US Oil Exports Surge to Record High & What to Know About the Hantavirus

0:28Consider this comparison. That's pwc.com slash us slash brewai. Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, Google just launched a whoop-doop. Then, what to know about the cruise ship battling the Hantavirus? It's Friday, May 8th. Let's ride.

0:54Good morning and happy 100th birthday to Sir David Attenborough, the man whose golden voice introduced us to the wonders of the natural world and the threats facing it. Many of us first learned of Attenborough's talents as the narrator for Planet Earth, but he'd been casting a spell on British TV audiences since the 1950s. In fact, Attenborough is credited as the only person to have won a BAFTA, the British Oscars, in black and white, color, high definition, 3D, and 4K. BBC's interim director general said, He is without a shadow of a doubt the most consequential broadcaster of our times. Happy birthday, big guy.

1:31Happy birthday. I was listening to a Scott Galloway podcast earlier, and he said to be successful in podcasting, you have to have a handsome voice. Sir David Attenborough might have the most handsome voice at all. And it comes down to the fact that he speaks with an accent known as received pronunciation. The Ringer wrote that this is considered the British standard, connoting high social status and prestige. The Lannisters talk with it on Game of Thrones. Actors doing Shakespeare in theater use it. It can sort of make him sound timeless, said Laurel McKenzie, an NYU linguistics professor. And at 100 years old, Attenborough is timeless.

2:07Going to wind down with some planet Earth tonight to celebrate his birthday. I mean, I'm just thinking about him. There's some people that have this really profound impact on your life you have such affection for, and they don't really appear that often. I'm thinking, you know, in the vein of Alex Trebek or David Attenborough. And when you think about how much pleasure and information they've delivered to you over the years, I mean, just watching Planet Earth those early years was a truly magical experience. And he was the main reason for it. Had it on DVD. That was like one of the things that we would watch via DVD because they had just the full stack of it.

2:38It was unbelievable. And now it's on Netflix. Go watch it tonight. And now a word from our sponsor, AT &T Business. Toby, why are you so blue? Small Business Week is almost over. Cheer up, my friend, because with AT &T Business, every week can feel like Small Business Week. They give you the freedom to grow without worrying about your connectivity holding you back. Because as your business grows, more customers, more locations, more demand, you need connectivity that can keep up. That's why AT &T Business helps small businesses scale without constantly reworking their setup. Explore connectivity solutions that transform along with your growing business at att.com slash smallbusiness.

3:16The Hantavirus, a respiratory disease with a mortality rate of up to 50%, is wreaking havoc on a cruise ship, leaving three passengers dead, five others ill, and officials worried about it spreading further. The Hondias expedition vessel left port in Argentina back on April 1st, with 150 passengers on board from 23 different countries. Ten days later, the first death occurred. Maria von Kirchhoff, a director for the World Health Organization, says her leading theory is that the first patient was infected before boarding during travel in South America and then passed the virus to close contacts.

3:50The first fatalities were an older Dutch couple who may have contracted Hantavirus after visiting a landfill during a bird-watching tour prior to the cruise. Hantavirus normally spreads through contact with infected rodents, specifically their droppings, but no rodents have been found on the ship. Some passengers tested positive for the rare Andes version of the virus, the only hantavirus strain for which human-to-human transmission is possible. The issue authorities are now grappling with is that around 30 passengers disembarked from the cruise ship and flew home back in late April. The wife of the original Dutch man who died was symptomatic when she flew to Johannesburg on a flight carrying 88 other people.

4:29Since then, a growing web of contact tracing has spread across continents with a flight attendant in the Netherlands potentially being identified as the first person not on the Hondias to become infected. Neil, the WHO had a press conference yesterday where they tried to reassure the public that this is not COVID, given the completely different form of transmission, affirming that they do not expect this to devolve into a larger epidemic. Yeah, there's two main arenas of this war against Hantavirus right now. One is this massive contact tracing operation across the world. There's those 30 people that got off the ship from at least 12 countries.

