Ceasefire, Oil Tankers, & Jet Fuel Prices with Delta CEO 4/8/26

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0:47Download the latest episode and subscribe at schwab.com slash marketupdatepodcast or find Schwab Market Update wherever you get your podcasts. Bring in show music, please. Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod. A truce, sort of. Markets rallying after President Trump announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran. CNBC reporter Dan Murphy in the Middle East. A down-to-the-wire tactical victory, but ultimately one that resolves none of the issues. And oil prices plunging. Iran says it will allow ships to pass through the critical Strait of Hormuz. Our Brian Sullivan on the global energy market.

1:31Watch that marinetraffic.com chart. When we start to see a lot of ships go through there every day, 20 to 30 tankers a day, Andrew, is the number you want. Things could change. We're one social media post away. From right, going the other way. From the other way. Plus, Delta Airlines scaling back growth plans on volatile fuel prices. But CEO Ed Bastian tells us he is bullish about air travel. The last 30 days, our bookings are up double digits. Corporate traveler is back. This week alone, sales of corporate travel are up double digits again. All that today and more. It is Wednesday, April 8th, 2026.

2:09Squawk Pod begins right now. Stand Becky by in three, two, one. Cue it, please. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Squawk Box right here on CNBC. We are live from the Nasdaq market site in Times Square. I'm Becky Quick along with Joe Kernan and Andrew Ross Sorkin. And we could talk about where things stand right now. And then energy prices, which yesterday we saw WTI above$117. Those prices have collapsed this morning, down$18 and change, a decline of more than 16 % for WTI, which is now trading at$94, 57 cents a barrel. Brent crude down 13 percent. Let's get straight to the Middle East right now.

2:52Dan Murphy is in Abu Dhabi for the latest developments following what is some remarkable news that is moving the markets in a very, very big way this morning. A two week ceasefire in the Iran war. Dan. Andrew, good morning. I think remarkable is the right word. Global markets have rallied. Oil just saw its biggest one-day reversal in six years. And this move has also been welcomed by leaders across the Gulf from here in Abu Dhabi to Riyadh and in Doha, and of course in the wider Arab world as well, from Egypt to Turkey and beyond. There is a sense of real relief that we are back from the brink.

3:30But this morning, experts that I've spoken to are also sounding a note of caution. And it's pretty clear the negotiations that are set to begin on Friday in Islamabad will not be easy. President Trump says this two-week pause is contingent on the complete reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile, Iran wants to assert control over the strait still, potentially including transit tolls on certain vessels. That is a non-starter for the Gulf states and of course an issue that was not included in Trump's ceasefire post. Meanwhile as well, Israel says the deal doesn't cover Lebanon, which contradicts Pakistan's prime minister, who said it does.

4:10And of course, Iran's 10-point proposal also reads somewhat like a wish list here. It asks the US to accept its uranium enrichment program and the lifting of all sanctions. This is something the president has already said that he will not accept. So the gap between the two sides remains wide. And this coming weekend is really going to be crucial in determining whether the market can actually call this an endpoint, or if it is just a first step towards further de-escalation. What is clear, though, is that the president's escalatory rhetoric, including the threat to wipe out Iranian civilization, ultimately provided the pressure that brought Tehran to the table, and delivering the off-ramp Washington had been seeking for several weeks.

4:56In fact, the New York Times this morning called it a down-to-the-wire tactical victory, but ultimately one that resolves none of the issues that led to the war. Andrew? Dan, I think the big question, you know, is what you think happens at the end of the next two weeks. You know, it depends, you know, in some ways, you hope that this is the end. In some ways, I don't know if you think that's what the market is effectively saying or whether you think, you know, if you're in the Ray Dalio camp, whoever controls the Strait of Hormuz is the winner of this whole thing. Well, that's the big question, Mark, isn't it?

5:36We are seeing a huge relief reversal in oil prices. Of course, equity markets from Asia to Europe have been popping off the back of this, including equity markets in the Middle East as well. This rarely happens, these type of percentage gains that we're seeing in this region off the back of this news flow. But, Andrew, I think you're exactly right. The question is who is going to control the Strait of Hormuz moving forward and what type of Iran is the United States and the Gulf states ultimately going to be dealing with in the future? Iran's government is still in place. The IRGC is still in place.

6:09The nuclear stockpile, including this 970 pounds of near bomb-grade material, which was the stated reason for this war, is still in place. And of course, what we've also seen over the last couple of weeks is Iran absorbing thousands of strikes that it was able to fight back for. And of course, Iran has also shut down oil supplies through the Strait of Hormuz. It hit Dubai. It launched attacks on American infrastructure. And now it's sitting down to negotiate with the president. So, look, exactly what the war has achieved, I think, is ultimately a question mark as well. And for President Trump, the pressure is real, too.

