Investors Lose Patience with Iran War & TSA Workers Finally Get Paid

- And I'm Toby Hall.

“Today, the stock market is on pace for its worst month in years.”

- Then, TSA airport chaos might soon be coming to an end. It's Monday, March 30th. Let's ride. [upbeat music] - It's being dubbed the crime of the century.

Over the weekend, Kit Kat said that 12 tons of its special formula one, chocolate bars were stolen while traveling on a highway, from the factory in Italy to Poland that's 413,793 individual units. The high spark worries of a global chocolate shortage right ahead of Easter, but miraculously Kit Kat assured the public that supply would not be affected.

Toby, it's an impressive price. How do you go about laundering 12 tons of Kit Kat? - All right, I was looking into this too, because according to the New York Times, the stolen product is able to be traced via a unique batch code, tied to individual Kit Kat bars.

So, it's very difficult to resell them, which leaves one of two options, melt it down like stolen gold and resell, you know, the chocolate or, or you eat them all either way, Kit Kat is coming out of this looking good.

“They put out a statement in response to this death, saying,”

"We always encourage people to have a break with Kit Kat,

but it seemed like these have taken to that message too, literally, and made a break with 12 tons of our chocolate. Whilst we appreciate the criminal's exceptional taste, the fact remains that cargo theft is an escalating issue for businesses of all sides. So, well done, Kit Kat, I hope you get your bars back."

- And now, word from our sponsor, Company Retreat. Toby, what do you know about jury duty? - That it's super easy to get out of if you tell them you're a hologram. - Not actual jury duty. I mean, the documentary style comedy series.

It's back for a second season, jury duty presents Company Retreat. It all takes place during an annual company retreat. - At the center of it all is Anthony, a hard working kind, and very patient, temp and play, who has no idea that the company is fake,

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- Oh, and Amazon is actually selling four flavors of a rock and gramma's hot sauce. - jury duty presents Company Retreat is now streaming on a prime video. For about a month, the stock market had mostly brushed off the war in Iran and the hopes that, like most other geopolitical conflicts,

it would be short-lived and have a negligible impact on the economy. But in the last few trading days, that confidence has been badly shaken, and stocks are getting routed like a 16 seed. The Dow fell nearly 800 points on Friday

to close in correction territory, joining the NASDAQ at a level more than 10% below their recent highs. The S&P 500 isn't quite there yet, but it just suffered its biggest two-day decline since the tariff chaos last year,

and it's five consecutive weekly losses equal its longest losing streak since 2022. It seems Wall Street is waking up to the fact that the war will inflict considerable economic damage for months, even if it were to end today, which is not likely.

“The closure of the state of Hormuz alongside attacks on key energy infrastructure in the region”

has resulted in the largest energy supply disruption in history, almost 20% of oil and natural gas has been taken off the market, which means the world will have to dramatically lower its fuel consumption. Meanwhile, shortages of key inputs for global industry, helium, sulfur, plastics, aluminum, fertilizers,

threat up and everything from chip production to farming. And the most concerning part for Wall Street is, Trump can't taco his way out of this one. When markets have gotten spooked in the past from Trump's policies, the president would roll them back and stocks would surge the infamous taco trade.

When it comes to the state of Hormuz, Trump can't flip a switch and open it, Iran also holds a hand of cards, and even as Trump extended in negotiation, deadline and signal de-escalation last week, stocks barely reacted as we've been accustomed to, Toby, where a long way from doubt, 50,000.

And nothing is working. There is no safe haven assets. At least three of the four asset classes included in the, you know, traditional core diversified portfolio have fallen in unison for the past four weeks.

So stocks have fallen. Bonds have fallen. Cash or cash equivalents have like gold have fallen alternative investments, have fallen as well. That's the longest stretch dating back to liberation day back in May of 2022.

The issue is that oil affects everything in the economy. That's why there is no safe havens. Brent crude is, you know, at above a hundred and twelve dollars a barrel. And what happens is that affects how the market moves. Ben smart global oil futures and the SIP 500 have moved.

In the opposite directions in 12 of the past 13 at trading says, and so if oil goes higher, the market goes lower and it's very difficult to un-couple that price movement. Let's call it a few names here. I don't want to, but there are some stocks that are doing particularly bad.