5:01So in the United States, they're tracking people in three states. In Switzerland, they're also tracking people all over the world, trying to find out who these people are, who have they been in contact with after they left the ship before this outbreak was understood. And then the other arena is the ship itself. There are still over 100 people, passengers and crew, on this ship. And they're heading to the Canary Islands right now, where on Saturday, they will get there and then hopefully go through this evacuation process beginning on Monday. But yeah, there are people who paid for this cruise that are still on the ship right now.

5:34And I've been reading about what it's like to be on a ship where already three people have died and five people have been taken to hospitals after being infected with this Hantavirus. And yeah, it's what we know from COVID. They're social distancing. They're wearing masks. They're trying to do anything to stay occupied, watching TV, reading books, and the people on the ship say morale is pretty high given all the circumstances, but I'm sure they're pretty excited to get off. It's also shining a light, not just on the cruise industry, but the expedition cruise industry in particular, which are cruises that promise you access to destinations that you wouldn't normally go to.

6:10I mean, like Antarctica, Sub-Antarctic islands, these very isolated communities around the entire world. And it's become a very fast growing corner of the travel industry. Almost 80 ,000 passengers landed on the Antarctic Peninsula last season. That is up from 54 ,000 before the pandemic. So people are trying to go further flung places because that's an exciting. But when it comes down to if there's a virus on board, it makes it very complicated. How do you detect it? How do you contain it? Because it is easy to lose track of exactly when someone was infected when you are in such far flung places.

6:46And if you do contract systems, you're thousands of miles away from civilization in some cases. So it might become one of these things where they have to reevaluate how do we handle disease on these cruises that go very far away from normal humans. Yeah, the sentiment online toward the cruise industry was not so positive this week. People are like, why are we still going on cruises when this can happen? And obviously in COVID in March 2020, you know, the cruise industry was also in the spotlight for being this petri dish of an area or a place where these kind of diseases can spread. But since we're talking about COVID, I mean, WHO officials yesterday stressed that they're taking this seriously, but we should not consider this like COVID at all, because basically the COVID is transmitted a lot more easily.

7:34The antivirus spread on this cruise ship was also quite unusual. This human transmission is very rare because you need to be in a close contact with someone for a very long time, unlike COVID, where, you know, if you're just in the room for a couple of hours or minutes, then you could basically contract it then. So that's why basically the only place where a human can give Hantavirus to another human might be a cruise ship. Let's get right into it. Stock of the Week, Dog of the Week, the segment where we pick one stock that stunned at the Met Gala and another that tripped on the stairs. I won the pre-show Tic-Tac-Toe Best of Seven, so I get to go first.

8:06And my stock of the week is U.S. oil companies, which, thanks to the war in Iran, are sending more of their product overseas than at any point in history. Last week, U.S. fuel exports reached a record as European and Asian countries look to America to fill the gap caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. That waterway, through which a fifth of global oil supplies traverses, has been effectively shut down to ships since the U.S. and Israel struck Iran more than two months ago. The U.S. was sending over 8.2 million barrels of refined fuels abroad last week, like jet fuel, gas, and diesel, a jump of more than 20 % over last year.

8:39Refined fuels have been the main driver, but that unrefined crude is also in high demand. The U.S. recently became a net exporter of crude oil for the first time since World War II, which is remarkable given that just over 10 years ago, it was one of the world's biggest importers of crude. It's been a windfall for U.S. energy companies, which, according to the Financial Times, are set to earn an additional$60 billion of cash flow this year should oil prices stay elevated. But all this exporting to other countries is leaving regular American people wondering, hey, what about us? We're paying a ton more for gas and our own companies are shipping all this gas abroad.

9:12As these companies rake it in, pressure is growing on the Trump administration to relieve the pain at the pump for American consumers. So the card that the Trump administration can play is banning the export of fuel. That is a card it does not want to play. It has repeatedly insisted that it will not ban exports of gas to the world because they want the free market to behave as the free market does. But if gasoline starts to creep up above$5 average,$6 an average,$7 per gallon average, then those critics get a lot louder and maybe that card does have to be played. But would it necessarily lower prices?