6:48In the last 12 hours, we've seen his own political base having voices coming forward, accusing him and the vice president of dragging America into exactly the kind of Middle East war that they promised to avoid. So, look, all eyes are going to be on this delegation that is preparing to meet in Islamabad on Friday. Trump is facing a couple of key tests now. of course taking a victory lap for putting the conditions in place to create this ceasefire but of course he is going to need to reach a deal that will be the first step and then the second is to ultimately convince americans and the world that all of this was worth it 15 point plan that that the united states has put forward and the 10 point uh demands that i don't that iran has put forward if you do a venn diagram i'm not sure nothing crosses i'm not sure anything crosses so I don't know what happens there.

7:40But, you know, I don't want to look at this in too much of a half-empty cup at all because we have a name. We know who Sharif is talking to. We know that it's real. There was finally a response from Iran other than there are no negotiations going on and, you know, all the hubris and the tough talk. That's all we were getting. and it was right there in plain English. You know, they even referred to Trump as POTUS and said we will reopen the strait. What do you know about not everybody, that there will still be certain restrictions in the strait? I read that, that the United States might still have issues or certain countries in the West and there's a$2 million toll now.

8:33What can you tell us about that, Dan? Well, this is going to be interesting to watch as well, Joe, because the president has also gone from using expletives to call on allies to open up the strait and call on Iran to allow the safe passage of ships to also now saying on Truth Social in the last couple of hours that the US is going to be hanging around to make sure that everything is okay. The question of who controls the strait is absolutely critical moving forward. Of course, the Gulf states, for example, have said that they would like to see something that goes beyond just a simple ceasefire here.

9:07They want actual security guarantees. Of course, the U.S. has hinted in the past that we could see naval escorts through the strait. That appears to have gone out the window, at least for now. And of course, Tehran still commanding some sense of control over the strait as well. We've spoken a lot over the last couple of weeks about the Tehran toll booth and this idea that we could see the Iranians actually charging ships to move through. Again, that's likely to be a non-starter for this president and certainly a non-starter for the Gulf states as well. So this issue of the security inside the strait is absolutely key.

9:41And what type of conditions are going to be required in order to enable those ships to continue to pass is probably the biggest question mark at this point. Iran insists that it will have control exactly how much and what it looks like, I think is one of the biggest unknown unknowns at this point. Dan, one of those These 10 points, though, not only was to maintain sovereign control of the strait, another was to be able to continue to refine uranium. And it just seems like there are so many non-starters in that. Is this just a list of crazy demands that maybe make a negotiation complicated, but maybe try and get them to something else?

10:22Anchoring techniques for both sides. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Becky, I like your description before about a Venn diagram here, because if you were to overlap these points, there's no real crossover, right? And I get the sense what has happened here is that both sides have put forward a wish list, and that wish list is now going to be whittled down and negotiated over the weekend. So two weeks of peace in the region, let's call it that, two weeks of a truce, ideally positioning both sides now to come forward with a deal. But again, what this looks like remains to be seen. And of course, the risk is that we could see fighting resume.

11:02In fact, across the UAE and the wider Gulf states today, we've already seen reports of missiles and drones being lobbed towards the likes of the UAE and Saudi Arabia, for example. So Iran is still demonstrating a capability to fire back if necessary. And to quote senior Iranian officials as well, in the aftermath of the first Trump truth social post that said that we'll be reaching this ceasefire, the Iranians are still saying they have their hand on the trigger. So this conflict is still hot. The pause is temporary at best. And all eyes are going to be on exactly what this deal looks like, if we're able to even call it that by the weekend and into next week.

11:44Two questions. One is obviously there's a stated ceasefire. You're suggesting there's not a ceasefire, that there are still missiles in the air right now? Not right now. We haven't received emergency alerts in the past couple of hours. But in the immediate aftermath of that post, I did receive an emergency alert on my phone here in the UAE. And then, Dan, the other question just broadly just on the ground is the sentiment that this is a two-week reprieve and that this is not over. I mean, look, if you were looking at the markets today, you would think that this is over over. I mean, at the levels that they're at.

12:19Unless you think that you'd see WTI down at, I don't know. I mean, the president would tell you it would be down to$67, which is where this was before. So the question is, what is the feeling there about what ultimately happens? I know people last night who were saying, you know, they were going to basically take profits today and short everything because they thought we'd be back in the soup in two weeks. And then I know other people who think that this is directionally in the right way and that it won't get back to the end of civilization in two weeks. It's a really good point. The mood on the ground here is one of relief, and I think it's a temporary relief.

12:56there is a great awareness that this conflict may not be over. And again, to echo what the Gulf states have also been seeing, some of these Gulf leaders suggesting that the US was indeed pulling out too soon, leaving the Iranian threat capability intact. And I think that's one of the great fears in the region right now. It's that even if we did see the immediate conflict cooling off, This region is still going to be having to navigate what is a very uncertain new Iran as well. Of course, the wellness and whereabouts of the Supreme Leader still unknown at this point. And of course, if he does indeed come back, then this is something that the Gulf states will also have to be dealing with into the future.

