Stop Letting Dow Futures Ruin Breakfast

March 23, 2026 | Season 8 | Episode 8

One Middle East headline can knock Dow futures down hundreds of points, and the next can launch a rally just as fast. That kind of market volatility is exhausting, but it’s also a test of whether we’re investing with a plan or just reacting to the news.

We walk through what the early-morning whipsaw in stocks, oil, and Treasury yields reveals about geopolitical risk and portfolio management. Then we get practical about investing psychology: how fear and greed show up as panic, euphoria, and the expensive urge to “do something.” We lean on ideas from James Clear’s Atomic Habits to focus on daily patterns that create clear thinking, and we share simple tools that keep us grounded when the media cycle is trying to hijack our attention.

From there, we connect the dots to the bigger macro picture: inflation pressure from higher energy prices, shifting expectations for Federal Reserve rate cuts, and why input costs like the producer price index can matter before consumers feel it. We also touch on a less obvious driver of inflation and growth, the artificial intelligence buildout and rising chip and component prices, plus why gold can behave in surprising ways when rates move.

Finally, we zoom out with history, comparing modern trade tensions and conflict to the Napoleonic era and the long-tail consequences that still shape today’s world, including Iran’s memory of humiliating treaties and why that matters for current sentiment.

Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s stressed by the markets, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What’s the one habit that helps you stay calm when headlines hit?

** For informational and educational purposes only, not intended as investment advice. Views and opinions are subject to change without notice. 

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Transcript

Middle East Shock Hits Markets

Alan Eppers 0:00

And now introducing Mr. Keith Lanton.