9:46Even if you do play that card, would it be better to keep more of this crude on shore? And a lot of people say no, because one of the limiting factors is not just how much crude oil you have in the country. it's if you can refine it into helpful things like gasoline. And right now our refineries are cranking at almost maximum output. So there's just not that much supply you can bring online, even if you stopped exporting fuel to the rest of the world. And at the same time, the price of oil is set globally. So even if we kept oil here, it might cause prices to rise elsewhere. And that means gas prices will still go higher because when we talk about oil prices, it's the Brent crude benchmark globally.

10:24Everyone kind of pays the same thing. So it's not necessarily a fact or truism that if we kept more gas here and we banned exports, then we would see gas prices fall. A lot of people are saying that actually what we're seeing right now is oil markets operating very efficiently. I mean, the fact that the U.S. is sending to buyers that normally don't buy from us is a good thing. Australia. Australia. We do not trade oil with Australia, but now we are because that is where the oil market is filling in the gaps of all the supply that was taken offline because of the Strait of Hormuz. that is still just the overall question mark is you got to open the straight in order for everything to equalize there's only so much oil even the u.s can send out to the rest of the world so straighter homo's and everything comes back to the straight of homo's and i mentioned stock of the weeks we should probably talk about some companies well shell reported uh earnings yesterday it's not a u.s company but it is based in london it is a western oil company i mean it's doing amazingly its adjusted profit soared 24 to nearly seven billion dollars in the first three months of the year over last year, and its first quarter profit was more than twice what the company earned in the previous quarter.

11:30Other companies that reported earnings did really well, BP, Total Energies from France. So these Western European countries are seeing a windfall from higher oil prices, which are around$100 from around$60 before the war. My dog of the week is Whirlpool because according to its CEO, Americans are shopping like they're in the middle of a recession. The appliance company, which makes everything from kitchen mixers to washing machines, reported lousy earnings yesterday that showed a 7 % drop in appliance demand in the first quarter. This level of industry decline is similar to what we have observed during the global financial crisis and even higher than during other recessionary periods, CEO Mark Bitzer said on the earnings call.

12:11Investors took that to heart, sending shares of the company down 12%. Specifically, Whirlpool says the Iran war is having a major impact on consumer confidence and also on its own supply chain, leading to higher prices and transportation costs. Whirlpool is seen as a proxy for the broader economy because it's a gauge on the willingness of consumers to make big ticket purchases. And they are clearly not very willing right now. Neil, a lot of conflicting reports out this earnings cycle with some companies like Uber, Disney, Burger King, seeing consumer spending hold up while Whirlpool is saying the economy is going down the garbage disposal.

12:46Hard to parse through the conflicting signals. I am confused, for sure, because yesterday morning we got up here and we talked about how the consumer was healthy because Disney and Uber said that people were spending, people were ordering Uber Eats, people were going to Disney's theme parks, watching Disney Plus. Everything was going well for the consumer despite all these headwinds. And then you had a rash of companies, including Whirlpool yesterday, say that actually the consumer is not doing well. And I'll just run through those. Kraft Heinz CEO said that consumers are, quote, literally running out of money at the end of the month.

13:19They have negative cash flows in the lower income brackets when they're dipping into their savings. And then Dime Brands Global, which is the owner of Applebee's and IHOP, said are price sensitive, more value-oriented guests, seem to be staying home a bit more. Planet Fitness had its worst day on record. It was down 31 % because it had weaker than expected. members sign up during the new year period january through march which is when people should be or expected to be signing up for the gym uh she said the consumer and economic backdrop have shifted then you also mentioned mcdonald's which said that the consumer is also you know going down rather than going up so we are having a bit of a split screen thing going on with uber and disney saying things are hunky-dory and then whirlpool et al saying that things are actually not okay at all And then just to go back to Whirlpool for one second, Whirlpool was supposed to be a net winner in the tariff environment because they make 80 % of its products in the U.S.