13:40We've spoken about regime change inside Iran. The question is, regime change to what? whether or not we will see the Iranians maybe even cooling off on their own side is a big unknown too. And you just get the sense that regional security has been upended by the last 40 days of war. And perhaps the region is not necessarily better off, not necessarily safer off as a result of what has unfolded here. And, of course, lots of questions about what type of threat Iran is going to pose in the future and who's going to be dealing with that threat. All right. Dan. Thank you. I want to thank you. Appreciate it.

14:20We'll talk to you soon. It is rich. The saw a lot of. Oh, my God. He's going to nuke Iran. Time for the 25th Amendment. And then this happened. And the same people said taco. Didn't have that. Didn't have the cojones again to follow through. Same old, same old. Same people. Anthropic is going to limit access to a new advanced AI model to try to prevent bad actors from using technology to exploit cybersecurity flaws. That model called Claude Mithas Preview is going to be rolling out to a select group of companies like Google and Microsoft and NVIDIA. It's part of an initiative called Project Glass Wing.

14:59Anthropics says that this new model is able to find software bugs, some of them critical, that have escaped detection until now. In one case, it found a 27-year-old software bug in an operating system that's known for its security. This raises the possibility if the software were widely released or fell into the hands of hackers, however, that they too could find these flaws before companies could fix them. In an ex-post, Anthropics CEO Dario Amodei saying that cyber is the first clear and present danger from frontier AI models, but it won't be the last if we're able to collectively rise to the challenge and confront this risk.

15:34It could serve as a blueprint for addressing the even more difficult challenges that lie ahead of us. But we are going to get into an extreme game of chicken as folks get access to different versions of these models and are able to exploit the different sides of this. You hear this, and I think it'd be hard to be a company that hears this and doesn't want to sign up to have it check out their models. Oh, I mean, this is why I think Anthropic right now in the enterprise space is just so laser focused and people want access to that platform. I mean, if you don't take advantage of this, have it check out.

16:11Because in one case, I think you mentioned that they found that 27-year-old software flaw. If you don't do it, you're just waiting. It's a time bomb. When I hear this, all I can think of is, oh my gosh, if I'm a corporation, I better have this thing check out my models. And if you're a hacker, I think you're thinking, I want to get access to this model. Cheese will be next. Coming up on Squawk Pod, CEO of Delta, Ed Bastian with our own Phil Lebeau from the Delta Flight Museum in Atlanta. How fuel prices amid a war might affect flight paths and your own travel plans. If fuel prices are going to stay elevated, we have to be responsible.

16:53We have to find ways to get our costs covered. One of the ways we're doing it in the second quarter is we're pulling capacity down.

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17:36You never forget your first fan. So how was practice, kiddo? My mom inspired me to dream big and ask myself, what would you like the power to do? My answers helped me become the soccer player I am today, trusting my instincts and stepping onto the pitch without fear. Bank of America champions U.S. men's national team member Tyler Adams and everyone who dares to ask, what would you like the power to do? Bank of America, proud to be the official bank of U.S. soccer and FIFA World Cup 2026. Bank of America N.A. member FDSP. This episode is brought to you by Schwab Market Update, an original podcast from Charles Schwab.

18:11Join host Keith Lansford for this information-packed daily market preview delivered in 10 minutes or less, including projected stock updates, monetary policy decisions, and key results and statistics that may impact your trading. Download the latest episode and subscribe at schwab.com slash market update podcast or find Schwab Market Update wherever you get your podcasts.

18:37Welcome back. This is Squawk Pod. Stand under by three, two, one. Up and under. Cue. This is Mike. You're watching Squatbox right here on CNBC. It's a big morning. I'm Andrew Osorkin, along with Joe Kernan and Becky Quick. We have some news just out. President Trump just posting on Truth Social the following. The United States, he says, will closely work with Iran, which we have determined has gone through what will be a very productive regime change. There will be no enrichment of uranium. The United States will, working with Iran, dig up and remove all of the deeply buried B-2 bombers' nuclear dust.

19:13It is now and has been under very exacting satellite surveillance. Space Force, he says with an exclamation point, nothing has been touched from the date of attack. We are and will be talking tariff and sanctions relief with Iran. Many of the 15 points have already been agreed to. Thank you for your attention to this matter, President Donald J. Trump. So it appears, I mean, that would be a remarkable amount of progress, if true. And I think we have to... I wonder how much we do. We don't know what they know about where everything, you know, where the 900 pounds is and what's left. I don't know if we know everything, but...

