Stocks sink after Iran retaliates, and what’s next for oil and energy stocks? 6/13/25
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MarketSide in the heart of New York City's Times Square. This is Fast Money. Here's what's on tap tonight. Markets on edge. Stocks dropping and oil surging as Iran retaliates against Israel's airstrike last night. We dig into the impact of rising tensions in the Middle East on the markets and here at home. And payment problems. Shares of Visa and MasterCard sinking today. How big retailers stable coin plans are causing instability in the shares.

Plus, Tesla shares kick into overdrive. Novo regains the number one spot in Europe. And Whirlpool whirls higher. Why one analyst thinks the appliance maker can withstand the tariff threat. I'm Melissa Lee. Come to you live from Studio B at the NASDAQ. On the desk tonight, Tim Seymour, Karen Feinerman, Courtney Garcia, and Mike Coe.

And we start off with the markets turning lower after Iran's retaliatory attack against Israel. Major averages closing near the lows of the session, with the S&P down over a percent. The Dow shed more than 760 points, and the Nasdaq dropped 1.3 percent. Meanwhile, oil prices surging over 7 percent, settling at their highest level since January. Treasury yields and gold prices also higher on the day for the latest on the Middle East strikes and Washington's response. Let's get straight to Eamon Jabbers, who's in D.C. Eamon.

Hey there, Melissa. We are getting some word now on casualties in Israel tonight in an initial report from Tel Aviv's Sheba Hospital, where a spokesperson says they are treating 15 injured civilians, one of whom they say arrived in extremely critical condition. You can expect, Melissa, those numbers to change as we get additional reporting from around the country through the night tonight.

And we saw a direct appeal from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the Iranian people signaling that this isn't just an attack on the Iranian nuclear program, but also an effort to push regime change in the country. Here's what he said.

It said to the Iranian people, "The Islamic regime, which has oppressed you for nearly 50 years, threatens to destroy my country, the state of Israel. The objective of Israel's military operation is to remove the threat, both the nuclear threat and the ballistic missile threat to Israel.

And as we achieve our objectives, we are also clearing the path for you to achieve your objective, which is freedom. The regime doesn't know what hit them. They don't know what will hit them. The time has come for you to unite around your flag by standing up to an evil and oppressive regime. It has never been won.

weaker. So dramatic stuff there from the prime minister of Israel. We also learned this afternoon, Melissa, that U.S. forces using THAAD and Patriot missile batteries have been participating in the defense of Israel against those Iranian ballistic missile attacks, which we have seen throughout the afternoon here at U.S. East Coast time.

In terms of the scope of the retaliation, though, Eamon, it seems like it's almost, at least at this point, the best-case scenario in that it was more surgical. It didn't go beyond just very targeted attacks. It didn't attack any U.S. personnel or military bases or installations or anything like that.

I mean, the message from the U.S. side to the Iranians has been the United States did not participate in this offensive attack and so therefore, you know, don't respond by attacking U.S. military installations or facilities. So to that extent, yes. And it raises the question of, you know, how capable is the Iranian leadership at this point? We know this was, to some extent, a decapitation strike against Iranian leadership and a lot of the key figures here who would be making decisions around how to retaliate

are now dead as of last night and through the day today. So one question is command and control over the Iranian military, who has that now? How effective can that be? And how effective can the response be? If you're in Israel right now, you really want the answers to all those questions.

Eamon, thank you. Eamon Javers in Washington. Let's dive now into the risk the attacks pose to the oil markets. Pippa Stephens has got more on that. Pippa. Hey, Melissa. Oil jumping 8% today, but well off the overnight highs because so far no energy infrastructure has been targeted. Analysts say for a sustained increase...

barrels need to actually come off the market. Still, a lot of moving parts. Iran exports about 1.7 million barrels of oil per day, with more than 90% of those exports passing through Karg Island in the northern Persian Gulf, a target that Israel notably did not hit. But as the conflict escalates, there are fears that oil fields could also be impacted in neighboring countries, including Iraq and Saudi Arabia. And then, of course,

there's the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has threatened to close before, but never actually has. About 20 percent of global oil demand flows through the waterway daily. In addition to Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Kuwait all export via the strait. Deutsche Bank saying a closure could push oil above $120 per barrel. Finally, keep an eye on global nat gas, with European prices adding 5 percent today, since the Strait of Hormuz is also key for LNG.

It's the sole export route for Qatar and the UAE, which together make up about 20% of global LNG supply. Melissa?

