Crude Volatility, Oracle Surges, Inflation Watch 3/11/26

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Carl Quintanilla (0:58)

Market insight and analysis. You're listening to the opening bell of CNBC's Squawk on the Street. Good Wednesday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla with Jim Cramer at Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange. Faber has the morning off. Oil back above 87 despite expectations for the largest release of strategic reserves in history. We should be learning more in a few moments. Meantime, more attacks on ships in the Gulf today. Futures do go red. On a CPI print that was in line, 2.5 on core. But some argue it may be the last cool report we get for several months. Our roadmap begins with oil ticking higher as traders await this potential historic IEA reserve release. Larry Ellison downplaying software apocalypse fears as Oracle shows strong AI demand and more pains for private credit. JPM reportedly tightening some lending criteria, marking down some loan values. Let's chat some CPI Jim. I'm not bad, some weird pops in things like apparel up one plus. That's the biggest in several years.

Jim Cramer (1:57)

Look, I just don't understand how they count that because let's say we're here and we're asking about companies. Well, one of the leaders is Ross Doris, it's TJX, it's Burlington. And I don't know where they're going. Coles had big markdowns. Macy's maybe not the sales to be expected. Walmart's always the cheapest in clothing. Target has indicated that they're going to hold prices down. So I look at that and I think, well, what are they talking about?

What apparel? Brioni? Brioni went up, it didn't go up. Brioni went up substantially.

Carl Quintanilla (2:24)

Yeah. Supercor 275 is up a little bit from the prior.

Jim Cramer (2:29)

Right, but Shelter?

Carl Quintanilla (2:30)

Shelter is good, yeah, at three. It's still reflecting, Jim, year on year, gas down six, right? But that's not going to last.

Jim Cramer (2:37)

Electricity utilities weren't good. Now people are going to say that's data center, even though if you're in Texas, it's not. But if you're in Virginia, it is. Look, I think the most important thing about this number is it's not important. Because it's coming up that matters. And I look at oil today, and I just say, okay, everybody has a good excuse to raise price, everybody. And you always want an excuse. You always want to be able to say, hey, sorry, it's oil. When you don't have that excuse, what happens is Costco comes in and wrecks your margins. But there can be no wreckage of margins when you have these kinds of oil numbers.

Carl Quintanilla (3:10)

We're starting to hear things like the Democrats say, suspend the federal gas tax. People have suggested, maybe we at some point limit exports. Are there other solutions you think will work?

Jim Cramer (3:22)

Yeah, it's funny. I've been looking at that elimination of exports and thinking about the new refinery, which of course will be built over a period of many years. And I come up with, what are you going to do? Force majeure for what? You use force majeure because the president said force majeure? I mean, yes, we export a lot. We export a lot of gasoline. That's been our primary export. And I got to tell you, if you reverse those numbers, how about the companies that we import from? I mean, remember, it's a weird pastiche of what we bring in and what we don't. And the oil comes into the Northeast, to North. It's really very much a New England issue. So anybody that we shaft, there are others who can shaft us.

Carl Quintanilla (4:02)

So you think if we become an unreliable supplier, like Putin once did, right? That the others can turn and do the same to us.