sunday night trade, a hundred crude at 120. And then we got a glimpse today a couple of hours ago at

what the markets could look like should there be oil moving through. Should the worst of the crude situation be priced in? Maybe that will give comfort for traders, for investors to stay sort of where we are within this sort of range that we found. For sure. And I think it's easy to get lost in the complexity and how much we don't know. I do think what's on the market's mind is what happened last April, which was the moment of maximum uncertainty and damage was Liberation Day. And then the 90-day pause on those tariffs was a few days later. That was the bottom in the market.

But there still were many unanswered questions, right? We still didn't know if we're going to have these deals. we still didn't know how many trick tariffs are going to be imposed. The market just took the bit and ran, though. So that's the thing. I mean, I know that that's probably the best possible outcome, but the market has not wanted to miss that opportunity this time. So maybe that's the trap, is thinking we're going to have that again.

FOMO again. You're missing out on that bottom, despite the uncertainty. Yep, that has prevailed for sure. Well, let's turn to the big story of the day. Those wild swings in oil, as crude posted, its worst day since March of 2022. Pippa Stevens has been followed. following all of the action. Hi, Pippa.

Hey, Mac. It was a wild day with WTI settling at 8345 after a nearly $15 round trip from high to low amid updates about the situation in the Strait of Hormuz. The latest is CNN reporting last hour that Iran has begun laying mines in the strait, after which President Trump said on truth social, quote, we have no reports of them doing so. If for any reason mines were placed and they are not removed forthwith, the military consequences to Iran will be at a level. never seen before.

Now that follows earlier conflicting reports about whether or not the U.S. Navy has escorted ships through the Strait of Hormuz with White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt saying it has not. I can confirm that the U.S. Navy has not escorted a tanker or a vessel at this time, though, of course, that's an option the president has said he will absolutely utilize if and when necessary at the appropriate time. Now, those comments came after since deleted post on X from Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the U.S. Navy had successfully escorted a tanker through the Strait of Formuz that sent WTI to its session low of 7683. It then bounced you see there after a CBS report that U.S. intelligence assets have begun to see indications Iran is taking steps to deploy mines in the strait using smaller crafts that can carry two to three mines each. Now, zooming out, you can see how reactionary crude is.

Always really trading on the headlines now. You see that dip there after that since deleted Secretary Right Post. We also saw a leg lower after the IEA earlier announced an extraordinary meeting. And that follows yesterday when a tweet from CBS said that President Trump had said that the war would be over very soon. Of course, following that surge at the open of trading on Sunday evening to $1 to $119.48. So the whole round trip from Sunday evening to now is 4275 guys just showing. really how headline driven this market is right now. Is there any thinking as to what is really behind this extreme volatility?

Because we're not just talking about volatility. We are talking about volatility that we have not seen before PIPP. When we're talking about, for instance, Sunday, 122, you know, 85 or so, and then in today's session, for instance. Well, one thing is that retail traders are now looking at this. Vanda Research, which has followed that group really closely, said that oil looks like it's now been memeified. But I think also with it so squarely in the headstrong,

We are seeing outsized positions on either side that are now some of those margin calls are being forced. And so that's leading to some of this volatility. But also, there is just such a lack of understanding about what exactly is happening in the straight. We've seen some reports that ships are getting through and some other reports that they're not. And so there really is a lot of unknowns here that seems to be driving this. But really, we have never seen swings like this. And honestly, it kind of harkens back to when WTI turned negative in April of 2020 during the start of the pandemic. And that's kind of the last time we saw a trading of this activity. But of course,

still a lot of unknowns here. And the fact that WTI is still down here 9% following that report that Iran has begun laying minds does suggest that maybe there's still questions about whether or not that will come, that will actually pan out. All right. PIPA, thanks. PIPA Stevens. So what will it take for oil to stabilize? Joining us now is Clayton Siegel Energy Security Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, along with Kevin Vogue, head of research at Clearview Energy Partners. Thank you both for joining us. Great to have you with us. Clayton, I'll pose that question to you. What do we need to see for oil? Do we need to see that ships are moving through the Strait of Hormuz? Yeah, there's really no substitute, Melissa,

to having the restoration of those energy flows, 20 million barrels a day of oil, 10 billion cubic feet of liquefied natural gas from the Gulf region to world markets. I think everyone understands that those flows need to be restored for economic prosperity, the war against inflation, etc. But right now, the oil market is just trading truth social, right? When the president talks about demanding unconditional surrender, and it sounds like it's going to be a longer war, we go up to 120. When he comes back a day or two later and says maybe we're winding things down, it seems like a shorter war, we give it all back and more, and we're down in the 80s. So I think that for the financial oil market, now that the physical oil market is a bit tighter,