Pippa, thank you. Pippa Stevens, with all that said, what do we make of the market reaction today? We had the typical bid for gold. We had the atypical lack of bid for treasuries. And the markets hung in until Iran retaliated. Yeah, and it's amazing because a couple of days ago, it was like, whoa, the VIX is grinding below. We're about to go south of 16. Now we're dancing up near 20. And if you think about

Right, those inputs. I mean, the rallying gold, so gold makes a fresh all-time high right there around the May 6th highs, and it's something that I think will continue to trade higher independent of what goes on in the Middle East. That's, to me, the nice thing about the gold trade. For markets overall, again, we're doing this after a V-shaped recovery in the S&P. I think...

Fundamentals around what the impact of this are still very unknown, even though I think for the most part, the market will be largely sanguine. Now, if you ask most people at the start of this year where they thought the greatest risk to the market were geopolitical risks, whether a handful of global hotspots were part of where I think more people were concerned, especially before we got into the tariff dynamics. So, you know, the Middle East has been on our

radar. And obviously, Iran and Israel were trading volleys back in October. So, you know, back to the oil market, I think you asked me yesterday or the day before, what do you think about the spike in oil prices here? And I said, no one ever responds to a bid from oil disruption from hurricanes or war.

And I think for the most part, that's actually true. But I do think that the dynamic here, so while it doesn't change the fundamentals around oil, there's no question, one, you're not going to go short on oil into the weekend. The reaction of traders here makes a ton of sense. I still think that the fundamentals, which include supply surplus, which is all we've heard about for the last three months, is still the more important part of this trade. But no question, higher energy prices for Europe and for the rest of the world, especially, I think are a

big headwind for a fragile economy. I actually think, so the response to the event, so can we understand that, but I actually think oil was poised to turn around anyway. It was ready, I think, that if you were short, it had been played out pretty much already. So I don't know where we'll go if tensions ease. I think it'll come back some, but I don't think it'll come back all the way. I think we're just headed into an uptrend for oil. And

I don't know if that's because, well, for one, weaker dollar. We were talking about that on the call today. You know, weaker dollar, higher oil. Definitely helps oil. Right. But also maybe it's that are we, for the U.S. anyway, do we get a big, beautiful bill? And deregulation, and does that get the economy humming? And what does that mean for oil demand? And...

a lot of things that go along with that. So I think the bottom's in regardless of how this plays out. - And I think the big question is what is this gonna do with inflation? I think that's what markets, really the treasury market is trying to sniff out today because there was this thought that yes, tariffs may be inflationary but lower oil could actually offset some of that. But now if you see oil prices going up and we have tariffs kick in, this is gonna like change the inflation story.

And so that's where we've started to see inflation coming down. You actually just saw consumer sentiment numbers and inflation expectations just came down, though that was a past reading. So I don't know how much that changes after today.

That's really, I think, where the bigger picture is. Is this a shorter event? This doesn't escalate into something larger. Oil prices don't go higher from here. This could be a non-event. If it does escalate into something higher and oil prices stay higher, that can just put a lot of pressure on inflation. Yeah, especially as we enter summer driving season. It's really going to impact a lot of consumers out there. Maiko, you know, there are bigger questions. We can talk about the short term, the longer term. But if it does become something more drawn out, there is a larger question of how this impacts consumers.

global economy, global consumer sentiment and all those sorts of ripple effects. Yeah, I mean, sort of going back to the point that Karen was making about oil being oversold in April, that was really because oil had just been sold off so hard based on exactly what you're talking about, which is sort of the global economy perception.

that things were going to be weak. That was essentially the market's response, the energy market's response post-liberation day. What we're seeing right now, and I think this is what Tim was suggesting, is that this is, I think, a short-term spike. We haven't seen any meaningful supply disruption yet.

We can sort of see that this is really speculative buying. The reason we can see that is because yesterday, for example, we saw three times as many calls trading on WTI contracts. That was a front month contract. So that's the July future. But remember, the July future actually expires a week from today and the options expire even sooner than that. So they're going to be expiring on the 16th. So this was really just speculative call buying. And we saw more of the same today. People just sort of playing off the volatility, not off of a change in the fundamentals.

I think we probably will see crude start to fall back a little bit as long as we don't see some kind of a supply disruption. And if it does remain this sort of tit for tat that we've had going on between Israel and Iran for some time, then things may calm down just a little bit. But I'm a little bit concerned about the rhetoric that's coming from both sides right now.