Daily Habits For Clear Thinking

Fear Greed And Media Triggers

Horizon Perspective And 48 Hour Rule

Oil Rates And Global Market Check

Napoleonic Trade War Lessons

Iran Russia And A Lasting Grudge

Oil Gold And The Fed Squeeze

Inflation Data And AI Chip Costs

Keith Lanton 0:05

Good morning. Today is Monday, March 23rd. As we make our way towards spring, which happened last week and the end of the first quarter, and the news flow continues to come at us like we are drinking out of a fire hose. this morning there's a lot to report on developments in the Middle East, how that may impact your investments and your portfolios, and we're going to spend a good amount of time talking about that. We're also gonna talk about managing our emotions in this period where we are getting whipsawed with with news and with events that could make us feel very pessimistic and then alternatively very quickly feel very optimistic. So we're gonna talk about some strategies that we can employ to hopefully keep our minds clearer and make ourselves better investors. And this is not just something we can do when it comes to investing, but something we can do as we manage our business, our relationships this morning. So just starting out with the news flow this morning. I woke up this morning, we're looking at Dow futures down several hundred points. News flow out of the Middle East was was more of the same, kind of what we came to accept as of Friday that there was going to be an escalation. President Trump saying that if attacks continued on the Straits of Hormuz, that we were going to target Iranian infrastructure, utility plants, possibly desalinization plants, and the Iranians responding that they would do the same, and the concerns were that the conflict would go on for longer, elevated energy prices would persist, and the feeling that there was no end in sight was what we were largely waking up to this morning. Then a little while ago, President Trump said that he held pr productive talks with Iran, and we saw markets flip on a dime, we saw futures rocket up about eleven hundred points, and that's on the Dow. NASDAQ futures up about 400, oil was down about ten dollars a barrel, and then there was some commentary coming out of out of Iran. Their FARS News Agency said no direct or indirect talks with the U.S. despite President Trump's statements. After that came out, we saw futures give back about half their gains. Dow futures are up about 600. At that point, oil was was instead of being down ten, it was down about five dollars a barrel. And now we're seeing futures get a little bit more optimistic. We're up about 800. It's possible some other news has been floating around out there. So again, as you can see this morning we are seeing all sorts of commentary. President Trump saying that the U.S. will be suspending attacks on major Iranian sites for five days, and we will continue to get news flow, and this will continue to be something that we as investors continue to monitor. But keep in mind this is as tragic as it is, and it certainly is, this is very short-termism. As investors, we need to take a big picture, think long term, hope and pray that this conflict is resolved in the next near term, let's call it, and hopefully it is resolved with United States interests being successfully represented and the United States coming out successful here, not just for us, but for the entire world, and hopefully we will see a peacer world, a world with more peace, not more conflict, especially as it comes to the Middle East, which is an area that's certainly been full of turmoil, and we'll talk about that in history. So let's talk about what we can do as we experience this volatility, and it all comes back to we as individuals, ourselves, what can we do in order to be able to think more clearly, more rationally, and I'm gonna go back to James Clear, author of Atomic Habit, and to think about what are your daily patterns, not what are your grand plans, because you are, he says, your daily patterns. You are not your grand plans. Your grand plans are important, but if you are not executing on a daily basis, your daily, your your grand plans aren't all that meaningful because you're not going to be successful. So what is it that you are doing every day in order to move towards that success? And as you think about moving towards this success, you have to think that moving forward with an answer that is partially correct will usually fill in the gaps faster than waiting until you come up with a plan that is perfectly correct. So if you're sitting around waiting for that perfect moment, you're waiting for that perfect moment to put your cash into the markets, you're waiting for that perfect moment for that individual stock or for your portfolio to hit a certain level and you think a bell's going to go off and you're going to take an action, you're probably not going to have success if you're sitting around waiting for those perfect moments. What you need to do is is make the moves, make the make the make the entrees, and then the the actual next step will reveal itself to you as more likely to happen if you actually take action as opposed to sitting on your hands and not take action. When we're thinking about that, keep in mind the world that we live in, the world that we live in is optimized, he says, for convenience, not improvement. And that's one of the reasons that those who perhaps are less successful choose the convenient path. What's the convenient path? Well, the convenient path might be sitting on your couch on a hot summer day in an air-conditioned room and and watching Netflix. But that, albeit is the convenient path, it is not the path to self-improvement. The mind and body only grow when placed under stimulus. If you want improvement, you have to choose something different that can different than convenience. He goes on to say, it can be lovely to have a day where you do not push yourself, and that's good. You need a rest. But don't turn a rest into a rest fit. Turn a rest into a temporary stop, a pause to refresh, and then push yourself going forward in order to generate that