Morning Call Sheet: AI boom and easing oil fears lift markets

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:00]It's time now for your call sheet where we look at the topics driving the trading day ahead. The crew members today, Jeff Kilberg, founder and CEO at KKM Financial, Stephanie Link, chief investment strategist at High Tower, both are CNBC contributors, and Matt Powers, managing partner at P advisory group. I mean, we got to start with with this report, guys, uh about a possible breakthrough um between the US and Iran here and unclear whether it's actually going to happen and and and be realized, but certainly moving markets this morning. Stephanie, I'll start with you.

[00:00:31]>> I mean, it's it would be great news, but in the face of all of this uncertainty, Morgan, we are coming off the best markets in in April since 2020, and a lot of that is because the economy continues to chug along despite all of this uncertainty. The Atlanta Fed tracker is at 3.7%. The consumer continues to consume. The AI boom, you talked about it earlier on your show.

[00:00:55]Anything that has to do with a AI and the food chain, data center, grid, power, and that's leading to better than expected earnings. Earnings right now are running up about 28%, sales up about 11, and margins are expanding. Yeah, Matt Powers, what say you?

[00:01:11]>> Yeah, you know, I'd kind of I'd echo a little bit of that. You know, we're uh oil's elevated. You know, we're obviously we've had serious disruption risk through one of the most important shipping lanes in the world and that's that's not news clearly, but equities just don't seem that concerned right now. You know, the market's basically saying this doesn't turn into a prolonged supply shock and you know, even the rhetoric out of out of Washington, it's it's kind of gotten a little more aggressive, but investors are largely uh ignoring it. And you know, think we're looking for any kind of a ceasefire or mediation. It sounds like we we could be there, but there's a clear bias toward believing there's an offramp here. So where I think that gets more interesting is if that assumption is actually wrong, you know, because right now oil's high, but it's manageable and if Hormuse stays constrained and kind of stays this way for a little while, you'll get another leg higher in crude and that's that's when it stops being a headline risk and actually starts feeding directly into inflation and earnings. So So I think the market's comfortable with the situation, but it's also pretty dependent on on things not getting worse from here. Yeah, I mean leaning towards the maintenance of a ceasefire and possible resolution of a conflict does seem to be where both parties are are tilting here. Uh in terms of the rhetoric, Jeff, I mean, look no further than the Pentagon press briefing yesterday to get a sense of that. Want to get your thoughts on that. Also want to get your thoughts on what Stephanie just touched on and that is this AI and tech trade and specifically the surge we're seeing in semis that just continues.

[00:02:31]>> Well, good morning Morgan. Yeah, Stephanie, if we were playing darts right now, she just threw a bullseye on that dart board because we talk about earnings and the profits out in the marketplace. The 10-year average, Morgan, year-over-year growth, the 10-year average is about 8 and a half%.

[00:02:45]We're three times almost four times that, up at 27%. So, to see these companies, the profit, look at Palanteer, I know Palanteer is down yesterday, but look at the profit we're seeing in some of these names. Look at AMD up 20%. So, I get excited. And when I look at crude oil down almost 10%.

[00:03:00]That's a big all clear as we continue to try and navigate this offramp in Iran. I don't see the all clear in oil to under $80. But I'll take the fact that the 10-year note is down five basis points.

[00:03:11]You're seeing the VIX going down lower and again we at alltime highs in the S&P 500 up 56 handles at the moment. So I have optimism. I'm excited about today.

[00:03:20]>> Stephanie, I don't know if you saw my gift to you this morning where we focused on industrials in this AI infrastructure buildout. Room to run.

[00:03:29]Are you kidding? I was like I was o I was watching with eyes wide open.

[00:03:34]Morgan, it was an awesome segment. Yeah.

[00:03:36]I mean I I mean honestly it it is anything that is tied to building out the infrastructure to support this all of this capex from the mag 7s they will benefit. I mean it is you named them all. I own quant gnova. Uh eaten yesterday was a gift down 2 and a half% on a great quarter. Um a lot of names out there. And then of course it is the semis, it's utilities, it's the power companies. We don't have enough power.

[00:04:03]So I still like that theme very much.

[00:04:05]>> Okay, we got less than 90 seconds. I think we can do it here and get two more questions in. Matt, uh, consumer earnings also in focus. We just talked about the inverse relationship between McDonald's and gas prices. I'd love to throw that chart back up there, but what are you watching?

[00:04:21]>> As far as McDonald's goes, you know, it's it's not a company we heavily follow, but I do, you know, obviously stock price down. I think the valuation for McDonald's right there is about exactly where it should be, you know, but I think you know what we're looking at right now, we got back to highs from techie and so regardless of the consumer, I think we'll default back to that group when we need to see performance and probably fine in the short term, but not necessarily the most durable setup.

[00:04:42]>> Yeah, I mean Door Dash, Instacart, Uber, Marriott, Craft Hinds, and of course Jeff Kilberg, Disney thoughts.

[00:04:48]>> Disney interesting. It's been down 10% year to date. Maybe there's a trade here on the earnings implied volatility.

[00:04:54]We're expecting about a 6 and 12% move.

[00:04:56]So a $7 move here. But bigger picture, you want to own Netflix on a three and fiveyear perspective because Netflix has beaten the brakes off of Disney from a margin perspective.

[00:05:06]>> Wow. We still got 40 seconds. Stephanie, you like Disney?

[00:05:12]>> Disney? Uh, no. But I do like uh Netflix. So I agree with Jeff very much.

[00:05:16]And that's a fairly new position for me.

[00:05:18]Um, because I think that the company is growing much more than Disney. Disney is a show me story. They've got to prove that they can grow double digits in the second half of the year. That's the big task at hand today.