9am Hour: Alphabet and Tesla Slide on AI Spending, Brent Hits $100/Barrel on U.S.-Iran Conflict 7/23/26

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**Jim Cramer** (1:00)
It's Jim Cramer here. You're listening to the opening bell of CNBC's Squawk on the Street. Don't miss a minute of the action.

**Carl Quintanilla** (1:13)
Good Thursday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla with Jim Cramer at Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange. David Faber has the morning off. Future session lows here indicating about a 1% drop at the open. While earnings collectively aren't bad, this new front in the war with Iran is driving a global bond sell-off. 10-year 471 is blowing past the highs of the year. Long bond near 520 Oil is not going to be ignored any longer. Brent near 100 That's a near 35% gain for the month.
And that's where our roadmap begins, those rising geopolitical tensions as oil prices jump for a fifth day with hostilities continuing to threaten supply routes. The mounting costs of the AI boom. Alphabet and Tesla signaling a capex spending surge, sending shares of both lower ahead of the open. And a slew of other earnings movers too. We'll get to IBM, Blackstone, Comcast, Timo, Lockheed and others crossing the tape. Let's begin though with another day of rising oil prices in reaction to the Iran conflict, including Brent marching toward 100 Iran backed Houthis claim they have attacked two Saudi Arabian tankers in the Red Sea. This comes after the US did complete 12 consecutive nights of strikes on Iran. Posting on Truth Social in the last hour, the president warns the Houthis that if they attack ships again, the US will hold Iran responsible and major military will be inflicted upon Iran, Jim.
The IRGC says they did strike a base in Jordan overnight. This is getting, this is escalating.

**Jim Cramer** (2:42)
Yeah, look, it's most one of the things where I was speaking to a very good investigation. Oh, and now the hoodies.
And you say to yourself, we're like one percent from the high, one percent from the high. And that parade of horribles that you just listed would indicate that we've got to be pretty substantially off the highs. But we're not, which then I think makes a lot of people feel, well, wait a second, we have oil, branded $99.72.
Are we kidding ourselves? We have interest rates as you talk about every day going, testing highs. We just don't have the horses to continue higher right now, not without what I regard as being a fairly controversial set of earnings today. So something could happen and the president comes out and says, listen, we've got a deal or the Saudis are going to take care of the Houthis. You don't know, but the president has to do something. It's not that I say that because it hasn't been unusual if he did something at these levels. But right now, I'm struggling to have reasons to buy, and I certainly have a lot of reasons to sell. Right.

**Carl Quintanilla** (3:45)
I mean, we're going to get to the earnings. The bond issue, Jim, is not just us.
French 10-year hits four. I mean, German bonds blowing out. We know what's happened in Japan. This is a reflection of global debt, sovereign deficits, that kind of thing.

**Jim Cramer** (4:03)
Well, look, I think that we all feel the pressure of, say, the third year, but we have to remember the missing ingredient of a really ugly market would be six and a quarter on that, as we had in 1999, so we still have some room. But I got to tell you, one of the things I'm worried about when I listen to Alphabet needing money and companies needing money, I mean, at what point does the corporate debt market just say, you know, we've had it? I mean, an Oracle deal? I mean, we've had it. When you listen to everything that Alphabet had to say last night, Alphabet was a good quarter, it's not a bad quarter. But they didn't say that they needed more money, but if others will, and I just don't know where it's going to come from, I think that the corporate bond market is the first one that's going to say, oh, no.