That's where refiners are really having to worry about scrambling to make sure that they're not short of physical supplies. But in the paper market, in the futures market, we're going to see this kind of volatility until we have a clear direction on when those exports are going to be resumed. Do we know how many days we've got left, Kevin? And I ask that because basically everybody said the longer the conflict goes on, the more dire are the consequences. That's effectively the message that Saudi Aramco, for instance, was transmitting today. but in terms of, you know, countries that are really dependent on LNG, for instance, for their electricity, how many days do we have until things really go awry when it comes to supply chains, for instance? Melissa, duration is destiny, and that's still true.

I think that, first of all, we're starting to see shut-ins in the Gulf producer states. That means that when it's over, it's still not over right away. We still have some time before facilities shut down gracefully, maybe days to weeks, come back on stream. Cargoes on the open sea have been there for weeks, some on route to destinations, some perhaps accelerated by sanctions relief yet to follow, but those are limited and exhaustible. And so we're looking at something inside of a couple of weeks where the in-process inventories have been delivered and refiners are cutting runs. We're already starting to see some reports of run cuts in Asia.

I think we'll start to see more if we don't get molecules flowing again soon. Clayton, short of some kind of reliable cessation of hostilities where you basically have assumed safe passage through the street, are any of these kind of backup measures promising at all, whether it's the insurance guarantees or the naval escorts? Hey, Mike, you know, I think that the measures that are being bandied about can help, but they're really just a bridge. They're buying us a little bit more time to get the bottleneck reopen. And that's really all we can help. hope for for measures like drawing down strategic reserves, maybe backstopping insurance. The thing there with the insurance, it's worth doing because we need to know whether the ship owners and operators are even willing to take the risk of going through the street once they have new insurance contracts in place that cover the higher war risk. Like you and I both have auto insurance, right?

But if I know that somebody's going to be shooting at my car, that's probably not going to be enough to get me out under the streets. I want to know that it's safe. That's the condition that we have now for probably 80 to 90 to 10. tankers that are full of oil in the Gulf, and they're not going to move until they feel like it's safe, not just that their insurers are going to be made whole. And Kevin, yeah, go ahead, please. You're just the next leg in the story could be naval mines. There are reports and also denials that mines are being placed in the strait.

The new generation of mines could be a little bit harder to remediate than those in the 80s during the tanker war. And so I think Clay's question is absolutely down to it. They could take away the impediments to safe passage, and you still may not get safe passage if there's something else stopping you. Is there any way to... And here's... Yeah, Clay. Yeah, I was just going to comment, you know, building on my friend Kevin's thesis here,

that we haven't seen the Iranians play a lot of the cards that they could play. And so we haven't seen any ship missiles. We haven't seen the mines. We haven't seen speedboats and gunships. And we haven't seen drones really going after the big super tankers. So are they keeping their power? or dry, or have we really neutralized all these capabilities? And the thing about putting so much eggs in the basket of when the Trump administration decides

to end major combat operations is the enemy gets a vote. So what if they're not willing to stop the war when we are? That should be a big question for traders. And Kevin, I mean, the oil market in its wisdom of the last 48 hours has traded anywhere from 120 to like 77 on WTI, right? So what does the price right now tell you, if you can estimate it all, about what the duration of this physical tightness period is going to be and how much disruption there's going to be? Is there a trade to be made around where we are finishing up today? Michael, our contention in our note last night is that probably the sell-off is a little overdone, given the level of risk that's still in the offing for Clay's comments.

And if you work backwards from a price elasticity of demand, which is sort of an economist's game, but it's, at this point, trying to really price risk in the market is probably better solved this way. You've at $90 a barrel. You've already got between 4 and 15 or 16 million barrels per day of disruption implied relative to the local minimum on January 7th when risk started to run up. So is the market pricing all of the risk? Well, it's pricing a lot of it, but maybe not all of it. All right. Clayton, Kevin, thanks.

Appreciate it. You've got to get to Oracle. The shares are popping after hours up 7%. See, Moody's got the numbers. earnings. Seema. Hey, Melissa, third quarter results from Oracle coming in better than expected. It's a nine cent beat on its bottom line.