A many of them are in tech. The NASDAQ, which is focused on tech companies,

dropped 3.2 percent last week.

That's its worst week since last April.

Meta, Meta, Meta lost 11 percent last week.

“It's down 34 percent from its all-time highs last year.”

Maybe that has to do with the war, maybe impacting ad spending, but also it had those two horrible court defeats last week, which put its target on its back. And another company that's not doing really well at all is a Microsoft, which used to be the AI leader.

It's now down 35 percent from its October high. So within tech within the magnif is in seven. Meta and Microsoft have been absolutely plunging. And then another company that's on a long-losing streak is Berkshire Hathaway. Luckily Warren Buffett's not really involved anymore.

I don't know if that's related, but it's lost ground for eight consecutive days. That's as long as losing streak since 2018. And if you're looking for more correlation with what's going on in the Middle East, Berkshire Hathaway is very invested in the insurance business, in the energy business, in the freight business.

And so that might be a direct correlation there. And what is going to be the economic fallout from this? Now traders are piling into bets that the Fed's next move is going to be to raise interest rates, because inflation is just starting to get out of control if oil prices remain. This high, that is a big switch of Rooney from cuts having been telegraphed over the past few months.

So now there's a 40 percent chance that the Fed's policy rate will be higher at year end than it is right now,

which going into this year felt, you know, absolutely unthinkable, but given everything that is unfolded from here on, of course, a rate hike could be in the cards. Meanwhile, mortgage rates, speaking of rates, are not getting any prettier. The average 30 year fixed margin rate was 5.99% at the end of February.

“As of last week on Thursday, it was up to 6.62% remember that kind of follows,”

closely the 10 year yield with yields going up. You see mortgage rates going up as well. It is just absolutely affecting everything from your home prices to your stock market portfolio, and no one is happy. Yeah, no one is happy because this is hitting actually both,

the wide swath of Americans from lower end consumers to maybe the upper echelon on the lower end. They're getting hit by higher gas prices gas prices right now are an average three dollars in 99 cents. It's up about a dollar since before the war. That's going to hurt disproportionately low income people and the businesses that they flock to,

it's fast food restaurants or dollars stores. It will be very interesting to hear their earnings because when gas prices spike like this, it just lowers demand across the board. And then on the other hand, you know, we saw the top 1% really drive a lot of the economy over the past few years,

and what everyone's calling a K-shaped economy. But almost 40% of household wealth in the United States is tied up in stocks. Compare that to just 10% during the 1990 oil price shock. So as oil prices rise and stocks fall as you demonstrated with that. Very tight correlation.

Then maybe the upper echelon, the more upper income people in the United States will also pull back on their spending. So maybe this is more of the economic worries are coming into view,

“and that's why the stock market is responding like this.”

So the only entity that seems to be doing all right right now is Iran. Iran's exports are estimated to have remained very close to pre-war levels,

1.6 million barrels of oil a day.

But rent crude price is now $112 a barrel, so based on a Bloomberg estimate, Iran is earning about $139 million a day from oil sales in March up from 115 million in February. So that's around, you know, 30% more revenue. It seems like the only person benefiting at least economically in terms of, you know, selling their oil on the global markets is Iran, which the US is targeting.

Moving on, the long national nightmare of long national lines might soon be over. Trump directed Homeland Security to start paying TSA workers just before the weekend, even though Congress failed to agree on a path to end the partial government shutdown. That means agents could start seeing paychecks as soon as today, but don't expect the lines that TSA just snap back to normal immediately.

Almost 500 TSA agents have fully quit since the funding lapse in mid-February. That is in addition to the 1000 agents that quit during the 43-day government shutdown last year. Those roles won't be easy to replace. It takes 4-6 months to complete training. Plus, it's not like people are applying in droves for a job that increasingly gets caught up in political skirmishes leading to lost paychecks. Adam Stahl, TSA's chief of staff, said last week that the situation will get worse before it gets better despite Trump's executive order.