I think it's, again, the conversation that you started us with, Melissa, on the cross currents of, you know, seeing bond yields actually sell off a little bit on the long end is surprising. And so maybe the bears will say, boy, this is not the reaction you want to see for the Treasury market, which should be a flight to quality. But Fed Fund futures over the last couple of days, and I think it's really more of an indication of the shorter end of the curve, at least for the here and now. And they have come in another 10 basis points. So, you know, we're somewhere around

at 385 if you look at December Fed Fund futures. So if I look at where we are at the end of the year, we were kind of 395 a couple of days ago, which means we're pricing in about 50 basis points of Fed. It's a little bit more aggressive than where we were. And I do think the conversation we're having about at least the fragility of the global economy with the backdrop of tariffs and a lot of the uncertainties that are there, and that's all we hear about from companies,

is very important. And again, back to where we started this week, which was a market that really has been relentless, had the greatest May in 25 years and et cetera, et cetera. So this is, I think, just adding more uncertainty to an uncertain picture. And for China equities, this wasn't good, right? This is where they get their oil. And if you have instability there, plus already the price is going up.

This is a meaningful... And their economy is extremely fragile. Exactly. And so at this time, to have prices go up that much, so that was not a great day for the B or whatever it is, the A, BABA.

whatever it is no idea yes yeah and i think a lot of this spike too is we're going into the weekend this is all happening right when you're going to have two days of no trading so i think you are just starting to see some people just taking some positions off or just kind of waiting to see because we may have a lot of news over the weekend you can't trade over that time frame but i do think this is something that you want to look at where there's a lot of talk of oil going to a hundred dollars a barrel or 120 a barrel but really for that to happen you'd have to see the straight of hormones actually close which

historically has been a threat but hasn't actually happened in the past. So barring that happening, I don't actually think we'll get that high there, but I think that's what a lot of people are going to be looking for news of over the next couple of days, next couple of weeks. For more on what's next for the markets, let's bring in CNBC contributor David Zervos. He's Jefferies' chief market strategist. David, great to see you. Great to have you on. What did you make of the market reaction? What does this tell us about the state of where we are right now in the markets?

Well, Melissa, I think, you know, one, we're all trying to be, you know, armchair geopolitical analysts and none of us are particularly good at it. We lean on a lot of very talented people for their expertise. But even then, I don't know that there's voices that I think are 100 percent or even 80 percent knowledgeable on the next steps here. It's pretty uncertain. I actually think given how high this has escalated, where we actually have Iran and Israel, you

trading directly missiles between Tehran and Tel Aviv, something we all really haven't seen, certainly in any recent past. There's been proxy wars. The market was pretty resilient. Obviously, the close was a little bit slow.

a little bit sloppy, but in the grand scheme of things, a 1% ish move a little more than 1% ish move, uh, is not a particularly, uh, difficult market. Uh, the fixed income markets, as you guys were talking about a little early, probably, uh,

More of a disappointment because people getting themselves lathered up on inflation. But I think that's probably where I see the market reacting more inappropriately where there's opportunity. I don't think fixed income would be continuing to rally or the yield would be continuing to rise significantly if this escalates more.

I don't see the reaction as a particularly negative one is how I would answer that question, Melissa. Yeah, I mean, we were discussing this sort of lack of reaction really on our own show call earlier today saying, you know, if we'd known, if you told us yesterday what was going to happen today, we probably all would have guessed a sharper market reaction across the board, across assets. And we didn't really get that even when Iran retaliated. So does that give you more confidence, Melissa?

about the markets and where we are right now in valuations. - It does, Melissa. And I think it fits into the narrative that we've been trying to convey to our clients

over the last couple of months, the tumultuous April and May periods, that there really was a sort of an emotional liquidation of U.S. positioning, risk asset positioning. And that really has set the market up for, as you guys said earlier on this show, one of the most amazing Mays, or at least end of Mays in modern recollection. So I think positioning is still actually pretty

positive for the market in the sense that people did shoot first and ask questions later. They got very twisted up on the tariff announcements, didn't really understand the negotiating tactics that were being used. I think there's a lot of positives that are coming out of that negotiation tactic, and we're going to see more of those. But more importantly than the positives from deregulation, a

a fiscal bill that I think will pass and has some pretty pro-growth features to it and the trade negotiations moving forward. Even there, I just think people are not positioned for it. People have let their politically charged emotions drive a lack of risk asset positioning. And I think that's what we're seeing today. What we're seeing today is the market is not really overly committed to risk globally.

So, David, I'm not surprised to have you have a calming voice on a day like today. Good for you. And I'm also, you know, you use the word growth and growth assets and growth positioning a couple of times. Is the trade because like an observation I've made over the last six weeks is not just, you know, the bounce back off of a V bottom is always going to favor a higher beta stuff, which traded lower to the way down. But really what we see in the market start to settle in is

real outperformance of semis and software, even relative to the NASDAQ, even relative to the S&P. I mean, is this the trade we're back into? Because it does feel as if once we've stripped out some of the emotion you refer to, it seems like markets want to get back to business. NVIDIA gave us kind of a green light in my view. Talk about that.