19:58But I have a couple of questions. There's the question about regime change. He says that regime change... He's been saying, remember, it was two weeks ago when I spoke to him, he called it. He called it regime change. Already been regime change. Okay, so this is not new regime change. This is dealing with a civilian government head. This access to the uranium that is buried deep. He's arguing that we're going to be able to go and get it. Yes. That would be something. That would be something. That would be something. And that's a pretty good carrot because their economy is long before this. the people were suffering mightily in sanctions and carefully.

20:40And then the big question, unresolved, is the straight. That is the biggie. I think the other question is, who are we negotiating with and is the Iranian, the IRG, the Republican Guard, on board with us? There had been some questions. The guy's name is, I mean, he was on the post yesterday. Yeah, he was. The exact individual. Does he speak for the... But this would be an incredible outcome if this is the point they've already reached on some of these issues. See, we're at 1 ,300 points. The Nasdaq continuing to build is now up almost 860 points. The Dow up 190 points, too. So that's a 3.5 % gain for the Nasdaq at this point, 2.8 % for both the S &P and the Dow futures.

21:27And again, that's happening as oil prices crash. You didn't mention the straight, but obviously oil prices on the assumption. I couldn't believe it was mentioned in the tweet. I don't know, whatever we got from Iran yesterday. They said, we're opening the street. Yeah. I couldn't believe that. Yeah. Because everybody at the time said, we don't believe what Trump is saying. But then it came directly from Iran. I hope. Okay. I hope they weren't hacked.

21:57Delta Airlines just reporting quarterly results. Phil Abbeau joins us right now with the company's CEO, Ed Bastian. Phil, Ed, good morning. Good morning, Becky. Ed, good to be here. Good to be here. Let's talk about the first quarter. You beat on the top and the bottom line. But give us a paint a picture of what you are seeing right now when it comes to the market overall. So I want to give our team a great shout out because the first quarter was a really strong start to the year, Even despite all the external challenges that we've had, we've faced, including the fuel run-up caused by the Iranian conflict, we still hit our number, came in on guidance, a 40 % EPS improvement on a year-over-year basis, revenues up 10%, year-over-year all-time record high, and the premium revenues were up double digits on a year-over-year basis.

22:48The demand is broad-based. It's all categories, all products, all geographies. People, our consumers, which sit at the top end of the K, are continuing to invest in travel. It's their priority, and they want to have that experience. But having said that, Ed, I fly a lot, and a lot of people in the last two weeks have said, I've seen the higher airfares across the board in the industry. I'm not crazy about the idea of a summer trip. Are you noticing any erosion at all in demand? We are not. And anecdotally, you hear that. And obviously, over time, if fuel prices are going to stay at the really highly elevated, you know, we snapped our fuel price, obviously, at the end of last week, so we didn't take into account the overnight pulldown.

23:32But if fuel prices are going to stay elevated, we have to be responsible. We have to find ways to get our costs covered. One of the ways we're doing it in the second quarter is we're pulling capacity down to accommodate and try to get ahead of some of that potential weakness. But we're not seeing it. The last 30 days, our bookings are up double digits every day for the last 30 days, the strongest period that we've ever seen. And not to be the dead horse here, but in terms of demand, corporate versus leisure, no change there? Corporate is back. I think when we were last together, I mentioned that TSA volumes were starting to impact some of the corporate travelers.

24:07When people are looking at lines, you know, three hours long, saying, I'm not going to go on a one-hour flight and wait in line for several hours. Now that the airports are back and lines are at normal levels, the corporate traveler is back. This week alone, sales of corporate travel are up double digits again. Jet fuel, you're going to be paying, I think you're expecting$440 a gallon in the second quarter. We're hoping for less, but that was a snap. You're hoping for less, but that's what your expectation is, as opposed to when you began the year you planned at about$260. As you were managing this, you have a refinery.

24:41How much is that able to give you some insight into the flow of oil and how things are coming along in terms of the supply? Well, our supply is OK. We have access. We can get the majority of our crude off of the coast of West Africa that comes in through the refinery. For us, the refinery helps not with respect to crude, obviously, but with respect to the crack spread. Ed, that's what's really elevated in the barrel that we're paying because jet fuel in total for a barrel basis is well over$200 a barrel on a refined basis. We're going to save in the second quarter about$300 million at these prices because of the refinery.

25:21So it provides a nice benefit in terms of relief, but it doesn't solve the issue. We have to take action just like everyone else in this industry needs to in order to get our costs covered. Ed, Becky has a question for you. Becky, go ahead. Yeah, Ed, this is kind of just digging into a little more about what Phil was just talking about. You're now anticipating$4.40 versus the$2.60 for jet fuel. Those numbers were based on what you were seeing before this huge drop we saw overnight in oil prices, down 15%. Does that mean that the numbers that you've given us are pretty conservative, or do you look at the numbers we're watching today, down 16 % now for WTI to 94.53, and think that this may not last either?