Folks that are possibly in the pipeline, or considering going and joining the workforce, will be dissuaded because of the lack of job security he warned. Certain airports are and will be worse off than others too. George Bush Airport in Houston has been dealing with a callout rate of around 40% far above the national average of 11%. Atlanta, the busiest airport hub in the world, is facing a similar level of absenteeism. Meanwhile, in Baltimore, travelers waited more than 5 hours in security lines to stretch outside the concourse

after as many as 94 TSA agents called out over the weekend. They'll a lot of these workers are just digging themselves out of the financial hole created by the previous government shutdown.

It's pretty fascinating to look at the gap in the worst affected airports and the airports that are doing just fine. Because as many of these horror videos have come out of people getting to the airport five hours early and still missing their flight. There have been an equal number of videos of people saying, "I got to the airport, it was literally 10 minutes because if you flew out of Minneapolis and Paul or Denver or Seattle to coma, it's been fine. Those wait times have been under 30 minutes consistently.

But then over the weekend, you had Atlanta saying the RTSA wait times are 4 hours. Houston also saying RTSA wait times are 4 hours. 40% of RTSA agents are calling out from both those airports and they've been consistently some of the worse for this entire month. So it's very interesting to see the discrepancy between these two. And there might we might have an answer here for Atlanta and Houston.

First of all, these are very sprawling matrices. A lot of the workers who go there and also at JFK, which has been bad.

People live, people who are TSA agents live about an hour away or even more. So there's a long commute time. And so they're more likely to call out when they live in these big sprawling metropolitan areas rather than maybe a Minneapolis St. Paul, who has gas prices have gone up. So maybe that's one reason why another is we have spring break right now. Atlanta is the busiest international airport in the entire world. So people, there's an increased demand fewer TSA agents.

“So that's why maybe we're seeing longer wait time at those hotspot specifically.”

Just in general, can we commiserate how miserable flying has gotten recently? Because it is getting more expensive, too, because as fuel costs go up, airlines are charging more to passengers. They're passing on a lot of those costs to consumer. So if you looked at flights now for, you know, your summer vacation, that is, you're in a lot worse spot than if you had booked them a few months ago. Also consumer confidence in just the airline industry in general is taking almost half of respondents to an if so survey.

Conducting in February said they're losing confidence in the safety of air travel less than 30% said that they felt confident in the safety of air travel.

So it's basically you enter an airport. It takes a long time to get to your gate. You're nervous about getting on the plane.

Your ticket that you booked is more expensive than ever. You're probably crammed back in the economy class. All the first classes are taking up more and more space in the planes. It's just not fun flying at all. And miraculously, this has been the longest stretch that I haven't flown out from beginning of the year until now. So maybe I'm, you know, I maybe I looked at my crystal ball and said air traffic was going to get absolutely insane. And that you know, I've been here in New York for a long time, which is getting a little claustrophobic, but maybe it's not a good time to fly.

One bright spot is that some airlines are, you know, saying, we'll throw you a bone passengers. Delta says that they're waving fees for certain flights out of Atlanta. If you wanted to change or if you missed your flight, United said they're offering waivers for flights in and out of Houston, Southwest says we will rebook customers who missed your flight at no additional charge. So basically airlines are saying, hey, we hear you. We know that it's absolutely chaotic right now. Again, hopefully with TSA workers getting their paychecks again things start to mellow out a little bit.

But in that has to happen ahead of the busy summer travel period, where even Neil might leave his roost in New York City. All right, we're going to take a quick break and come back with our winners of the weekend right after this. This episode is brought to you by Apple. Neil, there's nothing like your first Mac. I remember my first Mac like it was yesterday. I got mine right as my sister started to get recruited to play soccer in college. I was given the very important task of making her a highlight tape and I movie was my best friend.

She ended up playing that Georgetown soap. I'd say it was all worth it. When I got my first Mac, I was heading into freshman year at the University of Maryland. A lot was uncertain that fall, but I knew I had a dependable sidekick for homework, connecting with other students and devouring blogs about our basketball recruiting class.

“That's how we felt with our first Macs. How will you?”

Check out the all new MacBook Neo and amazing Mac at a surprising price.

Learn more at apple.com/mac. That's apple.com/mac. Toby, how do you wake up in the morning? Well, I asked our producer to slap me across the faces. How does they can or drink coffee? Have you considered ultra pouches?