I think there is a sort of 1990s, I don't want to necessarily call it the productivity miracle story that we had back then, but there's a 1990s vibe to the market that's been in place. And I think we're mixing with that a sort of 80s storyline, which is,

consistent with deregulation, lower taxes, better policies designed to promote business activity, and a weaker dollar, a la what we saw in the mid-'80s, a Plaza Accord style. People call it the Mar-a-Lago Accord now, but that's not yet in anybody's crosshairs. But I think the idea that we have some sort of merging of some of the disinflationary growth of the 80s and 90s together is actually becoming, I think, more of a

a realistic metaphor for this market as we move into, as we move away from some of these temporary shocks, hopefully temporary shocks, but I think they will be temporary shocks related to geopolitical setbacks. And hopefully there's a silver lining in this, that we bring the Iranians to the table, that we see an end to this repressive regime,

that has been very threatening in the Middle East. There's some sort of cooperation that comes out. So we should also say that there is the potential that this has a soothing effect overall in the end in the Middle East. I don't know that that's the easy scenario to see when the missiles are flying, but that's the hope at least. So it should be in the calculus that something can come out of this more positive. Let's hope. David, thank you. Great to see you.

Always a pleasure. David Servos, Jeffries. Mike, your thought. I mean, the flip side, not to be the anti-silver lining or the Debbie Downer, is that you can get a regime change and get an even worse regime, more hard line than what we have right now.

Yeah, I don't know how much harder line we're going to get than what we have in Iran at the moment. Let's certainly hope that we don't see anything that looks like that. I will say that I was kind of perplexed that we didn't see a slightly higher pop in the VIX, for example. So S&P options prices didn't really rally that sharply. We did see actually some opportunistic buying in ETFs.

non-US ETFs, so we're talking about emerging markets, Brazil, things like that. I did buy or add to my SPX put position a little bit, soften up the deltas there just a little bit because we were only up, at the time, the VIX was about 19.4, it actually closed over 20. But I still think that if people are a little bit concerned about this and want to do a little bit of hedging, it's not terribly expensive to do that.

All right. Coming up, payment pain. Visa, MasterCard, American Express hit hard on reports that Amazon and Walmart are developing their own stable coins. What's at stake next? Plus, Tesla revs up on news the White House could loosen rules around full self-driving. Could robo-taxis finally be a reality? More Fast Money in two. This is Fast Money with Melissa Lee right here on CNBC. Hello.

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Welcome back to Fast Money. Paying for the payment space, Visa, MasterCard, American Express leading the group lower after a Wall Street Journal report saying two big retail names are exploring their very own stable coins. The potential move by Walmart and Amazon could shift huge amounts of cash out of the traditional financial system, save them billions in fees, according to the journal, if the so-called Genius Act clears both houses of Congress. Walmart and Amazon could issue their own crypto tokens, which could

maintain a one-to-one exchange ratio with the dollar stable coins do you back by their own cash or treasury reserves you also pointed out paypal was down this news which makes sense what do you make of this it feels like the writing is on the wall for these interchange fees to be disintermediated at some point it does i mean you know we've talked a lot about google and search and the threat of what this fabulous business is and

Visa and MasterCard have had extraordinarily great businesses for a really long time. And so, I mean, they were down a lot, I guess. The market was down a lot. There's so much more potential pain to come if this happens much more quickly than people think. And Circle was up a lot, which is not surprising. Yeah, and I think long-term, if this does in fact happen, it is going to be a bad thing for your Vistas and your MasterCards. But I think the question is, what is going to get consumers to adopt this? Like, they've tried to have their own wallets in the past. And think about, like, if you have an Amex,

that you're paying with, you get points on that. So you have to give up your points to get something there. So they're going to have to incentivize you in order to change here. So I think that's the question is what is it going to save them in fees versus what kind of incentives are they going to have to give for you to give up your credit cards in the process? And I think there may be a little bit bigger of a hurdle there than people are giving that credit for it, at least in the short term, I would say. Yeah. Mike?

