Import prices are sky-high. Why?

We'll do data today because sometimes you got a better up, it's opening day, and hey,

“how have you been sleeping, from American public media, this is MarketFlight.”

[Music]

In Los Angeles, some kind of result, it is Wednesday today, 25 March, good as it always is,

everybody to have you along. The data point of choice today is a tidbit from the Bureau of Labor statistics called the U.S. import and export price indexes. It's the import side of that equation that's of most interest to us in February, those prices increased 1.3%, that's more than anybody had been guessing, and the biggest monthly increase since March of 2022, year over year, the increase also 1.3%, MarketFlight's is Christian Trob gets his going with the why and the

wherefore. One funny thing about this data on import prices, says orange clatchkin, an economist at nationwide, is it shows the price of goods before businesses pay tariffs? But all of the kind of

secondary effects, if you will, all of the knock-on effects of tariffs, these are all visible

in the data. Businesses front-loaded inventory and shifted supply chains to avoid the highest taxes, and because of the uncertainty tariffs caused, the value of the dollar has fallen. These are all things that make imports more expensive. Then there's a seasonal quirk. We just had a really cold winter. Laura Velkamp is an economist at Columbia University. She says demand for heating, pushed fuel import prices up 3.8% from the month before, and that trickled down into the price of other imports.

You might not think that oil was used in the production of an apple. But whether you're talking about a honey crisp from Canada or a gala from New Zealand, we needed fuel to get that apple from the tree where it was grown into your supermarket. This is the part of the story where we acknowledge the big elephant in the room. This import price data is from before the war started, and the price of crude has been hanging out above $90 lately. Each war presod, a professor of trade policy at

Cornell, Warren's February's increased in import prices isn't a one-off event. This is a significant increase that is almost certain to be talked by even hiring increases in the next month at least. Higher import prices don't necessarily translate to higher prices at checkout, but presod says

companies can't always absorb the costs. More than more they have been passing them on to consumers.

Which would drive up inflation? Before the war, Klatschkin at nationwide was thinking inflation would average out around 2.8%. Now, we're looking for headline CPI inflation to average around 4.3% in the second quarter. The hope is it's just a one-time jump in prices. I'm Kristen Schwab from Marketplace. Oh yes, that one-time jump in prices, hope. Wall Street,

“day traders found somewhere in the back and forth about the war. Reason for hope?”

We'll have the details when we do the numbers. [Music] Tariffs have been the macroeconomic through line the past year or so. Well, until three weeks ago, right? Now though, speaking of three weeks ago, a small business is watch energy and uncertainty take unwelcome turns. They've got a whole new set of worries. Christina Stemple is the CEO of

Farmgirl Flower. She is our go-to in the directed to consumer flower business. Christina, welcome back. It's good to have you here. Great to be here. Thanks for having me back. So, I went back and I looked it up. We had you on April the 28th of last year, which was just counting here 26 days since President Trump's tariff producer. And obviously, we talked a lot about tariffs. How was the rest of 20 to 25 for you? Yeah, it's 25. Went well, tariffs were tough,

but just like everybody, you know, we paid more. We had to pass some on. We absorbed some, but because of how we're running, we're just really focused on profitability. We were able to to get through. How are you running? Has business sort of writ large? Business is okay.

“I think. Okay, it's great. Usually you say it's really good. My company's great. I love my company.”

And now you're like, oh, it's fine. I love my company. Of course. I'm of course, I'm sorry, yes. I do. No, no, no. I think everything just seems to be like people know 10% about what the full

It's not trying to get tariff money back. I think most companies won't ever see that, even though

the general population thinks you will. But we'll see what happens. I'm not going to waste time on something that is really outside of my control. So, the biggest fear I have this year or the reason I'm kind of like business is okay. I'm kind of tentative about it is because of the impending fuel surcharge is going to come into fruition right before Mother's Day. So, you know, and

“aimlessly waiting to see what happens there. Yeah, well, let's talk about that for a second, right?”

Because not only are there transportation costs for you, right? Just straight up oil. But fertilizer is a huge issue with the closure of the state of horror movies or the partial closer or however you want to sort of negotiate that. And flowers need fertilizer. Yeah, there's kind of like two things with that. So, the biggest risk is outbound transportation. So, you know, in 2020, we saw our outbound transportation rise from 26% or revenue to 41%.

And it almost put us out of business. This year, you know, we were at sub 20, which was great last year and now we're already back up to about 25, 26%. And if we go up to like 35%, I just ran that scenario

this morning, you know, we would actually lose a million dollars. So, we'd be in business to lose money again.

So, that's the number one risk. I say, the second, I think the second risk is fertilizers. And it's

“more the ripple effect that, you know, you don't think about until you run it, run through the scenarios.”