They're completely nicotine free and caffeine free, but help you feel human in the morning with clinically proven new tropics and adaptogens to deliver immediate focus and smooth energy that lasts one to two hours. In fact, 90% of users saw significant improvements in their overall focus levels with zero cheap pain. Way better than my slot method. Get some for yourself at Take Ultra.com.

That's Take Ultra.com. Toby, what do you think of these new tax loss? Why are they making new ones? I don't even know the old ones.

“And that's why there's Turbo Tax because being tax compliant is among small business owners, top concerns,”

but it's often time consuming and research-intensive to figure out taxes on your own. Turbo Tax experts for business can match you with a tax expert with expertise and knowledge for your specific industry. To ensure you have confidence, you're maximizing deductions and your taxes are filed correctly.

That's TurboTax.com/business. Welcome to winners of the weekend.

“The segment where Toby and I picked two things that won all of their ABS challenges.”

I won the pre-show pull vault, so I get to go first.

And my winner is the hope that politics could get a lot less polarized. And it's all thanks to AI. In the financial times, John Burn, Murdoch, published a viral essay over the weekend that argues artificial intelligence will become a moderating force on political discourse, reversing the vitriol and sensationalism that defined the social media era.

He backed it up with his own data analysis showing that the major AI platforms, even Elon Musk's grock, pushed people away from the most extreme stances and toward more normies, centrist positions in line with expert consensus. It's a provocative claim that others have made too, drawing on hundreds of years of human history.

Every time the dominant form of media changes, it profoundly transforms public opinion. 600 years ago, the printing press democratized the consumption and distribution of written text, resulting in the elites losing their hold on shaping the information space.

After World War II, the experts were back in control.

TV news networks came along and given the high barrier to entry,

“once again concentrated the flow of information with a handful of gatekeepers,”

like, say, CBS or ABC. In the early 2000s, social media toppled that dynasty, allowing anyone with an internet connection to share their opinion and in turn elevated anti-establishment anti elite voices. Now with the era of AI upon us,

some argue that the moderate gatekeepers are back in power. Toby is AI actually going to bring back the age of Walter Cronkite. Maybe, and it comes down to their business models and how it differs from social media. How do social media companies make money? They make money from attention.

What gets attention is sensationalism. It's inflammatory content. That doesn't necessarily have to reflect the truth. They just want to get eyeballs and they want time spent on platform. So you look at more ads and advertisers buy more ad spots.

AI companies business model is they want to serve up objective.

“They want to serve up accurate and intelligent tools that deliver factual information.”

So they do not want to dive deep into the sensationalist aspect of social media. They want to be a neutral platform, which is why maybe they will be converging in the viewpoints that they share rather than diverging in democratizing like social media. Yeah, the British philosopher Dan Williams, who has wrote a lot on the subject and argues, again, for this moderating force of AI said a good thought experiment is pretend that you went to

Twitter Instagram and searched for the term climate change vaccines, Epstein files, immigration, crime, tariffs and equality. What will you see as a whole host of diverging opinions perhaps a lot of conspiracy theories. Mostly people dunking on each other and getting extremely mad. What if you put immigration crime, Epstein files, climate change vaccines into an LLM,

like Claude or Chacha B.T. or Grock? You're more likely to get an answer that is aligned with expert opinion. And you can argue whether one is better than the other or not, but that is essentially what the thought experiment will lead to is that, yeah, I'm putting this question to an LLM.

I'm getting a pretty normie answer that experts have written this field, you know, who are an academics in this field have written on. And what was fascinating to me is that this held true despite the chatbot knowing your political tendencies because in conducting this experiment, they had one where they did not let the bots know that, hey,

this person is right leaning or left leaning and it nudged them towards the center. But then even when they did tell the chatbot like, hey, this is the political affiliations of the person that you're talking to. I thought of the psychophantic tendencies of a chatbot would take over and start just confirming the worldview of whatever you say.

And that has been a real problem for a lot of these anti chatbots. Is the fact that they just kind of agree with anything that you're saying, if you nudged it in that direction. But when it came to politics or some of these more extreme issues, it did seem like they were more center leaning.