Yeah, I mean, we saw about seven times the average daily put volume in Visa today. MasterCard obviously also had significantly above average volume. You know, as I take a look at this, I'd probably be more inclined to favor Amazon over Walmart. I mean, Walmart's valuation is pricing in a lot of good news there. And I'm assuming that what a lot of buyers of that stock are pricing in is not just a payment.

activity, but increased move to a higher margin digital marketplace for them. And they are seeing that. They did see, I think, 18% growth in their last quarterly earnings report. But still, it was at its peak this week. It was trading close to 40 times forward, which is actually even richer than the payments companies. So to me, you're paying up to speculate on a new payments thing in Walmart right now.

Yeah, I think we're on the right story here because it really is about cutting the cost of transactions. And that's something that's going to happen. And it's something that also, if you go back to that visa chart, I mean, it's been relentless to the upside over the last three years. It's something that on valuation isn't terrible, but it's something that certainly...

I think does look vulnerable and has been impervious. It used to be about people expected at some point. And then these stocks over the last five years have experienced this existential threat before. But I think this is real. It's not overnight. But I do think that what we're already starting to see with stable coins in this is a way a lot of industries are settling. It's also speeding up the transaction timing. And this is part of it, saving money and all of that. And I think

I think you're going to see this again and again. I mean, imagine if they not only use it for customer transactions, but also for vendor transactions. Right? So the billing is immediate. All those orders get settled immediately. And, you know, that could be meaningful. Right.

And how much money that makes it right. And if you cut it down to one day or less. I think banks have a shot here to also participate in the issuance of stable coins. And I think if you look at some of the European banks, this article talked about Deutsche Bank and Santander being right in the middle of that. All right. There's a lot more fast money to come. Here's what's coming up next.

Full self-driving and full throttle. Behind the headlines that could give Tesla the green light to bring its robotaxi fleet into reality and what it means for the rest of the auto space. Plus, another check on the spike in oil as tensions ramp up in the Middle East. How much higher could prices be heading? Next, you're watching Fast Money, live from the Nasdaq market site in Times Square. We're back right after this.

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Welcome back to Fast Money. Tesla up 2% today after regulators said they are streamlining or plan to. Reviews of self-driving vehicles, the move could speed up the process of getting cars without steering wheels or driver-controlled brakes like Tesla's CyberCab on the road. The news also shifting shares of Uber and Lyft into reverse. Tesla plans to roll out its robo-taxi in Austin June 22nd. Today's stock move, though, leaves it still shy of recovering losses from last week's social media spat between CEO Elon Musk

and President Trump, which seems to have been mended since, Mike, miraculously before this headline about smoothing the process for autonomous comes out. - Yeah, I mean, the options traders are liking this one. It was about six, almost 6.4% of all options volume today, traded almost 2.6 million calls. That's up about a million contracts over what it has traded on average over the last 20 trading days. You know, I've used full self-driving. I know people who use it to commute to work every single day.

It certainly doesn't feel like the technology is that far away, you know, sitting in the driver's seat without touching any of the pedals of the wheel myself. So for me, I'm not that surprised to see that we're getting this kind of announcement. And I'm kind of looking forward to the day that they start letting these things out on the road a little bit more.

It is amazing how every single positive headline for full self-driving, autonomous, robo taxi, all that, it's negative. Always negative for Lyft and Uber. Every single time they move lower. Shouldn't this be a lot less negative for Uber?

who is the app for all seasons and has multiple services attached to it, that if anything, it probably makes them, it lowers their costs, makes them more efficient. So I don't think you're trading these stocks on that, even though I think the market is. And actually, I would be trading Uber from the long side at this point.

I think the valuation is really attractive. The profitability, the margin profile of this company has changed dramatically. Would you, and I guess this is a sell, would you rather. It's not a sell if you do it. I know where you're going. I know what you're going to do to me. Because we always say you would shove the lift into your band, making it bland for your actors.

I didn't shove the Lyft anywhere. I've been in the Lyft for a long time. But I have to acknowledge the outperformance of Uber, and I have to acknowledge the outperformance of the model, but the business model for the stock. I still think that selectively I can make Lyft

either the L in bland or I could throw it out and it can just be banned when it comes to acronym trading. No, I think Lyft is attractive here. I think what we're talking about relative to driverless though is that Uber is more defensive here and I like Uber as well. I like Uber. I wish I owned more Uber. It sort of got away from me a little bit, but I think what you talked about, I mean, they've improved margins now, cashflow positive, growing, growing cashflow, and it's getting to be not such a hefty valuation.

Yeah, I mean, the one with a hefty valuation here is clearly Tesla. And obviously, that's why people are hopeful on is if they can actually get these robo taxis in that might justify their valuation. Honestly, I still think it's too expensive. It's not something I've been jumping in on. But I think people were concerned. We had this spat with Trump and Elon last week that suddenly they weren't going to get these regulations through. But now hopefully they're resolving those. You're starting to see maybe this is actually going to get through. And I think that's why you're seeing some pop here on Tesla.