change, to generate that future that you want to that you want to bring forward. And of course, one of the main ways that that we can sometimes feel better about ourselves is by giving. Yes, better about ourselves by giving. Of course, we are making better for others, but by giving to others we often get the benefit of a more energetic positive feeling within ourselves. Generosity can be something he says as simple as being early. You wait so the person that you are meeting does not have to wait for you. Also think about perhaps in a relationship, perhaps with your significant other, your spouse. Leaving something unsaid can be a form of generosity. You don't always need to have the last word. Alright, so those are the things that we can do as individuals. Let's talk a little bit about the mindset of investing. So here we are in this universe here, this world where we are constantly being bombarded with news, information at light speed. The the probably the greatest challenge that we face, different than in times past. In times past, it used to be that the individual investor did not have the information that the professional had. The professional had news wires and they had they had direct lines coming into offices that provided them with news that the individual didn't have. Well, the world has changed. The individual has just as much information as the as the financial professional on most days and most matters, but the world has changed. It's not so much about getting the information now, it's about what you do with it, is how you process that information. And this goes back to talking about James Clear Atomic Habits, about thinking clearly and how to think clearly about your investments when you might have woken up this morning feeling panicked. You might have woken up this morning feeling euphoric, depending on what time you woke up. But managing investment, panic, and euphoria is also what Warren Buffett has called famously it's managing the emotions of fear and greed. It's less about investing, it's less about predicting the market, and it's more often about managing your own psychology because you can be your own worst enemy when this news flow comes in and you want to take action. Because what happens is when volatility spikes, our mind reverts back to our innate wiring. It's that fight or flight response that triggers a desire to do something. I must do something, whether you're aware of it or not, that's what got you to survive. When there was a calamity going on in a in a village, and if you waited, you may not have survived. We got here, the species perpetuated itself by being confronted with a serious threat and reacting very quickly to it without thinking. But that is an environment that will not bring success to you almost every day when it comes to investing. So that desire to do something is frequently the most expensive mistake an investor can make. Now, this flight or flight or this desire to do something is what the media feeds on. The media is driving every day to strike that cord to hit that survival wiring that is in bed within you. The media's goal is to grab your attention, right? The media is trying to put the world on their agenda. Your desire is to counteract that and listen to the media and focus on the meeting with your agenda in mind. This could be the traditional media, this could be social media. It you shouldn't get sucked into their agenda. You want to use and use it as a tool for your agenda. So if your financial survivor is triggered, you will get into that fight or flight mode. So the social media folks, the regular media folks, what they're seeking to do is hijack your emotions and to get your undivided attention. What they want to do with that undivided attention, well, they want to have their advertisers advertise and market to you with that undivided attention and subliminally encourage you to purchase goods and services that those folks are looking to sell to you. And as a result of that desire to sell goods and services to you, they are providing you with information, but they are providing you with information with a twist. The twist is to get you to really focus on the emotional side and therefore be riveted to that media. Now I'm not suggesting though that you pay no attention to your emotions, but to try and be objective about them. If you're feeling panicked or overly worried, well, that may be a sign that you're out over your risk tolerance, your investment skis. On the other hand, if you are feeling super confident, incredibly optimistic, you may also be out over your skis. You may be out on the over-optimism ski. You may be too aggressive in your portfolio. And you need to recognize these feelings and manage them. And here are some tools that that may help. So keep in mind, keep saying to yourself, the mantra, what is it, how long is my investment horizon? If your investment horizon, if your long-term goals are 10 plus years away, well then a 10 to 20% dip in the market while painful, that is not something that you cannot recover from. In fact, if you have spare capital, that may be an opportunity. On the flip side, if you have short-term needs and you are seeing volatility in the markets and you do not have short-term cash, well, that's a sign that you need to make some changes to your portfolio. But perhaps we're going to talk about this, what the ideal time to make changes to that portfolio is. Put things into perspective, the power of perspective. When you are listening to that media that is seeking to take control of your emotions, what they will oftentimes do is provide you with a stock chart that shows the market falling off a cliff, the price of gold falling off a cliff. What you want to do is you want to take a long-term perspective instead of looking at a chart that's been designed to look at a short-term period of time, six months, one year, pull back, get that perspective, take a look at a 10-year chart. How does a 10-year chart look on the S P 500? How does a 10-year chart look on the price of precious metals? Get into that mindset. Think of the mindset of things are down in price. Are they