14:11So a lot of people said that it was going to fare the tariff storm or weather the tariff storm a lot better than other companies. So the fact that it hasn't been doing well and the consumer demand hasn't been there, despite the fact that they're saving on input costs a little bit, that's a big warning signal. And again, I said that it is usually seen as a bellwether of the economy because what do you do when you're feeling well and you have extra cash in the bank? You upgrade your washing machine. You upgrade your dryer a little bit. These are expensive purchases. So while maybe Uber is seeing the smaller purchases of like a burrito here and there coming in and they're saying that speaks to a strong consumer, Whirlpool is saying, uh-uh, not enough cash in the bank to make these big ticket purchases, which is a better indicator of how consumers are actually feeling.

14:53All right, we're going to take a quick break and come back with a story about a whoop-doop right after this. Hey, Toby, here's a bill for you. It's my fee. What? How am I supposed to pay this on short notice or at all? That's a question countless employees ask themselves when they're saddled with an unexpected medical bill not covered by health insurance. And understandably, financial stress can cause lost productivity. This missed work can really cost employers annually. That's why Aflac works to pay claims quickly and accurately to help foster employee peace of mind. And offering Aflac plans comes at no direct cost to businesses.

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16:49Google just sent a wrist shot at Whoop. The tech giant revealed the Fitbit Air, a screenless fitness band that will sell for$100 when it goes on sale later this month, taking direct aim at Whoop with a lower-priced health tracker. The Fitbit Air also marks Google's biggest play yet into the exploding market of wearable health devices that ditch screens. But the Fitbit Air isn't just a wristband. It's meant to be a portal into the broader health ecosystem Google's calling Google Health. The new app will launch alongside the fitness band and be your all-in-one base for personal health data like heart rate, sleep, step tracking, of course, resting heart rate, logging meals, and cycles.

17:25And yes, AI will be at the forefront. Google's entering a crowded health field where it lags behind. The dominant Apple Watch is the most popular wearable overall, while screenless devices like Oura Ring and Whoop are gaining lots of traction. Clearly, Google wants to win on price. at$100 with an optional$10 per month Google Health subscription. The Fitbit Air undercuts Whoop, which sells an annual subscription for$200. The cheapest Apple Watch is$249. The Oura Ring starts at$349 and Google's own Pixel Watch 4 is$349. Toby, what do you make of Google's play here going screenless? Should Whoop be worried?

17:59Whoop should be worried because there are two camps that health wearables have adopted at this point. It is the heavy upfront investment that you make in Oura Ring, which is a$350 ring, and then a smaller annual subscription fee, or you'd be Whoop that gives you the bracelet for free, but then it's useless without the$200 a month subscription. Google's undercutting both sides of that equation. They're saying here's a cheap hardware with a pretty cheap subscription as well. That you don't even need. That you don't need. And then you could upgrade that too if you want more features to$100 a year.

18:32That is why everyone in the industry is shaking because it undercuts Aura, it undercuts Whoop, it undercuts everyone at this point, which Google can do because it's just a massive company. It's been fascinating watching this shift into more simpler hardware. And this comes with the advantages. You're wearing one right now. It doesn't have a screen. It just sends all this data to your phone. And there are a few advantages. One is that the battery lasts a long time. This Google Fitbit Air is going to not need a charge for a week. And at the same time, you're not going to maybe take it off as much because it's less intrusive to your life.

19:04And really the value of these fitness trackers comes with measuring a lot of biometric data, health data over time and send that to your phone. That's where you get a lot of the insight. So maybe you're willing to take off your Fitbit Air or your Whoop less than you might a clunkier device like an Apple Watch where, you know, maybe it's just not on your wrist all the time. Like I have a garment. I'm not wearing it all the time. But if I had something like that, I would. So those are a few of the advantages. And it's also just cheaper to make and it's cheaper to buy. So this industry is exploding of just this screenless, displayless devices.

19:33Yeah, Whoop just raised$575 million at a$10 billion valuation. So clearly this category is hot. We have to talk about the AI health coach too. That is something that Google is putting first and foremost. And their justification for injecting this health coach into it is that if you look at pro athletes, this is from Rishi Chandra, Google's VP of this product category. When you look at pro athletes, they have an army helping them. They have a nutritionist, a sleep coach, a fenestrator, all looking out for that individual. So what the health coach is trying to provide is all those things in one.