Coming up, crude oil surging as tensions in the Middle East boil over. What is next for an energy market on the edge? That's right after this. Missed a moment of fast? Catch us anytime on the go. Follow the Fast Money Podcast. We're back right after this.

Welcome back to Fast Money. Stocks taking big losses into the weekend as tensions between Iran and Israel escalate. The Dow S&P 500 and Nasdaq all losing more than a percent, with Dow crossing back below its 200-day moving average and the S&P closing below 6,000 for the first time in a week. Meanwhile, Boeing and GE Airspace both dropping on reports of the 787 Dreamliner that it could be grounded in India after yesterday's fatal crash.

Finally, Oracle up another 8% to cap off its best week since 2001. BMO upgrading the software stock to outperform, boosting its price target to $235 from $200. That's about 10% upside from today's close. Mike Coe, take your pick.

Yeah, I mean, why don't we talk about Oracle? I mean, it's pretty clear that some folks must have seen this coming because this thing was trading at a 20-year high in terms of its turn to forward multiple ahead of the earnings print. And now we're finding out why, because this is a company that is looking to grow probably adjusted EPS from just over $4 a share to over $8 a share by fiscal year 2027. And we saw just a ton of upside call buying in this thing, about seven times its average daily

volume. That multiple, which seemed expensive just a couple of days ago, doesn't if these growth forecasts actually hold up. Yeah. Tim, you spot Boeing the day before yesterday, right? I did. I was adding to a position that felt really good. I mean, we were getting the price action. We've had the fall through in the fundamentals. And and and

This is such a horrific story that it's really just tough to speculate around anything other than right now we're not looking at any impact to production and that I think if this was a 737, I think we'd be...

having a much different conversation. A horrific event. We're waiting for the details on what really happened here. And I think Boeing has turned itself around. All right. Meantime, WTI crude hitting its highest level since January after Iran's retaliatory attacks on Israel. How much higher can prices go? Let's bring in OPIS's chief oil analyst, Denton Sinkagrana. Denton, great to have you with us. Thank you. Good to see you. You apparently believe that much of today's move or all of today's move perhaps was short covering oil.

Yeah, no, this market had a lot of open interest. Rule of thumb that I use is open interest goes down, prices go up, sign of short covering. Money managers did have quite a bit of short positions out there as well. And this market was trending higher over the course of this week anyway. So this kind of just supercharged it.

Let's pretend that we freeze here in terms of the retaliation, the missiles being traded, et cetera. This seems like it's almost a pretty good case scenario for oil, at least, because no infrastructure was damaged, no oil infrastructure. The Strait of Hormuz is still open. What would oil do at this point?

Well, you're absolutely right. We freeze everything here. And you're looking at a situation where supply is not impacted. OPEC is still bringing more barrels to the market. Even though rigs are down in the United States, production is still in the 13 million barrel a day plus area. We see no impact to supplies as it currently stands. So if Iran doesn't do anything to, say, block the straits like you mentioned, we're going

which again, they'd end up shooting themselves in the foot because they use a straight as well. You're looking at a situation where prices may start to cool off. I mean, WTI reached as high as $77.62, down $4 from there. But I think a lot of this was a knee-jerk reaction. And the short covering, as mentioned before.

Denton, Tim, thanks for joining us. One of the other fascinating headlines, I think, from this week in the space is that the IEA, and this isn't like a real earth-shattering headline, but that U.S. shale production has peaked and that U.S. will start to see some contraction in their production over the next couple years. Does that do anything? I realize on some level it's always been about Saudi and OPEC swing production, but in terms of an oversupply of

the oil market that the US has had something to do with and put OPEC on their back foot. What do you think about all that? Yeah, no, you're absolutely right, Tim. And yeah, I think shale has peaked maybe for the time being. You know, I think the recounts coming down obviously is going to put some downward pressure on oil production here in the United States. But even with a pullback in production, the United States is still going to be one of the largest producers on the planet.

So let's pretend that the conflict goes away. Do you think that the trend for oil, do you think we've seen the lows? For the year, probably. I think a lot of it has to do with economic growth as well. Like I said, this market had been trending higher this week even before this. U.S.-China negotiations are ongoing, but they seem to be moving in a positive direction.