at a level that I think that they are attractive at? Think of most items that we purchase goods. When goods are down 10, 20, 30, 40 percent, oftentimes, not always, oftentimes they are on sale. And when they are on sale, that's the time when you may be in a better position financially to purchase them. So the opposite is often true in financial markets. When things go on sale, we say, I think that they're gonna get, you know, they think that instead of being 20% off, I think they're gonna go to 40% off. Where we're in Target and we see a sale or Walmart or Costco, we see a sale 20% off. We don't think to ourselves very often, well, I think that's gonna go to 40% off. You think to yourself, well, if I don't buy that at 20% off, it's probably not gonna be there or it won't be there in my size in a in a week or two from now. And then we talked about what to do if you don't have as much money as you should, if you're nearing retirement or you have near-term needs for your capital, and the markets are very volatile and you're very worried, and you recognize that perhaps you do not have that safety cushion that you have, it's very likely that you should up that safety cushion. But what you may want to do make sense is to wait 48 hours before hitting the trade button so that the emotional wave that you are experiencing can potentially pass and you can make a more clear and rational decision. So make that mental note, say, hey, I really don't feel comfortable, I really think I need more cash, I really think I need to be able to plan for that wedding, for retirement, for the home repairs, or I just need more savings in order to be comfortable. I really feel like I really need to do that. The markets are really volatile today, I'm really I'm really worried, take 48 hours, let that emotion at this moment in time subside, sleep on it, and then make the decision a couple of days later of how to make the portfolio adjustments. And also focus on what you can control. You can control your savings rate in many cases. Instead of spending a little extra on some luxuries, perhaps if you're feeling uncomfortable, it's time to put some of that cash that you're spending on luxuries into into savings. And one thing you can control, it's not regarding your your income, but regarding your your mind, is control your news intake. If you're feeling overwhelmed or overly excited, turn off the financial news cycle. It's again, it's designed to play on that alarmism that may be taking place within your mind. All right, let's let's let's move on. We're gonna talk a little bit about the financial markets this morning, which are still moving around, although seem to be stabilizing at the moment with the Dow futures up somewhere between seven and eight hundred points, Nasdaq futures up about four hundred, oil now is down seven dollars a barrel at $91. That's for that's for Brent Crude. And the 10-year Treasury, which got as high as 443, at least as high as I saw, it may have even been higher, is now down about three basis points to a 436. President Trump saying just a few minutes ago to a Fox Business reporter that Iran wants to make a deal badly, could be within five days or sooner. So he is doubling down despite the commentary back from the Iranian regime that they have not spoken to him. He's doubling down, suggesting that a deal may be coming, and markets are reacting positive right now. Markets in Asia down significantly. This is kind of what we were expecting here in the United States to carry over initially before this news from President Trump. So Asian markets, we saw South Korea very heavily dependent on oil and oil imports down over six percent, Japan down over three percent, also heavily dependent on oil imports, and even China and Hong Kong, which have been holding up a little bit better, were down over three percent, India was down two percent, and Australia was down about one percent. Major European indices are trying trending higher after overcoming their earlier weaknesses, those markets still open after President Trump acknowledged the talks being held with Iran to officially end hostilities. Over the weekend, President Trump saying that the Strait of Hormuz will have to be guarded by nations that use it. G7 foreign ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the United States of America, and representatives of the European Union have expressed support to our partners in the region in the face of unjustifiable attacks by the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies. Wall Street Journal, moving away into a different topic, reporting this morning that there is a bipartisan bill plan for banning sports bets on prediction markets. And here in New York there was a collision at LaGuardia Airport involving an Air Canada Express jet and a Port Authority firetruck. reports that two pilots have been killed and over 40 injured in that in that accident at LaGuardia Airport and that causing shutdowns at at the airport this morning. What's going on this week? This week we have ADP releasing its national employment report on giving us some insights that is coming out tomorrow, March 24th. last month private employers added an average of 9,000 jobs per week. The spider soft labor market then has been a massive repricing about the future path of interest rates, the Fed funds rates specifically, just at the end of February before the war with Iran. Traders had expected two to three quarter point cuts by the end of this year. Now we are seeing expectations of no interest rate cuts, and we're even seeing a one-third or thirty-three percent chance of a rate hike by October. So short-term rates here in the United States are ticking higher as well as throughout most of the rest of the world. This is due to concerns about the inflationary impact of the Iran War, which has caused oil prices to jump about 50%, a little less now with the rally this morning. Also, it's due in part to Fed Chair Jerome Powell saying last week when the Federal Reserve met that he would be staying on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors until the Department of Justice Justice's