20:07You can prompt it and say like, hey, where can I improve my sleep? Where can I improve my fitness, XYZ? They think that's gonna be a big value prop. Whoop does have something similar. Like I can talk to an AI chatbot about my health. I rarely do it. Let's be honest because most of the numbers that they give you already paint that picture for you. Like I already know if my sleep was good or bad. I already know how to improve my sleep, which is go to bed earlier, don't eat as close to bed. but they think that a lot of people are curious about their health. They want more insights. They want to go deeper.

20:36Hence the AI health coach. This rivalry is getting spicy though, because whoop CEO, after all this came out, whoop CEO, will Ahmed tweeted a picture of the circuit board of a whoop. And he said, engraved on every circuit board is quote, don't bother copying us. We're still winning, which I don't know if that's a bullish signal. A lot of people were like, Hey, cope, man. All right, let's spin to the finish with some final headlines. If you liked watching Sienna play Kennesaw state in March, March Madness, get ready for more forgettable first round matchups because the men's and women's NCAA basketball tournaments are getting bigger.

21:07The NCAA announced yesterday that the tournaments are jumping to 76 teams up from the 68 that currently play, making the first expansion on the men's side since 2011. Before you go clutching your pearls or trying to envision what a 1 versus 18 matchup might look like, all that's really changing is the play in games. A set of games that whittle down bubble teams to see who makes it into the final field of 64. Instead of the first four, it will now be the first 12, with 24 teams vying for the last 12 spots into the tournament. From there, the traditional 64-team bracket will commence. Neil, a lot of people don't like this, calling it a money grab from the NCAA.

21:46I say just let all 360 Division I programs in and have a March, April, May, June, and July madness. It would take me full weeks to fill out that bracket. That does not sound exceptionally fun, But the mob was out in full force for this decision, saying it waters down the event. Wow, regular season means absolutely nothing now because more teams will get in. And probably the biggest criticism is that it will advantage mid-teams from the bigger conferences. No shade on Maryland. I went there, but you'd see maybe more Maryland's making it in and fewer McNeese states from the mid-major conferences.

22:21And that's what we all love about March Madness is those Cinderella stories. and it would kind of tilt the tournament in favor of just those average teams from bigger conferences. At the same time, this doesn't mess with the first Thursday or Friday of March Madness, which is the thing that everyone loves, and they're separating it out into this intro tournament. But I will say it doesn't seem to be a decision that was made with the fans in mind. Right. I wonder, too, if it's going to just cheapen an NCAA tournament appearance, because technically you get to, you know, hang a banner or put a notch on your banner saying, we made it to the tournament if you just made it to the first four.

22:56So that is going to be a brutal consolation prize if you were in Maryland and say, hey, we made it to the tournament, but we were one of the first 24 teams eliminated on the first few days. So I think fan bases are going to start getting a little, I don't know, overloaded with tournament appearances, fake tournament appearances. As a fan, you're right. It doesn't change the experience that much. We weren't that locked into the first four anyway. Like now the fact that it's the first 24, I don't think it's going to change that much because March Madness truly starts when it starts in that first round.

23:27So don't have a huge problem with it, honestly. Just let more kids play, I guess. Up next, a new lawsuit accuses the Italian food brand Sento of committing tomato fraud. Two Californians say Sento has been misrepresenting the San Marzano label on one of its tomato products, duping consumers into thinking they're buying the Ferrari of tomatoes when they're actually just getting a Fiat. The plaintiffs say that Sento's certified San Marzano label is unfair because the product does not have a certification from Italy's authority on such things, which also sets standards for products like Parmesan cheese and olive oil.

23:57The lawsuit says the way champagne can only be produced in the Champagne region of France, real San Marzano's can only be grown, processed, and canned in a specific region of Italy, and Cento doesn't have that stamp of approval despite presenting their tomatoes that way. Cento says the suit is a bunch of bolognese. A lawyer responded the allegations are entirely without merit and that the company will vigorously defend itself. A lot of people have thought this about Cento over the years because a suit in 2019 was filed in York basically arguing the same thing because it is difficult to independently verify this.