And so, if we can't afford fertilizers or farms can afford fertilizers, the prices will go up because the yield will be less on the flowers. You know, we raised our prices as high as we possibly could last year without losing a tremendous amount of sales. There's not much more than with we can do raising prices. And I think most small businesses are in the same place. How much running a room do you have here before Mother's Day? My mother's going to tell me when

she hears this. When is Mother's Day again? One more time. It's May. You still have a full month for that. So, you're okay. I do, but you probably don't, right? You don't have a lot of time, it's my point. We do not. We do not. We're already in Mother's Day planning. We've been in for months. So, I just went to the Fielcer Charges to stay at Bay until after Mother's Day. And then I can sleep better. You know, it's funny. We've been talking a while now, you and I. And you are,

and I'm sure somebody's probably told you this. You're a fast talker. And it sort of seems like you're

“going faster today. It's just like, that's the way your life is now. Yeah, it's definitely,”

I feel like there's whiplash constantly. Yeah. And so, you know, I'm trying to do everything I possibly can for what I can control. But when I think back to like 2019, that seemed like a hard year. Like everything seemed hard. We'd been a business almost 10 years at that point. And everything seemed hard. And it's nothing compared to now. Now, I feel like you have to make the same amount of decisions in a month that we used to have to make in a year. Because there's so many out, you know,

external circumstances, you just have to adapt and pivot and, you know, make decisions on the fly without any stability, really. This is not on my business, but are you sleeping all right?

Yeah, I mean, I think if this had happened, you know, when I was in my first five years of the

company, I wouldn't be sleeping at all. But right now, it's like, okay, I would be very tired if I don't. Christine Estample, she's the founder and the CEO of Farmgirl Flower. Christine Estample, she's the sponsor. Thank you so much, bye. Here's one about not counting your economic chickens before they hatch. Back in late February, the 26th to be precise. Freddie Mac reported the average rate on a 30 year fixed mortgage had fallen

ever so slightly to 5.98% the first time and it had been below six in three and a half years. That, however, did not last a week because two days later, the war started and mortgage rates have been rising pretty much ever since topping six and a half percent this week. Marketplace of Mitchell Hartmann takes it from there. 30 year mortgage rates closely track interest rates on tenure treasury notes, which in turn are mainly determined by how much inflation investors think

there's going to be in the economy. And a month ago, heading into spring says isn't walker at the Wharton School. We were hoping as inflation decrease, as tenure interest rates decrease, mortgage rates would get back to a normal range, 5%. But then the Iran war sent energy prices soaring pushing the 30 year mortgage well above six percent. Walker says the shock is already dinging the spring housing market. Mortgage applications for purchasing new homes that will decline.

This will be a Donnybrook for the refine market. Meanwhile says Jeff Dugorean at loan depot. If potential buyers are putting their dollars into the gas pump, they're going to have less

the housing market stall this spring says Jay Hatfield did infrastructure capital advisors.

Six is a critical psychological barrier. We do need that 30 year mortgage to be at six

or below to get a real recovery in housing. And it could take more than that says Richard Green at the U.S. C. Lusk Center for Real Estate. The Netherlands fundamentals in other not terrible, but they're not good either. Green points to economic uncertainty caused by tariffs and war and a weakening job market. With your buying at house, you're not just asking yourself can I make the first payment on it? Am I going to be able to make payments in five years, 10 years?

“And I think people are feeling pretty insecure right now. He says confidence in the economy is key”

to a strong housing market. I'm Mitchell Hartman for Marketplace. We've been keeping track

as you know of the very volatile prices for silver and gold the past couple of months. Gold is down from its late January high of almost $5,600 an ounce. Still though, it's up around 20% compared to six months ago. The investor mindset on that stuff is of course as a safe haven. The way small businesses think about it is very, very different. Here's today's installment of our series "My Economy." My name is Donnie Pakewin. I'm the owner, founder, designer of Agapanthedulary

in Torrance, California. Welcome to the show room. Welcome to the ring bar. This is where we have

“about 30 different styles of rings. Our whole thing is delicate modern layering jewelry so everything”

is made to layer and stack. Everybody gets to be creative. It's very interactive and you know, it makes for lots of good ASMR. So we use primarily sterling silver and 14 karat gold fill. When you say metal's prices, I might blip my shirt prices. At this point, I check daily just to see what kind of hard attack I'm going to have. At first I tried to ignore it and I can't ignore it anymore because we're losing money in our current pricing. It's crazy making because then you see like we

have an earring like this, our Cassidy Hoops have been one of our best sellers for a long time. Now because there's, you know, there's a big chunk of metal on there. I have just repriced them and I almost had a heart attack. I mean, it was like, I think these were about $80 retail. They're now marked down as low as I can do at like $225. I think it's just expensive to exist right now in general.