Revenue ahead of consensus at 17.19 billion. And then if you break down revenue, cloud and software revenue come in above expectations. Cloud revenue at $8.91 billion. That is up 44% year over year. Also looking at guidance, revenue guidance being raised for 2027. One metric back to the third quarter remaining performance obligations coming in at 553. billion dollars. That is slightly light than the $556 billion that the street was anticipating, but it is higher than what the company reported last quarter of $523 billion, although I would point

out that the pace of growth in RPO did slow a bit from last quarter. Nonetheless, it's a higher number than last quarter, which does suggest that demand is continuing to accelerate. We're looking at the stock up here by around 6% in overtime. I would also point out that short-term deferred revenue came in a bit light. Now we look to the earnings call, which begins in about 45 minutes, guys, and the questions are going to be around the revenue performance obligation, its backlog, how much is tied to open AI. And newer customers like Nvidia and META, I would also point out financing. That's been a big concern for Oracle following that $50 billion debt and equity financing. The company says they do not expect to issue any additional bonds beyond the amount in calendar year 2026.

They also point out, remember that $50 billion deal included debt and equity. We have not yet initiated the at-the-market equity portion of the financing program. the pace of dilution, that's going to be a key point as well, or question, I should say, when the call begins at 5 p.m. Eastern. Guys, more as we get it. For sure. Do we get any numbers on CAPEX, FEMA? I don't see any numbers on CAPEX, but from my recollection, last time that was a point

that co-founder Larry Elson and management did address on the call. So I think we are going to look for more numbers there on how much more is expected to spend on his data center commitments, especially around Stargate. A lot of questions around its status of its $300 billion deal. with Open AI, although the company has come out over the last three days saying those projects are on track and on schedule. All right. Yeah, I wonder if the stock is also reacting to what you just said there about no more issuance

of debt. Yes, I think that's huge. And that they have not yet used the equity offering facility. And the CAPEX is expected to be increased year on year to 66 billion for 2027 fiscal year, $78 billion for $28, but if they're not, if they don't have to issue bonds to finance whatever's left in the pike for $26 and for 27 maybe, then that's. That's a real plus. And they can have that backlog kind of sweep into revenue eventually.

Yeah, that's the whole goal. All right, well, let's turn back to the markets. That move lower in oil, helping to keep the market stable, but we did close off the highs. Our next guest says the market is echoing 2022's Russia-Ukraine shock in some ways with a similar leadership split happening in the market. Those similarities, perhaps making them a little bit cautious on equities and bullish on gold. Joining me now is Tim Hayes, chief global investment strategist at Ned Davis Research. Tim, I noted you're pointing this out last week in terms of, you know, you had this February invasion in both 2022 and this year.

The market had already been coming off a kind of tech-centric kind of a mode into the new year. What else are you seeing? And I guess, how does that suggest things might play out from here? Well, there's been a lot of discussion about, you know, the volatility, which, of course, we saw, again, play out today. And the OVX, which is a measure of oil volatility, actually had made extremely high levels on the decline in 2020, but even in 2021, it was rising. And that sort of coincided with an overall increase in volatility that sent the VIX to above 28 in late 2021. And what tends to happen to volatility is you can, you know, usually that first wave of volatility is sort of a preview of more volatility. volatility that will follow. And that's what we saw. We saw three higher highs in early 2022.

As volatility picked up on certainty, increased breadth of the market worsened, that's what we're seeing now. And actually, we've seen some of the worst breadth numbers based on the percentage of markets and sectors of other 50-day moving averages since we saw going into last April's decline. So we are continuing to follow many, many things that we saw during that time. I guess one counter would be obviously the absolute levels of inflation or nowhere near where they were headed to in 2022. You also had, you know, the Fed embarking on a pretty aggressive tightening campaign at that point. So how tightly are you expecting things to track from here? Well, I think that's the way to approach it right now, is to see, you know, the markets, you know, had yet to see these developments, one of which I'm looking, I mentioned volatility tends to be correlated, will look at bond volatility.

And if bond yields would say break out above 5% with rising volatility, you're likely to see even more volatility and equities. And this would be a sign that actually inflation expectations had started to become a negative influence on the markets. And what will tend to happen. That's what we saw in 2022 is eventually we started to see evidence that the inflationary pressures were starting to be a problem for policy. And the central banks are going to have to start raising rates. And then this changed for, earnings expectations, earnings momentum, the earnings beat rate started to decline. That's actually something we've already started to see.