Now, there are some caveats of this study. I was reading a little bit on social media, the reaction to this, which is ironic in and of itself. And people were mad that the users that these chatbots were talking to were simulated users, so they weren't necessarily real people. That could probably confound the data

a little bit because it was almost AI chatbots talking to other AI chatbots. That's not necessarily reflective of how humans interact with them. So that was one caveat, but just a fascinating study that, you know, of course got people talking on the very thing that is talking about, which was social media.

My one of the weekend is knowing where the edge pieces are because U.S. Jigsaw Nationals just wrapped up its biggest event ever in Atlanta on Sunday. Hundreds of puzzlers inspected it from around the world, descended upon the peach state to test their metal in speed puzzling, racing to compete 500 and 1000 piece puzzles.

The competition has blown up recently.

The first Nationals was held in 2022 in San Diego,

and featured 33 teams of four 93 pairs and at 99 individuals.

400 pairs and 800 individuals competed with registration quadrupling across every category.

Outside of Nationals, there were 151 percent more puzzling

competitions last year compared to the year prior, according to data from event bright. One explanation for the puzzling rise of puzzles is the broader rise of grandma hobbies that don't involve a phone. The peaceful snap of a piece fitting into place,

while chatting with friends is a perfect avenue for a low pressure hang. A lot of competitors describe using puzzling as an escape from more difficult issues like divorce or burnout at work. It's minted social media stars too, like Karen puzzles, more than 550,000 followers come to her to hear about the nuances of puzzling techniques.

“Do you follow the classic, build a border first and work inward strategy?”

Or do you just dive right into whatever section speak to you? Neil, as someone who is soon to go to the American crossword puzzle tournament, you're sort of also participating in this hobby-turned sport trend. Well, now we know why the Atlanta airport was okay. Everyone was in town for the puzzle tournament.

I want to give a shout out to the winners here. So in the solo category, Alice Row 1, they have to complete a 500-piece puzzle. How long do you think it took them? Four minutes.

Thirty-seven minutes and 19 seconds to complete a 500-piece puzzle. The pairs who won took 25 minutes and 11 seconds to complete a 500-piece puzzle. And then the group category, these are groups of four. It took them one hour and five minutes to complete a 2000-piece puzzle. This seems like the most stressful thing ever.

I've watched videos and it takes something that should be peaceful and it's supposed to be relaxing and takes you away from all the problems in the world and turns it into a very competitive event. So it's a little bewildering to me because I might sweat would be dripping down my face.

I still think that in terms of all the competition that you could do, you're with friends, you're running matching outfits. It's a very fun and effective environment. But you are right. It does add a layer of stress to something that is supposed to be not stressful.

I do have some puzzling tips that I got from Karen Puzzles. I went out a bit of a rabbit hole. Tip number one, she says flip all the pieces over first. Feels very logical, but she says practice doing this. Which, again, before the show, I was like,

"How do I practice learning out of puzzles? Do I just need longer nails to wedge under it more?" She says, "Where tight fitting closer your sleeves

aren't always drooping in the way.

Same thing goes through your hair if you have long hair. Put that back. I could see that kind of when every second counts. You don't want your sleeves in the way. She says usually start out with the edge,

but edges sometimes look mostly the same. If that is true, just go wherever else, your eye is drawn to and start there. A good goal is to try to get under an hour for 500 to piece puzzle. So I am actually going out after this show

in buying a puzzle and seeing if I can go sub one hour. 37 minutes seems a little out of reach as of now, but it is just fascinating that every time you see something out there, there is a group of people who have just absolutely practiced more than you've ever imagined or better at it than you've ever imagined, same thing goes with puzzle.

“I think the most important thing to get better as color recognition”

is because if you don't have that, then you're not going to be good at puzzle. You're right, it's one of a number of hobbies that are maturing into formal competitive structures. And I am going to the American Cross Repuzzle Tournament, which has actually been going on four decades last year.

It's record year 889 people came to Stanford. And actually this is the last time they're having it in Stanford, Connecticut, because it's gotten too big and they're moving it to Philadelphia. So this is one of those other hobbies, the grandma hobby, call it, that's absolutely blown up.

How do you think you're going to do? I'm going to do pretty well. You have been studying.

Actually, I'm not going to do pretty well because the people are amazing there.