And I am making a luxury non-essential item. We've always been in a price point that has allowed

us to be affordable for those that still want everybody wants to feel good and they want to feel beautiful and they want to feel confident and they want to feel all the things that our jewelry does

“provide. The worry now, I think, is that are we out of that price range?”

We're thoughts with it. You know, there's part of, I've talked about this a lot with my team and one thing we've talked about is, you know, we do offer 14-current solid as well. And there's sort of this idea of like, do we just double down and go for it and become a fine jewelry brand at this point? If we're going to be paying these prices, our client is now paying gold silver prices that used to be 14-current prices.

Most people doing what I'm doing. We just want to be an artist. I want to make jewelry. I don't want to worry about what the geopolitics are like, no, that's not in my wheelhouse. I also have 22 years under my belt of this and knowing that things go up and down, knowing that things change. Certainly having a lot more cortisol spikes, then I would like in the last several months. You know, I take a lot of walks and I listen to a lot of music.

I just have an attitude of what I'm going to get through this, how it whenever it looks like. That's Donnie Payquena owner of Agapant, the jewelry in Tarns, California. Do let us know

you can do that at MarketPlace.org/mycon.

“Coming up! Room service for breakfast, not through the afternoon, and go back to sleep for the night.”

What's not to like, huh? First though, let's do the numbers.

Down industrial, gained 325 points today, 7,1% 46,429. The Nasdaq added 167 points about a 10% 21,929. This would be 500 to expand it itself, 35 points to the good half percent, 65, and 91. Mitchell Harman mortgages a minute ago, so a mortgage-related stocks why don't we rocket companies based in downtown Detroit, Michigan lifted 8, 10%, so far, had quartered in San Francisco, soured 8, 10% loan depot, based in Irvine, California dropped

2, and 3,4% of one percent. Bond prices, they rose the yield on the 10, your 10,0 down 4.32%, they're listening to MarketPlace. This is MarketPlace, I'm Kai Rizdom.

Opening day is upon us, Major League Baseball starts its 2026 campaign tonight, San Francisco

“Giants hosting the Yankees of New York broadcast exclusively on Netflix, so that.”

And to watch other openers tomorrow, people are going to have to tune in to a whole lot of other places in BC peacock, Apple TV, Fox, to name just some MarketPlace Carola Hover here, looked into the business of the evolving sports broadcasting landscape, full disclosure here, which would tell you, she and I are Yankees fans. Michael Johnson grew up watching New York's second best baseball team,

the Metz, on ESPN with his dad, but now keeping up is a bit more complicated. They're still your traditional TV stations, of course, plus. I watch a lot of highlights and everything through the major sports apps. You know, I tune in when I can to the streaming of a lot of the ends. Johnson, who covers sports at SNP Global Market Intelligence, says viewership across the major

sports leagues has never been higher.

People are piecing together, different streaming subscriptions, and tuning in regardless of different price points and things like that. That's good news for sports leagues, which want to reach as many fans or potential fans as possible. This is Bill Squadron at Elon University. It's very important for the leagues to have as much exposure as possible, and the trade-off,

the balance they have to address is when your on-multiple platforms can people find it, but at the same time you're reaching people who use different platforms. For streaming services, sports do drive and uptick in subscribers, says Brendan Brady at the analytics company antenna. The challenge is keeping them in the off season.

It's quite easy for the consumer to say sign up for the start of the season. And then potentially cancel at the end of the Super Bowl.

“And I think increasingly what we're seeing is almost these program planning and scheduling moves”

in an effort to combat that dynamic. He gives Paramount Plus as an example. After football was over, the service offered UFC and the drama Landman to keep viewers subscribing. Protest rights don't come cheap, but Brady says sports are kind of the closest thing streamers have to a home run. It can be a risky proposition inherently to take a bat on a scripted piece

of programming, right? A net new idea that comes from the brain of some brilliant creator. Something like Live Sports Brady says requires an investment, but already has a built-in audience. For the game and for advertisers, I'm Karla Habeer from Marketplace. I've been off for a couple of weeks, hopefully you notice vacation and then a reporting trip to Vietnam stories from that coming in a couple of weeks.

Anyway, believe me, when I tell you that the jet lag is brutal, I've been home for five days and yet I was still up at 3.15 this morning, which makes this next to interview someone out for a poll, people taking a vacation to sleep. The Tasha Dangoer is an editor at the Wall Street Journalist. You wrote about it the other day. Natasha, it's good to talk to you. Hi, nice to be here. So, do me a favor and just so we all know what we're talking about here.