The beat rate on a momentum basis has actually turned slightly negative. That's a change from what we've been seeing over the past year. And then ultimately, the economic numbers followed. And that's usually the sequence. You're going to see the volatility, the market you run into trouble. The expectation, the sentiment's going to reverse, and expectations are going to come down. And these revisions are going to reverse. And we'll see if that follows that same script.

It sounds, Tim, like you're on stack inflation watch. Are you? Yeah. I think that's a good way to describe it. And, you know, it started back then with the supply chain pressures. And then, you know, the same thing here. It's kind of a different problem. It's not Ukraine.

I mean, it's a ram. I mean, it's the Gulf, it's Hormuz. But it's the same type of a negative, potentially negative influence on inflationary pressures. And then that leading into the, that negative impact on the economy, and then that changes the outlook for earnings expectations, and then that can get some market into a bigger decline. So, you know, I'm not predicting that. I mean, I think that's the concern here, and I'm watching the indicators pretty carefully as a result. All right, Tim, always great to speak with you. Thank you, Tim Hayes, Ned Davis research.

We have some breaking news out of the Department of Energy. Pippa Stevens has got that. PIPA. Hey, Melissa, they're finally getting some clarity here on that since deleted post from Secretary, with a DOE spokesperson saying that the post was deleted after it was determined to be incorrectly captioned by Department of Energy staff. The spokesperson added that President Trump, Secretary Wright, and the rest of the president's energy team are closely monitoring the situation, speaking with industry leaders, and having the U.S. military drop additional options to keep the Strait of Hormuz open, reiterating the potential for the Navy escort, for the U.S. Navy to escort tankers.

If necessary, that post from Secretary right earlier did send WTI to a session low of 7683. Guys? PIPA, thanks, Pippa Stevens. We continue to watch Oracle shares popping after that earnings be coming up and analysts to react to the numbers, what it means for the AI trade. You're watching Closing Bell overtime, live from the NASAC market site. Let's get back to Sima Moni for more in Oracle's results. Well, it's a pretty lengthy press release here on earnings, Melissa.

And as we dig through, there's some new comments here on that revenue guidance for fiscal year 2027. They say that some of the largest consumers of AI cloud capacity have recently strengthened their financial positions quite substantially. These market dynamics enable Oracle to comfortably meet and likely exceed our revenue growth forecast for fiscal year 2027. Guys, they're basically referring to Open AI and its latest fundraising round and saying after that fundraising round, they now feel much more comfortable about their revenue targets. I think that is encouraging for the street as we wait for that earnings call to begin, guys. All right, Seema, thank you. Seema Modi.

Let's bring in Citizens' Head of Technology Equity Research, Patrick Walravens. He's got a buy rating on the stock. Patrick, great to have you with us. Thank you so much for having me. Why do you think the stock's up 8%? You know, because the results are pretty good. So revenue accelerated nicely to 18% up from 13% last quarter. The all-important OTI metric Oracle Cloud infrastructure, that grew 81% up from 66. and CAPX was a little high, you know, 19 versus 14, but Oracle told you that they're sticking

with their guidance of $50 billion for the year. So, I mean, big picture, I think what investors want to see from Oracle is they want to see Oracle deliver a clear and coherent strategy and execute against it. And it seems like they did that this quarter. We need to wait and see what they say on the call. Patrick, we were talking about the company's assertion that it will not have to issue further debt this year has not tapped its common equity issuance facility. We know there was some convertibles in there that they've already sold. But is that something that there was suspense about? In other words, is the street embracing that as a positive?

You know, it's interesting because I talked to some of the debt investors. I would say the equity investors are worried about it, right? And so one of the pieces of pushback you get from equity investors is, oh, no, they're going to have to do this again next year. But then when I talked to some of people who participate in the debt deal, they said, We know they're going to do it again next year, and we're looking forward to participating in that one, too. So I think they'll be okay, and I think it comes back to the point of they just need to tell us what they're going to do and execute against it and lay out a clear, you know, understanding for investors because there's plenty of demand. They have great products, and they just need to put pieces together in a way that investors can follow.

I mean, that often is the case, though. I mean, a corporate bond investor just wants the money back and the interest. they don't really care if the money is invested at a high rate of return. Yeah, so not my area of expertise. Yeah. But I will say that I think that they went a long way by raising the $30 billion, and then they still have the $20 billion ATM. And then just having the KAPX number for this year still be what they said it would be last quarter.