investigation to him is well and truly over with transparency and finality. Many expected Powell to leave the board when his term as Fed Chair ended on May 15th. Powell also said he'd stay on his chair if his potential successor, Kevin Walsh, isn't confirmed by the Senate when his when his term ends. Also this week we are going to get the SP 5 SP. The SP is going to be releasing its manufacturing and servicing purchasing managers index for March. We're looking for that to come in at 51 for the manufacturing component, 51.5 for services. Both these numbers would be down slightly from February. One commodity whose price has skyrocketed as a result of the war in the Middle East is tungsten. Just to give a little flavor of some of the smaller commodities that have been moving up in price and the impact that this can reverberate through the economy. The price of tungsten in the past year is up 557%. Saudi Arabia is saying that if the war in the Middle East were to continue through late April, they think that the oil prices, which are right now about $90 down $8, if the war were to continue, they could double to about $180 per barrel. An interesting statistic having to do with U.S. leases. Those of you who live in suburbia see lots of those strip malls, and you may notice the trend, and here's the data backing up. The trend 50% of leased spaces in the United States last year were for service tenants. That's things like gyms and spas. That's the first time that service businesses have equaled the amount of leased space in the United States versus versus goods tenants. And some good news about the homicide rate here in the United States. homicide rate per hundred thousand people is down twenty percent in two thousand twenty-five from two thousand twenty-four, and it is now at its lowest recorded level below its 2014 low. So, of course, low homicide rate is certainly good news. All right, we are seeing futures pick up. Dow Futures up almost 1,000 points again this morning. Perhaps some additional commentary or some feeding on the commentary from President Trump speaking to Fox Business News. Going to give us conversation here about some topic having to do with time in history that saw significant geopolitical. political upheaval at the same time as a trade war was taking place. Now a little bit different context to this time and period in history, but nevertheless two similar events unfolding, so I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the historically what happened in the in this time period and to see what was going on when we had this geopolitical conflict and this geopolitical conflict was tied to a significant trade war and the events that took place and this is the period during the Napoleonic Wars between the early 1800s and 1815 significantly shaped the future of the world going forward. So the parallel here is that this moment in history that we are living through, where we are seeing tremendous changes in the geopolitical landscape. We are seeing the U.S and Israel and the actions we are taking in the Middle East. We are seeing Russia and the actions that they are taking vis-a-vis Ukraine and we are seeing China asserting themselves in the conversation and certainly potentially militarily as they've discussed their ambitions so certainly haven't taken any action to date against Taiwan and this all around the framework and President Trump specifically using trade as a tool. And this is something that happened in the Napoleonic Wars in the early 1800s when Napoleon who had his ambitions of conquering the continent of Europe ran against a difficult foe and that was the British Navy. So what did Napoleon do? Well he banned all trade between the European continent and Great Britain and that had significant consequences and this is at the time when Napoleon and the British Empire were at war. They had been at war before Napoleon came to power then they were again at war after Napoleon came to power. But what happened is the British not being able to deliver their goods and services to continental Europe, what they did was they contemplated by expanding aggressively into South America and Asia. This is something very similar to what we are seeing today with China not selling as much to the United States and finding other markets for their goods and services. And the conflict also provided an opening for countries that were neutral which there certainly are neutral countries in the conflicts taking place in the world today and one of those neutral countries was the United States. Now one of the ramifications of the United States being neutral was that we were caught between British blockades and French seizures as we tried to remain neutral. And what happened is we started to build up a significant industrial base here in this country as a result of the fact that we were not able to trade as freely with the rest of the world. So one of the main reasons that the United States in the 1800s started becoming a vastly improved industrial powerhouse is because we could no longer rely on what was taking place in terms of goods and services being produced in Europe and making their way here. And perhaps our greatest lesson or the one that we are taught most frequently in school about the greatest result of the Napoleonic war is for us as Americans and what we focus on the most as Americans is that in order to fund his war efforts, Napoleon sold Louisiana to the United States, which is known here in the United States as the Louisiana Purchase which doubled the size of our country and opened up the Mississippi River for American agricultural commerce. Again you can see the enormous effect of the actions taking place in Europe, of the embargoes, of the cost of war, and you can see the secondary results and then decades, centuries later you can see what those results grew into. They compounded and the future which we can now look back on and see was tremendously influenced by these events. Another major event that took place because of these Napoleonic wars, which we still see today and we're seeing here in the United States is that the British government needed