10AM Hour: Iran's Economic "D-Day", Druckenmiller's Warning, & Checking on the AI Buildout 8/25/26

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Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council.

**Carl Quintanilla** (0:42)
Good Tuesday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla with Leslie Picker, David Faber here at Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange. Sara Eisen's off today. Stocks moderately higher this morning. Oil is lower as investors monitor some developments in Iran. After yesterday's sanctions news, we'll get to the latest this morning. As pushback grows against data centers, we'll talk with JPMorgan's head of AI infrastructure investment banking about how he's weighing investments amidst some political backlash. And the CEO of logistics company RXO is with us as a number of names in the shipping and freight world. Seeing some big moves this week after the escalating trade war with Canada.

**David Faber** (1:18)
First, though, we got some new economic data just crossing Rick Santelli has that for us.

**Rick Santelli** (1:22)
Rick, yes, good morning, David. Conference Board Consumer Confidence Month of August. Expecting a headline number slightly over 90, a misere 89.4. And this follows a slightly revised 90.2. So less than expectations, sequentially, obviously less than our last look. 89.4 would be the least since January 89.0, second weakest of the year. Present situation, well, this is the bright spot.
121.2, significantly higher than expectations, significantly higher than a slight revision of 114.4 in the rear view mirror. And that would be the best overall performance since April, where over 124 And finally, on expectations or what lies ahead, this one, very similar to the headline, comes in deficient. 68.2, looking for a number over 74 68.2 would be the lightest, going back to, wow, you have to go back a ways.
68.2 would be the lightest since January when it was 67.2. So second weakest of the year, sequentially lowered in 74.0. And very quickly, Richmond Fed for August comes in light at four. And if we look at the business side or the service side, well under expectations at minus 12, that would be the weakest level of the year, going all the way back to November. But manufacturing being positive just adds another positive anecdotal brick into the wall of recovery and manufacturing. We still have more data. Yes, we have our July read on new home sales. And for that, we go to Diana Olick. Diana?

**Diana Olick** (3:05)
Rick, 607,000 new home sales in July, seasonally adjusted annualized rate. That's a miss. The street was looking for 615
On the other hand, though, June's number was revised up from 628,000 to 678,000. So we're down 10.5% month to month and down 6.3% year over year. Inventory is rising. In July, it was 488,000. This is 1.9% above June and 1.6% year over year higher. And that represents a 9.6 month supply at the current sales pace, which is high. Six is considered a balanced market. Median sale price of a newly sold home in July was $393,800.
This is 2.3% below June and is 0.9% down year over year. Now, this count is based on signed contracts. So it's people out shopping in July, and that's when mortgage rates were in the higher range, stubbornly high. Also, economic uncertainty. The builders had been trying to lower prices a little bit, but you see they didn't do it by a lot. They are still buying down some mortgage interest rates, but not quite as much. The incentives are still strong, but they're just not getting the buyers in the door. And you see it in these numbers. It's a tough month in July. It's summer. But again, you do see these higher mortgage rates weighing on the new home sales down quite substantially month to month and year over year. Back to you guys.

**Leslie Picker** (4:33)
Yeah, the real impact of the higher yields we've been talking about. Diana, thank you. Now to the latest in Iran as oil prices fall. Following the Trump administration's move to isolate Iran's economy through new sanctions, Megan Casella has the latest from Washington. Megan.