I also think of the wrong way. In terms of the Texas Status Center, which last week, there were reports that they would not, you know, that they were, going to expand it. And Oracle, of course, came out over the weekend and said, we're fulfilling the entire contract. The media's got it wrong, et cetera. Are there any questions, though, about it not being expanded, that there is, in some sense, that lack of additional demand on top of what was already contracted and fulfilled? Yeah, I think it tells you a couple things. So first of all, my understanding was that, you know, the contract, I think, was for 1.2 gigawatts, and then for 1.4.

And then there was the additional part, which hadn't actually been contracted for yet, and that Open AI decided not to do that, the additional part. I guess point number one is, I think as investors, we can all agree that Oracle has enough Open AI exposure already. Right. So I think that's the first thing. Yeah, I think we can all agree on that. And then secondly, you know, we just want to see them deliver against what they promised to give to Open AI. And so, you know, in this case, I think Oracle came out last night and they posted on X that they had 200, of the 200 megawatts up and running and delivering,

and so we're going to want to see them keep moving forward with that. But honestly, I'm okay with them not increasing their exposure to Open AI at this point. Yeah, probably fair to say the street's okay with that as well at this point. Patrick, thanks very much. My pleasure. Thank you, Mark. Appreciate it. 2026 is supposed to be the year of the IPO, thanks to names like SpaceX and OpenAI.

Coming up, we'll look at whether the problems in private credit could affect the expected IPO boom. Stay with it. Welcome back to overtime private credit names mostly lower in today's market. Blue Al losing more than 3%. It's combining with Blackstone to acquire a minor stake in a private equity firm Atlas Holdings. This, of course, comes at a rough time for the private credit space. All these names losing at least a quarter of their value so far this year. And Mike, you actually think this could have an impact on what was supposed to be a very good IPO year. Or yes, reflects a little bit of financial tightening in the capital markets that maybe is going

close the window a little bit for IPOs. Of course, this can change, but this is the S&P 500, obviously, over the last six months, although with PSP is an ETF that holds all of the private equity, private credit, alternative asset managers. And this is the recent IPO, ETF, Renaissance IPO. So that's the same chart. And you're seeing that there's just less of risk appetite attached to these companies that depend on capital markets activity. Last year, we had something similar. We thought it was going to be a big year for issuance. Now, the markets now are accepting all the investment-grade corporate debt anybody wants to issue, including Amazon today. Today was a huge day. And so it's not as if the markets are shot, but I do think we're kind of

shadowed by this idea that we have these absolutely massive private companies that think they're going to access to public markets at the same time that maybe we're wondering whether the applications there for that kind of thing. I mean, today I think it was $66 billion in investment-grade corporate. I mean, that's a tremendous number. PSP, I wasn't familiar with this one. A lot of overseas private credit names, interestingly, in this one. Yes, exactly. It's very wide ranging. It's not necessarily targeted on things like the Blue Owls that we watch

all the time of the Ares. But yeah, it's a pretty big asset class coming out of nowhere. Time now for our CNBC News Update with Julia Borson. Julia. Melissa, in addition to the seven U.S. service members killed in action during the war with Iran, the Pentagon today announced more casualty numbers, saying

140 U.S. troops have been wounded so far, including eight who were severely injured and 108 who returned to duty. A federal judge blocked AI startup perplexity from accessing Amazon to scrape the e-commerce site. Perplexity's comment browser allowed shoppers to ask its AI assistant to find items on Amazon and make purchases. Amazon sued perplexity back in November. Perplexity called the lawsuit a bully tactic. And GOP Senator Tom Tillis renewed his threat today to block the nomination of Kevin Warsh to succeed Jerome Powell at the Fed, telling CNBC,

there's nothing Warsh could say that would change his mind. Tilla says he's blocking all Federal Reserve nominees until the Department of Justice wraps up its probe into Powell for alleged misconduct in the renovation project at the Fed. Back over to you, Melissa. Julia, thanks, Julie Borson. Coming up much more on this wild trading day, including the latest from the White House on how and when we could see an end to the conflict with Iran. Stay with us. Welcome back to closing bell overtime. Live from the NASDAQ market site. It was another wild day of trading on Wall Street, as stocks lost all midday gains to end lower. Christina Partsenevos has the highlights. Christina.

