Stocks Extend Losses as Oil Spikes, Micron CEO on Blowout Results That Didn't Help the Stock 3/19/26

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Market insight and analysis. You're listening to the opening bell of CNBC's Squawk on the Street.

Carl Quintanilla (1:09)

Good Thursday morning, welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla with Jim Cramer here at Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange. Faber's on assignment. Oil spikes 10% overnight. Brent gets close to 120 As Iran attacks more energy infrastructure in Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, retail gas now averaging 390 For stocks, the question is, will the 200-day moving average hold? We're about a percent away from those November lows. 10-year spikes to 430 That's a six-month high. Our roadmap begins with oil prices rising again as the war intensifies. A major challenge ahead for the Fed. Also ahead, shares of Micron under some pressure despite a blowout quarter and some upbeat guidance. We'll talk with Sanjay Mehrotra in just a few moments. And Alibaba is down sharply on a revenue miss, although cloud growth was a bright spot for that company. Let's begin with the markets and this surge in oil prices today. This is what the Fed chair said yesterday about Mideast tensions and the US economy.

SPEAKER_5 (2:06)

The implications of events in the Middle East for the US economy are uncertain. In the near term, higher energy prices will push up overall inflation, but it is too soon to know the scope and duration of the potential effects on the economy.

Carl Quintanilla (2:21)

Jim, there's a lot to unpack about net job creation, his own tenure, and of course this inflation overshoot, which he does attribute to tariffs to a large degree.

Jim Cramer (2:30)

Right, I think that if you're the president of the United States, you're listening, and you're basically saying, okay, how much is he really fingering me on this? I will tell you, I thought it was measured, that's his style, by basically saying that what we're seeing on our screen is short-term. When you see a Chevron, which is the stock I use to describe oil and gas, when you see that go straight up, he's basically saying, that can't last, it can go back down.

He didn't distinguish, as much as I would have liked, about how our country is in different shape from Europe, from Asia, because we are more of a natural gas based economy than these other places, and they can't afford to be natural gas. It turns out we have so much, that we were actually in one part of our country, oil companies were paying people to take natural gas just a few months ago. So, I think we are in better shape. I do think that a lot of this is short-term, but I don't know what short-term means. It is short-term three months, if it is six months, then suddenly it is long-term.

Carl Quintanilla (3:28)

Well, the airline transport associations on the tape today saying worst case is a couple of years, where this just goes on, it becomes a structural issue for the energy complex.

Jim Cramer (3:37)

I am not going to go there because I think before Israel bombed that last field, I think we were saying, you know what, this could be protected. Over the weekend, we were saying, all of a sudden it was suddenly, wait a second, this is Bazz Getz, there was an attack on an oil field and the United States said, don't do that again. Now, the United States said it again. I mean, at what point does Israel list the United States? Where is that? I mean, I don't know. I'm a stock guy. All I can tell you is that you keep taking out facilities in, you take out in Saudi Arabia, you take out in Qatar, you take out in Kuwait, then it does look longer term.