10AM Hour: SEC Chair on IPO Market, D-Wave Quantum CEO on AT&T Partnership, What Oil Prices Signal for Stocks 7/27/26

**Sara Eisen** (0:00)
The board recommends approving...

**Oliver Renick** (0:01)
Regarding that seat on the committee, we're promoting...

**Contessa Brewer** (0:02)
to most quarterly earnings...

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**Sara Eisen** (1:07)
Good Monday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Sara Eisen with Carl Quintanilla and David Faber. We are all back live at Post 9 at the New York Stock Exchange. Stocks are mostly hired to start a very busy week as oil prices cool off here. We'll talk with Evercore's Julian Emanuel and Apollos, Torsten, and Squawk about where they see markets heading next. Plus, the chairman of the SEC is with us on the IPO market, the Clarity Act, and much more on his plate. Plus, we'll talk to the CEO of D-Wave Quantum as that stock jumps on news of an expanded partnership with AT&T.

**Carl Quintanilla** (1:39)
Let's get to Washington first, though, in the latest on the war with Iran as oil prices take a leg lower, although off the session lows, Ayman Javras has more this morning. Ayman.

**Ayman Javers** (1:47)
Yeah, good morning, guys. President Trump's apparent decision over the weekend to hold off on significant escalation against Iran raises new questions today of how this war is going to end. Iran's foreign minister this morning in a press conference said there's no ceasefire with the United States in place and there are no negotiations at all, but he did say Iran is negotiating with Oman on a plan for creating the necessary arrangements regarding the Strait of Hormuz. And on NBC's Meet the Press yesterday, UN Ambassador Mike Waltz said President Trump is keeping all options on the table regarding Iran, asked to confirm that the president has decided for now against escalation. Waltz said the president is giving the talks some space. He also said a lot of US military stockpiles have been depleted, but he said the military has everything it needs for now. And that's going to be the key question here, guys. There are media reports that the president held off on new attacks over the weekend due to these concerns about low US supplies of munitions and missiles. And that supply constraint after months of near constant warfare could be just the biggest determining factor in US strategy going forward. If you're worried about depleting those stocks and worried about other hotspots around the world at the same time, what kind of a strategy do you deploy vis-a-vis Iran? That's going to be the big question for the president in the days to come, guys.

**Sara Eisen** (3:09)
Yeah, I mean, the question, Aiman, is there diplomacy happening behind the scenes and at what stage is that at this point and with who?

**Ayman Javers** (3:19)
Those are very good questions, right? And my instinct is, and this is just a gut feeling and not reporting, but my instinct is there are always negotiations or communication of some kind going on at some level. How many layers down in the bureaucracy is that actually happening is the question and how productive is it? But there's clearly not the kind of diplomacy that we saw going on a month and a half ago when we saw JD Vance traveling around the world to go to talks with the Iranians, that kind of thing.
That's not happening. And so the question is, is there a potential breakthrough here or are we going to enter a period where it's just status quo? The Iranians have default control of the Strait of Hormuz. The United States military doesn't have the capacity to reopen it and we go from there.

**Sara Eisen** (4:06)
All right. Thank you very much, Ayman. Ayman Javers. And it is causing a big drop in crude oil prices, as Ayman said.
WTI and Brent on pace for their worst decline since early May. That's good news for the economy, though. Interesting chart from Citi, and we've talked about this before, but I think it's worth highlighting, which is, you know, Citi Group says we're more sanguine about the prospects for the remainder of the year of higher oil prices because the reality is the global economy and the US economy are just less dependent on oil than they have been in previous decades. And here's a new look at that, as how they measure that. They also say only part of last year's sizable accumulation of petroleum inventories had been reversed, and global inventory levels are generally still ample. So they say even if we do see these oil spikes on renewed tensions and fighting with Iran, they're just, they're not as bothered with it. And that might explain why the US equity market hasn't been as bothered with the elevated oil prices. On the flip side, you know, people feel it. We feel it at the pump, with the gas prices, and we feel it on airfares. Goldman Sachs actually takes a look at how airfares are set to rise, basically, with the big, with the reversal, where we've seen higher oil prices lately. We saw airfare prices lower, sort of in early June, because oil prices have come down, but those airfare prices are supposed to rise. We know that fuel costs are the big cost for the airline. So you'll feel it, and certainly, it'll affect maybe how you vote or how you respond to polls. You know, the surveys are pointing to inflation as a key voter concern. Goldman also looked at that in a survey, basically, where they look at the start of 2026 and right now. Right now is the blue line. So it shows, increasingly, inflation and prices is the top issue for voters. I don't think a surprise there. Jobs have been plentiful and good. Immigration, obviously, was a key issue in the last election. But it's come down, given the, I think, high oil prices. That's definitely a psychological impact, even if it's not having as big of an impact on the actual economy.