Mike, stocks really just couldn't hold gains like you talked about with the S&P finishing relatively flat. Its third negative session in four. Oil, of course, was the story. You guys have been all over at the WTI crude settled in down nearly 12 percent hitting an intraday low of 76, 73. It's the worst single day drop since March 2022 and the first down day in eight sessions. The S&P energy sector is also down 12 percent since the war actually began. The NASDAQ did close in positive territory for a second straight day.

And for the first time in 12 sessions, it didn't actually swing at least 1% higher or lower. Now, for movers, drone maker, aeroviron environment, under pressure after the bell, they just posted earnings, they missed on their EPS, on revenue and their guidance for the second straight quarter. That's why you're seeing shares down about 9% in after hours trading.

Cancer, immunotherapy maker, Bioentech, closed 17% lower after reporting. a net loss, guidance that was weaker, and the big news, that a departure of both co-founders, they're going to launch a new startup. And last but not least, Solar Edge, pop in about 10% on a Bank of America upgrade. The analyst citing a return to a leading U.S. inverter market share for this company, and that's why shares closed 10% higher guys. All right, Christina, thanks, Christina Parts Nevelas. The White House giving new details on the conflict in Iran.

Amon Javis got the details. Hi, Amen. Hey there, Melissa. A couple of new social media posts from the president indicating some concern about mines in the Strait of Hormuz. Here's what the president has to say. In the most recent post, he says, I am pleased to report that within the last few hours, we have hit and completely destroyed 10 inactive mine-laying boats and or ships with more to follow.

The president also said in an earlier post today, Iran, if Iran has put out any mines in the strait of Hormuz, and we have no reports of them doing so, we want them removed immediately if for any reason mines were placed, and they are not removed forthwith. The military consequences to Iran will be at a level, never seen before. If, on the other hand, they remove what may have been placed,

it will be a giant step in the right direction. The president goes on to say, we're using the same technology and missile capabilities as deployed against drug traffickers to permanently eliminate any boat or ship attempting to mine the Hormuz straight. They will be dealt with quickly and violently, the president says.

And guys, I just want to flag for you a comment from White House Press Secretary Caroline because it, I think the significance of this is that it indicates the White House is trying to preserve as much latitude as they can for the president's decision to end this conflict with Iran. The president had said he wants unconditional surrender from Iran, but today Caroline Levitt sort of redefined what unconditional surrender actually means. Here's what she said. Well, when President Trump says that Iran is in a place of unconditional surrender, he's not claiming the Iranian regime is going to come out.

and say that themselves. What the president means is that Iran's threats will no longer be backed by a ballistic missile arsenal that protects them from building a nuclear bomb in their country. I could make an empty threat, but if I have no actions to back it up, then it's an empty threat. So the argument Levitt is making there is that unconditional surrender doesn't depend on the Iranians actually surrendering. It depends on the president determining that they're in a state of of surrender based on military defeat and destruction of military capability. So I think that is important to know just because it gives the president the ability to determine that really at any point.

That's the maximum flexibility that the president had getting into the war and clearly flexibility he wants to preserve potentially getting out of it at some point. We don't know when that point's going to be. Flexibility, but at the same time, Eamon yesterday at that press conference in Miami, he said victory will be defined by effectively Iran not being able to, you know, make a nuclear weapon from that day forward. So that seems to be sort of a very specific, which comes at odds to maximum flexibility. Yeah, but, you know, yes, but the president has said that in the past, right? Remember the strikes on the Iranian nuclear facility over the

summer, after which the president said Iranian nuclear capability was totally obliterated. And now here we are, you know, about six months later, the president said they've been reconstituting that nuclear ability. So the president can assert that the ability to produce a nuclear weapon has been completely obliterated and then assert later that they're attempting to reconstitute it without really contradicting himself, according to the White House. Amen, thank you. Amon Jabbers. Let's say what the Iran war. Next guest says, ending the war isn't entirely up to the United States or President Trump. Joining us now, Council on Foreign Relations President and former U.S. Trade Representative Michael Frumman.

Michael, great to have you with us. I mean, it takes two to tango, and it all depends on what Iran does in response. The new leadership in Iran, I would say, I would dare to say, probably doesn't have any desire to negotiate with the U.S. on any level, considering he is a son of the former leader, and his entire family was basically killed by the United States in these strikes. No, I think that's right. We have to expect that he's going to be another radical leader. And on the U.S. side, there are military objectives, their political objectives to be achieved, and the president can decide when to declare victory with regard to those objectives. But as you said, it takes two to tango. And Iran, the enemy always has a vote in whether a conflict comes to an end or not.