money in order to fight the Napoleonic Empire and what they did was they started issuing government bonds. First time that you had massive issuance of government bonds they were called consoles and this created a highly sophisticated bond market which is something that the United States now is a country that is the greatest issuer of debt and we issue this debt in order to fund our wars and we have leveraged the British in terms of becoming the leader in sophisticated bond markets and using bond markets in order to facilitate our ability to grow our country and to take actions like we are currently in the Middle East. Also as a result of war very often necessities the mother of invention well the need to mass produce muskets and uniforms accelerated the concepts of interchangeable parts factory line efficiency something that Henry Ford later capitalized on as well. Now let's just take Napoleonic Wars we talked about the influence here in the United States we talked about the influence in Europe well there was also a significant influence in the Middle East specifically a significant influence on the Qajar dynasty we talked about the Qajar dynasty last week we were talking about the the history of Iran and how Iran got to where they are currently in terms of their mindset. Well the Napoleonic wars also had a significant influence the Qajar dynasty in Iran and on how the Iranian mentality even leading up to current day Iran Iran today has shaped has shaped history. So what happened as a result of the Napoleonic Wars was that the Qajar dynasty in Iran was caught in between the French, the British and the Russians and what was taking place is that the Russians had ambitions to capture territory. We talked about this a little bit last week they were seeking to move south the Russians o have historically had a desire to drive south to get warm water ports. So the Russians were seeking Iranian territory at the time what is today modern day Azerbaijan what is modern day Armenia Russians were driving south. The Iranians were resisting and they were getting assistance from the French and then the British versus the Russians because the enemy of my enemy is my friend. So the Qajar dynasty was getting help from initially the French subsequently the British in order to stave off the Russians. But ultimately the Napoleonic wars ended and Napoleon if you remember your history tried to march into Russia. The Russians' army was no match for Napoleon so what the Russians did is they basically burned their land they burned their crops and they drove the Napoleonic armies deeper and deeper into Russia on a scorched earth policy. The Napoleonic armies did not have supply lines they basically lived off the earth they got caught in Russia during the winter six hundred thousand troops only a hundred thousand troops made it out that led to the demise of the Napoleonic army and the end of the Napoleonic era. And what that also led to was the fact that the Russians now could focus not on Western Europe where they had perceived threat before Napoleon and British were exhausted from war and the Russians could now refocus on the South and and and drive their attentions to the Qajar dynasty. And what the Russians did was they they captured that territory Azerbaijan Georgia and Dagestan and what happened was the traditional allies of the Iranians the British at this point no longer were willing to were willing to sacrifice for the Qajar dynasty and as a result the Russians were able to capture the territory and in 1828 there was a treaty the Treaty of Turkmenchai which is often described by historians as the final nail in the coffin for Persian influence in the Caucasus and from the Iranian perspective this treaty was a a humiliation. It resulted in territorial loss it resulted in them having to pay massive indemnity like the Germans did at the end of World War I. In other words they had to pay 20 million rupees to Russia which was a staggering sum. And they also had to grant Russian subjects the ability to adhere to Russian law even if they were in Persian territory something that they viewed as highly humiliating and this humiliation led to a wave of anti-foreign sentiment which some would say is carried forward even to this day. So as we remember the neo the the Napoleonic wars here in the United States we are taught lots about the history of the Louisiana Purchase in Iran they are taught a lot about what they call the inhumane treaties. This is what they're referred to in Iranian textbooks and these inhumane treaties the biggest of which was that treaty of Turkmenchai in 1828 before that there was a other treaty that was was also treaty of Guristan which was also viewed as a humiliation and these treaties these inhumane treaties played a significant role in the 1906 revolution in Iran and even in the 1979 revolution as leaders cited them as examples of why Iran must never again be dependent upon foreign powers. So as you can see periods of restricted trade periods of tariffs embargoes periods of military conflict have long tails and that tail from 200 years ago well that's the tale that we are living in today and a lot of the lot of the world that we're experiencing today has its roots in what took place in the past and we can learn from that from that transformational events and think and project forward and that can help make us better investors as well as better Americans. Alright well let's take a look at Barron's couple of stories in Barron's first off talking about events last week where financial markets were down about 2% and Barron's terming the phrase that the Goldilocks market may be over and there are now three bears threatening stocks and they call those three bears oil gold and the Fed this morning we were getting a little bit of relief in oil. Now you may be saying to yourself well gold I know it went up a lot but but why is it down so much? Isn't gold something that should be moving higher in a period where there's so much uncertainty of the world the United States is continuing to increase their debt which was one of the reasons that gold was moving higher isn't that