And I'm extremely mediocre, but I'll be better than last time. I'm hoping upper half for you. Because you're having grinded. Well, if you are going to be there, let me know. I'd love to meet up.

Okay, it's Monday.

“So here's what you need to know to stay ahead in the week ahead.”

On Wall Street, it's jobs week. The employment report from March will be released on Friday. And it's supposed to be better than the last one. In February, payrolls plunged by 92,000 setting off alarms about the labor market. But in March, we're expecting a rebound of 60,000 jobs in part things to better weather

and the end of a big healthcare strike. The jobless rate is expected to hold steady at a pretty low 4.4%. Of course, we'll also be looking for clues on how the Iran war is impacting hiring. I'm looking at the S word right now. Stagflation.

Inflation is for sure, inching upwards due to the Iran war. If the job market remains frozen, then fears of stackflation are well. I'm really here when you have stalling economic growth and rising inflation. But seeing that we've had two negative jobs reports in the last two out of the past three months. Literally negative job growth.

Any positive here is a big win. Right. If all goes according to plan on Wednesday, NASA will make a giant leap toward putting humans back on the moon. In schedule to send four astronauts, three Americans in one Canadian on a 10 day mission around the moon and back.

And would send people further from the earth than any space flight before. And even more history will be made.

“Victor Glover will be the first black astronaut to travel to the moon's neighborhood.”

And Christina Koch will be the first woman to do so. But a lot has to go right before them after watching Project Hail Mary. I am all the way back in on space. Let's go find aliens as long as they are funny and made of rocks. But yes, hope this mission takes off and goes very smoothly.

Speaking of movies, the first billion dollar movie of the year could be on the way.

Mario is jumping back to the big screen with the Super Mario Galaxy movie. The sequel to 2023's the Super Mario Brothers movie. That first one was a surprise blockbuster making nearly $1.4 billion at the global box office. Jack Black is turning into the goat of video game movie adaptations. He has two one billion dollar movies under his belt with the previous Mario movie.

And then where he voiced Bowser.

“And he also has the Minecraft movie to his name.”

If he goes three for three, that is a pretty dang good resume. Apparently he wants Sega to give him a call for a jacuzzi adaptation. I think they'd be wise to do so.

He's got the magic touch.

In sports, the men's final four for March Madness is set. This coming Saturday, Arizona will face Michigan and a battle of juggernauts. Well, Illinois will face Yukon who took down Duke in an improbable comeback last night. With one of the craziest final plays you will ever see. On the women's side, UCLA and also Yukon punch their ticket to the final four.

And the other two semi finalists will be determined today. I'm so depressed, Neil. I had a chance. I was going to win every bracket pool. I was entered in.

If only Duke just did not choke. I have Michigan winning overall, but I'd need to do because they're making it to the finals. Don't put yourself in a position to root for Duke. I know. That's my lesson.

I don't like Duke. And so I hate having to root for them. I'm still alive on the women's side though. I got my whole final four available. So my focus is turning to that.

I have a few more fun facts is the six time both Yukon men and women made it to the final four in the same season. They won it all both twice. Most recently in 2014. And this is from reporter John Fanta.

This year marks the first men's final four since 2014 with all four schools as the names of states.

So this year, it's Arizona, Connecticut, Illinois, and Michigan. And that hasn't happened in 12 years. That's a fun fact. Okay, finally spring holidays are coming fast and furious. Passover begins Wednesday night. Well, good Friday and Easter Sunday round out the week looks like there'll be plenty of chocolate available.

“Plus, there's the most important spring tradition of the mall.”

April fools on Wednesday. Toby got any pranks planned. What did you like to know, Neil? Yes, I have pranks planned, but you won't see them coming until it's too late. That is all the time we have.

Thanks so much for starting and morning with us. Have a wonderful start to the week. If you'd like to reach us, send an email to morningbrou daily at morningbrou.com or DM us on Instagram @ambidaliShow. Let's roll the credits.

Emily Milliron is our supervising producer. Raymond Lou is our senior producer. Our producer is Olivia Graham and our associate producer is Olivia Lake. Her make up is on peace flipping duty. Devon Emory is our president and our show is a production of morningbrou.

Ray, show Daniel, let's run it back tomorrow. (upbeat music)