Iran can always decide to retaliate at the time and place and the manner of its choosing. It's something we're going to have to be very much on guard about going forward. There's a couple of flashpoints that you're watching. And one of them, Michael, is whether or not the U.S. to seize the enrichment program. And I'm wondering, you know, are we going to, what are you watching for specifically? So there's this 450 kilograms of enriched uranium, 60% enriched uranium, which is not necessarily enough to be put on a missile incant, not enriched enough to that level, but it can still make

several bombs that could be used against its neighbors, against Israel, and others. And so if the president wants to make sure that Iran can never possess, a nuclear weapon, it's got to deal with, we've got to deal with those 450 kilograms of enriched uranium. We don't know exactly where they all are, allegedly. And to get it out, it would probably take boots on the ground of some sort or another, whether it's special forces and other forces, something much more significant than we saw in Venezuela and something much more significant than we're seeing now in terms of not just attacks from the air, but attacks on the ground as well.

Michael, in the early days of the war, obviously just last week, there was a lot of talk of when Iran might be depleted in terms of its capacity to strike its neighbors, its drone fleet, things like that. Do we have any reliable reads on exactly what is left? Certainly the U.S. and Israeli strikes have greatly depleted their capability, as has their use of their arsenal. And attacks have gone down something like 90% from the first couple days of this phase of the conflict. But we don't have a very good sense yet of how much more they have left in their arsenal. They had thousands of ballistic missiles and cruise missiles and also, of course, drones. And we've shot down a lot. They've shot, we've destroyed a lot of their capacity to build new missiles.

But we don't have a very good sense yet of how close they're getting to be to actually. actually running out. From Iran's standpoint, Michael, do you think that they have seen sort of the threshold of pain the administration is willing to endure in this conflict, seeing that the administration is already looking for ways to ease higher oil prices, which haven't, according to a lot of oil animals, actually gone as high as maybe one would think, given what is going on in the stride of four moves and what is going on with production being shut in? As we've seen, the prices went up briefly up to almost $120.

Now they're back down to about 90, which is still about a 45% increase over where they were at the beginning of the year, but down from the peak. And as you said, depending on what happens in the Strait of Hormuz, what happens with oil that actually gets shut in, which is hard to restart again, we could see higher oil prices there as well. You know, in terms of the pain level, the president has made clear he wants to sort of get this done once and for all. And it will depend in large part on how much longer this takes and whether there are market reactions that put some sort of constraints on him. But as of now, he continues to be very focused on sinking their Navy, making sure they don't have the capacity to protect a nuclear program, dealing with their missile and drones, and dealing with their proxies. And so those issues are still very much the focus of the military action. And Michael, quickly, you said Iran obviously has a vote as to whether this war ends. What about Israel?

Is the U.S. and Israel aligned in terms of what the objectives are and when it might be accomplished? I think they're not exactly overlapping in all of their objectives. I think, you know, as the administration has laid out, and we had Bridge Colby here last week from the Pentagon, you know, our objectives are to make sure Iran cannot exercise power out. outside of Iran through proxies, a nuclear program, a missile program, or its Navy. Israel appears to have an additional set of objectives around regime change and perhaps destruction of the Iranian state. The U.S. wouldn't object necessarily to regime change, but it doesn't appear to be the primary objective of our military action versus Israel's.

Michael, we're going to leave it there. Thank you. Thank you. Michael Kramer. Oracle shares are surging after hours on strong earnings and guidance up next. Guy Adom, you will join us. Tell us how he is trading the stock. Plus, find out how he is playing the memory stocks, which are among the biggest winners in the S&P 500 today. Closing bell overtime, live from the NASDAQ market side. Be right back. Welcome back to overtime. Shares of Oracle continue higher in the aftermarket trade up 8% on its earnings report. The company reporting a beat on EPS and revenue raised its sales and revenue outlook for fiscal 2027. Oracle saying it's released that demand for cloud computing for AI training and inference is continuing to grow faster than supply.

So how do you play the stock? Joining us as Risk Reversal, co-founder, Fast Money, Trader, the one and only. Guy Adani. I love being with you, guys. And we love being with you. The conference call starts in about 12 minutes time. So a lot can change. A lot can change.