Inflation was coming down. I think next month we'll probably see a higher inflation number. And GDP looks like it's going to be OK here in the second quarter. And globally, you're starting to see some economists kind of boost their GDP outlook. So

But with today and everything that's happened, you know, that 7762 for WTI, 7850 for Brent. Melissa, if everything freezes and nothing else happens, like you said, I think that may be the high for the remainder of 2025. OK. And then since it's a long weekend, we don't know what's going to happen. Walk us through what you think happens to the oil price if they do close the straight.

Yeah, if they close the Strait, you're going to see a pretty significant impact. Obviously, there's alternatives to go through the Suez Canal, but the ships that can pass the Suez are smaller. So obviously, you're not shipping as much. Shipping costs will go up. It takes more time to get to various locations through the Suez.

It would be a lift for prices, but not incredibly. I do think, though, if you block the straight for a period of time, yeah, triple digits become part of the equation again. All right. Denton, thank you. My pleasure. Thanks. Have a good weekend. You too. And we, of course, today saw oil stocks across the board bid higher, Mike Coe.

Yeah, I mean, oil stocks, USO, as I was previously mentioning, the WTI crude contracts were trading well above average volume and a lot of call buying. But as we were talking about at the top, I think that was sort of speculative, just

sort of a knee-jerk reaction, if you will, to what we were seeing in the Middle East. I mean, the US is still forecast to be the biggest producer in 2026 of oil and gas by probably a very comfortable margin, as we have been for the last several years. And we're seeing technological improvements as well. And one of the reasons we see those declining rig counts is just because we had that softness. And I think only if you start to see that go up, it's because people are starting to think that we actually do have some kind of a supply constraint. Right now, we don't.

Big response in tanker stocks, too, right? If that happens, right? Or you have to go a much longer route, much longer. Remember the days of like Frontline and Baltic Dry Index? It was exciting stuff.

That's like fast money. Been a while, right? That is. 22,000. I was a young man back then. Yeah, there's no question. That was a long time ago. Coming up, Novo Nordisk sneaky rally. The weight loss darling gaining big this week. What is next for this name and its biggest competition? Plus, a win for Whirlpool. What one analyst has to say about this appliance name that has the stock in go mode. Stay tuned. You're watching Fast. Thanks.

Welcome back to Fast Money Time for our chart of the week. Novo Nordisk surging 7% since Monday. The stock getting a boost this week on news that it will advance its next generation emicretin obesity drug to late stage clinical trials. Counting unlisted shares, it's now reclaimed the crown as Europe's most valuable company. While the stock is still negative on the year, Novo is up over 20% since ousting its CEO just a month ago. There's the entry of an activist investor who wants to have a hand in choosing the next CEO.

It's not a... I mean, this is something that we've been talking about for a long time. You guys here, Karen and Tim, bought into this on valuation reasons. You must be happy where it is now. Yes. But more to come? I...

I think Lilly's better. Okay. Oh. Yes. I just think Lilly's better. I mean, you know, they're pulling away. That, you know, did Novo get down to what, the mid-60s? Yeah. Yeah. That was kind of a ridiculous, that was a below market multiple on years of huge sales. But now that's moved significantly.

so much that I'd rather have more dollars in Lilly. And I'm not even so sure that it was screaming on valuation. I mean, I think it was more that it was just being punished on a relative basis to Lilly and relative to, you know, trading cheap to Lilly, but not necessarily trading cheap to itself. I think it's a combination of things.

Let's not also forget it's now the largest stock in Europe. So if you're buying a European index or a European ETF, and I imagine ETF that actually has a big kind of core of Europe. I mean, Novo is the company you have to it's like a big part of the index. So I think if we're seeing flows to Europe, both back from Europeans and other global investors, but also from U.S. players, that has something to do with it as well.

And it still trades a lot cheaper than Lilly, right? I mean, it trades like 19 times forward earnings versus Lilly's like 33 times. And I think that's the thing is you're looking at investors who said, okay, Lilly is going to be the winner here. But I don't think this has to be a one-winner game. I mean, realistically, they can both be in this space. And we're looking at that valuation discrepancy. That's where people have coming in here. And now you're seeing they're changing their CEO. They're getting these late-state trials. Like, they're really trying to show we are still in the game here. And investors are really starting to realize that. These gains for Novo also happened in a week where...

Pharma in general is catching a bit, right? I mean, we've already seen in biotech, but pharma, big cap pharma, Merck, for instance, Mike, Pfizer, all doing nicely for the week.

Yeah, I mean, I'm going to agree with everybody else and say you always want to try to buy the best of breed when and wherever you can. So that obviously would favor Lilly over Novo. But I also agree with Tim in the sense that you could be seeing money flows into international markets. Actually, I was alluding to that at the beginning of the show when we saw that in a lot of the ETFs that track some of the foreign markets. And it's both Europe as well as some of the emerging markets in Asia, EFN.