something that you'd expect an environment in which gold would thrive and well one answer is is well one thing that's been happening is interest rates have been moving up in an environment when interest rates move up oftentimes that's an environment in which gold does move down because gold does not pay any interest but I don't think that's the driving force at least it's not the only force affecting gold. Perhaps the other force that Barons alludes to affecting gold is that there's going to be a need for a tremendous investment to build back up the infrastructure in the Middle East and some of the biggest buyers of gold have been some of these oil rich countries in the Middle East and now they are going to have to take that capital and rebuild and perhaps sell some of that capital that may have been stashed in gold and and use it to rebuild once the war is over and that is perhaps one of the reasons that the gold is dropping. Of course oil is rising because it looks like despite the initiatives this morning that hopefully will advance peace that significant damage has been done more damage has been done to the energy fields whether it's gas or or oil than had been initially anticipated at the outbreak of these hostilities and therefore we will see higher prices for longer. That's another factor the markets have to contend with and the final factor we talked about a little bit earlier is the Federal Reserve before we were expecting interest rates cuts and now because of these higher energy prices for longer we may be looking at the interest rates staying where they are or perhaps interest rates even possibly increasing. I think that's a tall order but not not impossible. So the Fed is keeping their eye on the economy and several different several different metrics in order to gauge prices and one of the measures we got last week was the producer price index. The producer price index is not the price that we as consumers pay for goods and services so when the price that we pay for goods and services increases that's the consumer price index. That means that the consumer price index is rising then in all likelihood your your life is getting more expensive but what we did get data on last week was what's known as the producer price index and the producer price index often leads the consumer price index the producer price index is the costs that go into the goods that we purchase and if the input costs are rising which is the producer prices it's very likely that those prices although not a certainty but very likely that those prices will get passed on to the consumer via the consumer price index. So last week we got producer price index coming in a lot stronger than expected and that's something that the financial markets were certainly concerned about. Higher wholesale prices are one of the reasons in fact that Fred Chair Powell signaled on Wednesday that the central bank isn't prepared to look through the recent rise in oil prices stemming from the Iran War. So in other words not viewing them as transitory looking at them as something that may last longer this is one of the factors one of the reasons that 10-year treasury yields have moved up significantly before the conflict in Iran started we were seeing and flirting with a 4% 10 year now we're flirting with a 4.4% 10 year so 40 basis points that's a big move on the 10 year Treasury 10% increase in just a few weeks again back to that whipsaw mentality that we talked about when we started the call that's something that's got the Federal Reserve very concerned also we didn't talk about it yet this morning but the other major factor in financial markets which was the number one factor before the conflict is the build out of artificial intelligence and that technology and that technology working its way into into all facets of the economy but one of those facets is that it's creating a significant demand for chips specifically chips that are used in memory storage and those chips which are being demanded by artificial intelligence companies as they build out their data centers are moving up significantly in price and those chips go into all sorts of products into your cars into your into your microwave ovens these days into your refrigerators chips are pervasive and as these chips increase in price and obviously going into your computers and your laptops wholesale electronic component prices jumped 10.4% in February and they are up 17.8% year over year so these individual pieces of the economy and of pricing are of concern to the Federal Reserve and therefore financial markets focused on several different bogeys here we're focused on interest rates we're focused on the price of of gold we're focused on the price of oil we're focused on what's taking place in the Middle East we are focused on what's taking place with artificial intelligence so the complexity is is growing not getting simpler and again bringing us back to the very start of the call we have to focus and control what we can control bring it back to our own individual selves to be able to keep that clear mindset as information is being being thrown at us super rapidly so that we can make intelligent investment decisions intelligent choices and intelligent strategies for us going forward both in our investing lives our personal lives and our professional lives that's everything I've got

Alan Eppers 39:15

Thank you for listening to Mr Keith Lanton. This podcast is available on most platforms including Apple Podcasts Spotify for more information please visit our website at www.heroldlantern.com

Sophie Cohen 39:30

Opinions expressed herein are subject to change and not necessarily the opinion of the firm past performance is no guarantee of future results the information presented herein is for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide personal investment advice. It is important that you consider your tolerance for risk and investment goals when making investment decisions. Investing in securities does involve risk and the potential of losing money. The material does not constitute research investment advice or trade recommendations.