But what do we want to hear? Well, I think Mike sort of hit on it about 20 minutes or so ago when they said no more debt issuances for 2026. And I think the market should breathe a collective sigh relief just on the back of that alone. Now, we'll talk about you were saying the out years and CAPX and those types of things. Given the market move in the stock over the since September 10th, when it traded up to 350 or so, the stock has been more than cut in half-ish. You've got to say to yourself, a relief rally on this quarter makes a little bit of sense.

And it goes back to the last time the three of us chatted. We thought the IGV could potentially put in a short-term bottom. This does nothing to change my view on that. Yeah, it's interesting because it's obviously in there. It is software, but it's not really the part of software that AI is thought to attack necessarily. 100% agree. Oracle, it's its own story without question. But if you can get a bounce here in Oracle, you know, we heard what Salesforce said a couple weeks ago with their huge stock buyback that I think the market should take some relief on, you know, some of these other washed out names seemingly

finding a bottom. It suggests that maybe in terms of sentiment, at least, the worst is over. Now, I don't think the fundamentals have changed all that much, but it's just a relief rally that I think people are waiting for for quite some time is right, I think, happening before our eyes. The one-year chart of Oracle is amazing. It's just a mountain. symmetrical right down to before where it had that big ramp on the opening eyes. Real quick. I mean, think about the enthusiasm around Oracle on September 10th. I mean, everybody talking about Oracle's software, how AI was this tremendous tailwind for software

and how quickly that turned. And as much optimism there was four or five months ago, whenever that is, that's how much pessimism is around now. So we shouldn't have been that enthusiastic in September. I don't think we should be that pessimistic now. The Terry on top of the Oracle story, though, would be diversification. of client base, 100%. And I don't necessarily think you're going to get that.

You're going to hear about RPO's up 483% year over year. I think that's somewhat misleading because it necessary wasn't a thing. But I think there are about $30 billion quarter over quarter, which is significant. But it would be nice to hear about a customer base that's widening out a little bit. Yeah. What do you make of the memory names? You saw a lot of them surge in today's session. There are some supply chain concerns when it comes to SK Hinex, Samsung,

the Asian memory makers because of what's going on in the Strait of Hormwood. And it's right to point that out. And what do I make of it? I mean, people say it's different this time in terms of the cyclicality being gone. It's this sort of now secular growth story. Maybe that's true. But you bring up, I think you both have talked about it, the right point. The cost that associated with this are going to be significant.

And are they able to pass it on? I mean, there's a knock-on effect of this, I think, is something worth watching. now. People will say this is a, it's a new paradigm shift, but I know historically with these memory names, very cyclical, very commoditized, maybe they have more of a moat than they did historically, but the move to me suggests something entirely different. Guy, see you soon. In about eight minutes. Exactly.

It's been fun for me. Guy, Dami. All right. See in a bet. The latest reading on inflation will be released tomorrow. Up next, we'll tell you what economists are expecting and run through some of the key names reporting earnings tomorrow as well. And as we had to a break, take a look at some notable stocks hitting 52-week lows today.

They include Campbell's, General Mills, Flowers, Foods, Planet Fitness, and U-Haul. Over time, we'll be right back. Let's get you set up with tomorrow's trade today. It is a light day in the earnings calendar with just Campbell's U.I Path, Bumble and Petco reporting results. And on the economic front, we'll get the latest reading on inflation. With the February consumer price index, economists expecting the CPI to rise, 2.4% year-over-year, excluding food and energy costs. The core CPI is seen increasing 2.5% year over year.

But as we are saying in the break, it's probably the most inconsequential CPI reading that we've had in a long time because of what's going on with the rock. It's just a snapshot of the before times before we get this massive spike and whatever's going to flow through to overall inflation. Although it does kind of highlight how the Treasury market has been very unreactive in general to everything going on in the short-term swings in oil. Obviously more volatility in the stock market. And it's just kind of priced for this general range to hang around there. And I guess maybe that's a wait and see Fed, not really changing on that front. I also had to remark on the fact that, so today's decline and crude, the largest since 2022, so four years. And yet it only brought us back to where we were five days ago.

Five days. Yeah. I mean, we were in this area just in middle of last week. So it does kind of show you how much ground we've covered in a maybe unproductive way so far. All right. Well, that's going to do it for overtime today. Fast money begins right after this quick break.