Sleepcation, to find that for me, would you? Yeah, so a growing number of Jens in Millennials are heading off on a sleepcation for the weekend,

there's no adventure, there's no sightseeing, there's no city tours, it's literally just sleep all night, wake up, room service for breakfast, nap through the afternoon and go back to sleep for the night and start it all over again. Which sounds great in a way. There are a couple of things sort of to touch base on here. Number one, I bet hotels love this because there's nothing less burdensome than I guess that you're stays in the room all the time. Yeah, exactly. I mean, hotels

must be loving it. The guests just stay in their room. They don't need a concierge service, someone they're telling them where they need to go to explore the city, booking the restaurants, et cetera, et cetera. They're literally just in the room sleeping. I mean, at best it's a bit of room service. Right. Aside from that. Now the dream client. It was interesting to me also. We're not talking people going to New York or London or Paris. They're just going sort of out to the suburbs,

sometimes or or some quiet little place just to get away from it all. Yeah, I mean, what's the point going somewhere expensive or far away when you can just go 20 minutes up the road? I mean, ultimately they're just going for the bed rather than anything else. Well, so look, don't they have

“beds at home and why do they have to like spend extra money to do this? Yeah, I think the thing is that”

at home there's always something you can do. You know, you can clean, you can go pick up your

kids. You can, you know, see your friends or do some work. There's always a distraction. Whereas when you're in a hotel room, you're you're more separated from your everyday life. And I think that for a lot of people, you know, in today's day and age, we're all busy, we're all, you know, 100% energy and drive all the time. People are finding enough time for a break. So they're heading on a sleepcation literally just to get away from it all. You mentioned Gen Zs and Millennials, but it's

fundamentally, it's people who work crazy long hours, right? That's who we're talking about. Yeah, I spoke to one nurse who only gets three, four hours of sleep tonight because of her shifts. She's completely exhausted during the week and enjoys going on sleep occasions because it's just a chance to get away from everything. Just to placate the sleep specialists out there and all the sleep medical professionals, it's not and we've been told this forever. It's not like you can

make up for loss sleep just because you get 14 hours on a weekend doesn't mean that it's okay to

“get six and a half during the week. Yeah, I think the sleep specialists aren't too happy about the”

trend, but yeah, there are studies that show that consistent, sufficient sleep is much more beneficial for your long-term health than not having enough sleep during the week and then crashing out of the weekend. So sleep experts won't recommend it, but a lot of the other people I spoke to that that do them often definitely would. No, look, it sounds great. I totally get it. hotels are catering to this, right? They've got special offers and they do all kinds of

special things for you. Yeah, some hotels offer a sleep package. So for an extra, I don't know, say $100, you can get your room kitted out with skin care products and bath bombs and weighted

blankets and sat in eye masks, all things to basically help aid sleep. So people are choosing hotels that

have these upgrades. I mean, some even have like sleep doctors or they've got AI powered beds that optimise your sleep. I mean, there's no limit to how bougie you can go on of sleepcation.

“I think there may well be a limit, but we have yet to find it. Would you do this?”

I would frankly be bored out of my mind. Yeah, I mean, I'm normally more of an adventure person on vacation but one of the people I spoke to for the story said she's a travel blogger. She's, you know, just been to Antarctica. She's climb Kilimanjaro and she now loves the sleepcation. So maybe I can be converted. I, you know, I'd give it a whack, maybe. I don't know. The touch of the girl at the journal, we've reached her in London. That's how she thinks a lot. Thanks for having me.

This final note on the way out today, you might have already heard Meda and YouTube have found to be negligent in the case of a young woman who sued the company saying their apps were responsible for her mental distress harmful and addictive to be precise. Meda has been ordered to pay $4.2 million in combined campaign story in punitive damages, YouTube 1.8 million. In our continuing belief

on this program, the context is critical. Meda had net income of $60 billion last year.

Alphabet, YouTube's parent cleared 132 billion dollars. Our media production team includes Bryan Allison, John Focke, Montana, Johnson, Drew Joste, Gary of Keep and Charlton Thorpe. Alex Simpson is the manager of Media Production, and I'm Kai Ruzdahl. We will see you tomorrow, everybody. This is APM.

prediction markets where you can bet on everything from sports and pop culture to political

“headlines. A multi-billion dollar industry that's growing at a time when more Americans”

are questioning the traditional paths to wealth. I feel like the kind of cool and cool

American dream is sort of breaking down like how could I possibly, you know, buy a home,

“be able to afford having a family. And then they're also going online and seeing people”

that are claiming to make all this money doing these alternative, you know, paths to wealth.

Be sure to listen to this week's episode of This Is Uncomfortable on your favorite podcast app.