E as well, all seeing sort of purchases. And I think you probably should just allocate a little bit there just because there is a bigger spread to earnings on European stocks versus the S&P right now. So if we are seeing some sort of US divestment into Europe, that's probably a way you'll pick up Novo.

What do you make of pharma waking up? I think it's important. I think it's, first of all, it should be defensive. It should be what we're starting to see a bid to, especially after a couple of years of underperformance even going into this period.

The regulatory profile, everything from the negotiations with Medicare to what's been going on in the real health care side with UNH and Humana. I mean, it's been sloppy. And then you have this loss of exclusivity cliff for a number of the biggest pharma companies in the world. Having said all that, you've priced in so much negativity. People, even the analysts that are in the sector, come on here and are negative people.

I actually think you want to own it. Look at the breakout. Also, breakout the move in the IBB and the XBI. So biotech, there's deal flow. I think it's interesting. Coming up, a whirlwind for Whirlpool. The appliance giant jumping on a bullish Wall Street call. What is one analyst so excited about this name? That is next. More Fast Money in two. We've got more on the latest in the escalating conflict between Iran and Israel. Eamon Javers joins us now. Eamon.

Melissa, strikes and counter-strikes are continuing at this hour between Iran and Israel. The Israeli military putting out some information just a short time ago suggesting that they have now intercepted two what they're calling aerial targets in the region of the Negev. That's the desert region in the southern part of Israel. They're saying that two of those targets have been intercepted. They say that the sirens are

are sounding in that region due to what they're calling infiltration of hostile aircraft. The Israeli military says that it did intercept one aerial target that was launched toward the city of Eilat in the Negev. So clearly ongoing hostilities here between Iran, presumably, and Israel. The Israelis saying they're now intercepting some of those targets. Melissa, back over to you.

Eamon, thank you. Eamon Javers with the latest. Let's get to our call of the day here. Whirlpool shares rising 3% after B of A upgraded the stock to a neutral from Underperform, also raising its price target to $94 a share from 68. Analysts writing that the appliance maker is better positioned to absorb tariffs versus its peers and that its advantage in domestic manufacturing could be a tailwind for the company's market share and margins, especially as it faced so much competition from overseas, LG, Samsung, etc.,

with tariffs. They were in a pole position, according to this analyst. Yeah, there's two other headwinds, though, that, I mean, the interest rates for

you want someone to buy a new home and that's when they're going to buy a new washer and dryer so there's that and then remember that giant surge of people buying new homes during the pandemic they were whirlpool was just crushing it and those aren't that old yeah those need to age a little bit more and they have a lot of debt but it's sort of if rates come down i can see it really pop but i'm not

It's interesting. There was a time also in the pandemic where Whirlpool was really hurt by supply chain dynamics. And in fact, the stock ultimately went into a bit of a tailspin that it really couldn't get out of. So I think it's interesting. I like the call. I like the call because I think Whirlpool is proven to be

a high quality producer. And at times there's a lot of cyclicality in their business. And if in fact they have a small advantage over the competition, I think that goes a long way here. Well, I do think they stand to benefit from tariffs because they have so much manufacturing and steel that's here domestically in the U.S. I do think interest rates, to Karen's point, are one of the biggest problems. And not necessarily because consumers aren't going to finance it,

But they have about $1.8 billion that's going to be maturing in the next year that they are going to have to refinance, which means this will be more expensive for them. So I think that's something that you really have to weigh out is are the tariffs going to be enough of a headwind to offset that? I think that's what you really need to weigh out. Mike, is this in the Holly index?

- Whirlpool is not in the Holley Index. That is, those are not the appliances that we have. So I wouldn't buy it for that reason. I will say this, the options seem fairly reasonably priced. They look expensive, but one of the reasons they appear expensive is because of what Karen was just alluding to. Their net debt has increased pretty materially over the last several years. So that's going to account for higher volatility on the equity side. So use your options to make your directional bets here.

Holly's probably a sub-zero girl, if I had to guess. Viking. Yeah, I mean. Up next, final trades. Final trade time. Mike Coe. A fluid situation, admittedly, but I'm inclined to fade the spiking crude.

Tim. Yeah, I think this is a movement in the biotech space you can buy. I don't think it's a huge breakout, but I like it. Karen. If you went home long, it's the same as buying it on the close. Went home long, Uber. Uber. Court. I think industrials are worth a look. Take a look at Caterpillar here. Thanks for watching Fast Mad Money starts right now.

Thank you.

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