Stocks Rise As Oil Sinks Below $95

0:00Welcome to Risk Reversals Market Matrix, your AI-generated podcast curated by Guy Adami and Dan Nathan, breaking down the day's most impactful stock market and business headlines. I'm your host, Brunson, and all of today's market data is provided by FACTSET. It's Monday, March 16th, and these are your top stories. US stocks rebounded Monday, with the S&P 500 up 1% and the NASDAQ up 1.2% after three straight losing weeks driven by the Iran War and oil-driven inflation fears. The rally came as oil prices pulled back, with West Texas Intermediate around $93 and Brent near $100. After a US official, said Iranian tankers were being allowed through the Strait of Hormuz and a Wall Street Journal report signaled a planned international escort coalition for shipments. Meta and NVIDIA added gains on reports of potential deep layoffs and NVIDIA's GTC conference launch, helping support the tech-driven rebound. More on that later, despite the bounce,

1:04volume was light, hinting at limited conviction, while the overall market remains just over 4% below its recent highs, reflecting continued nervousness over the war's impact on growth and rates. Some investors say they are still relying on the view that President Trump can dial down the conflict if oil spikes become too damaging, though the situation remains fluid and the fog of war keeps markets cautious. A new energy shock from the war in the Middle East threatens to drag Europe's stagnant economy into recession, just as government's fiscal room has narrowed since the Ukraine crisis. Soaring oil and gas prices are pushing up transport and production costs, pressuring farmers and manufacturers, and risking higher inflation and food prices. The Wall Street Journal notes that with elevated debt and borrowing costs, Europe can no longer afford the massive support packages seen in 2022, forcing leaders to rely on smaller measures like price gouging checks and oil reserve releases. Policy makers now face tougher choices on inflation, rates, and decarbonization, while trade

2:09dependent Europe confronts renewed deindustrialization risks. Also in the Wall Street Journal, Apollo's John Zito offered a rare candid assessment of private credit's recent turmoil, criticizing arrogance in private markets, and warning that loans to generic small or mid-size software firms could recover just 20-40 cents on the dollar. He blamed media hype and risky behavior, arguing that many 2018-2022 technology take privates are lower quality and overvalued compared with public peers, and cited specific concerns about deals like medallia. Zito expects newer private credit ventages to be healthier and urged peers to stick to standard 5% quarterly redemption caps to protect investors. He also questioned the disconnect between strong demand for secondary private equity stakes and worries about underlying private credit risk, saying private equity marks are too optimistic and that software valuations likely don't reflect current conditions. Zito sees a likely consumer confidence led recession and doubts the inflation

3:11narrative, while defending Apollo's balance sheet structure and positioning the firm to emerge relatively stronger from a downturn. Now, let's turn to tech. Reuters reports that meta is planning sweeping layoffs that could affect 20% or more of its workforce as the company seeks to offset ballooning artificial intelligence infrastructure costs and prepare for greater efficiency from AI-assisted workers. The cuts would be the largest since Meta's 2022 to 2023 year of efficiency, restructuring, and come as the firm pours tens of billions into data centers, AI talent, and new models, including a planned $600 billion investment in data center infrastructure by 2028. Top executives have signaled the plan to senior leaders, urging them to begin preparations, though the exact timing and final size have not been set. Meta has framed the move around AI-driven productivity gains, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg saying projects once requiring large teams can now be handled by fewer more talented people. The company has largely pivoted away from the metaverse and

4:16VR, instead focusing on generative AI and AI first products, even as it faces pressure from investors to balance massive AI spending with profitability. Meta's spokesperson has pushed back on the 20% figure as speculative, describing it as theoretical, but acknowledged internal planning for substantial reductions is underway. The layoffs would fit a broader US tech trend this year, in which companies cite increasingly capable AI tools as a reason for shrinking headcount and doing more with smaller teams. CNBC reports that at Nvidia's annual developer conference, CEO Jensen Huang said purchase orders for Blackwell and Vera Rubin chips could reach $1 trillion through 2027, doubling last year's $500 billion projection, with finance chief Collette Crest signaling growth this year will exceed that earlier estimate. Nvidia's AI-focused GPUs have made it the most valuable public company at around $4.5 trillion, as AI adoption moves from simple chatbots to agentic apps that

5:18spawn multiple agents. The surge in tokens being generated is driving demand for faster inference processing. Nvidia's stock closed up around 1.5% on the news. Now, onto some headlines out of Washington. The New York Times reports that a little notice switch in how the Bureau of Economic Analysis measures legal services prices, helped reduce January's core personal consumption expenditures, inflation by about 0.1 percentage point, raising concerns about transparency and official economic data. The agency substituted volatile consumer price data, with more stable wholesale price data. A move it calls a one-off adjustment, not a formal methodology change. The change went undisclosed, leaving economists and markets to puzzle out the reason after their forecasts missed the published number. Experts argue the data source switch itself may have been technically justified, but doing it without notice against the backdrop of political pressure on US statistical agencies undermines trust in the

6:20numbers investors and the Federal Reserve rely on. The incident highlights how even small category tweaks can sway a closely watched inflation gauge at a time when questions about data integrity are growing. That's your risk reversal market matrix. Be sure to follow us to get alerts on new episodes every day. All of the articles mentioned on today's podcast can be found in the show description. To get Guy Adami and Dan Nathan's market analysis on these topics and more, listen to market call on risk reversals YouTube page Monday through Thursday. Story curation by risk reversal, scripts by perplexity pro, voice by 11 laps. I'm Brunson. Thanks for listening.