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00:09Welcome to the Myers Report Fast 15. It is Friday, February 27th, 2026. With us today
00:18is Don Day, our ever-dependable climate and weatherman. Isaac Issa, our teller of logistics
00:26and trucker tales, and Dr. Bob Janetsky, our chief economist, who has basically gone back to
00:36Mexico to get warm because Don said he was going to be cold if he stayed here. Of course, Don
00:45was
00:46right. Okay. In the meantime, Don, last week we had heavy snow in the west and the Navalanx. This
00:57week we've got, in the northeast, we have blizzards. How bad is it, and when will it end?
01:05Well, okay. Well, how bad has it been? Well, if we take a look at the country so far to
01:11date,
01:11in terms of how much snow has fallen, pretty remarkable, especially in the Great Lakes region
01:18and the northeast. Providence, Rhode Island got 38 inches of snow with that blizzard. 38. Imagine
01:25that. In what period of time? That was just earlier this week when the blizzard hit. That was just
01:31with one storm. And what do they usually get in a year? Well, that probably tripled what they normally
01:38get in a year there in just one day. And as you can see from this map, definitely the heaviest
01:44snowfall
01:45has been in the northeast and the Great Lakes region. And we are going to see some colder weather
01:49and a little bit of winter weather come back to parts of the nation's midsection this weekend,
01:55especially the Great Lakes, upper Midwest, a little bit of the northern Corn Belt. But I do see
02:00warmer weather for a bit after this weekend. After it gets colder, it is going to warm up. In fact,
02:06we're going to see some real significant warmth in the southern plains and the southern tier of the
02:10U.S. So we're seeing hints of spring, but we're just staring down the month of March. And we all
02:16know what the month of March can bring. A lot of variability, a lot of ups and downs. And it's
02:22also
02:23the beginning when we start to see severe weather. We start talking about severe thunderstorms,
02:27tornado activity picking up. And I think that's exactly what we're going to see this month. I think
02:31we've got a very stormy March coming up for all of the lower 48. So buckle up, because I do
02:40think
02:40we're going to have a lot of weather here over the next month or so. Why don't you ask me
02:45about Iran?
02:47Okay, we've got a lot of military assets heading to, or they are in Iran. And you had been correct
02:53in
02:54terms of your weather analysis that up until recently, the weather conditions were not conducive
03:00for a military strike. How does it look now? Well, kind of the same. Over the next seven days,
03:08we are going to have a couple of systems come through. And rain, you know, a lot of clouds
03:15at times will be coming in across most of Iran, especially when you look back a little bit further
03:23west where some of our assets are. So not the best weather forecast here over the next week. I don't
03:30think it's impossible. I don't think it's going to be that bad. But what I'm showing you here is the
03:35forecasted precipitation over the next week and the darker, brighter colors are where the heavier
03:41moisture will be. And some of that will even be snow in the Iranian mountains. And as you look a
03:47little bit farther to the north and west. So the opportunity, which over the last few weeks,
03:53there have been episodes of good weather. But, you know, going into March in that part of the world,
03:59too, is you're just going to get more stormy weather, at least the risk of it.
04:04Okay. And with there seems that there may be peace in the offing in Russia and Ukraine.
04:10Ukraine. How's the weather up there? Well, it's it's they've had a little bit of a respite
04:15from the they've had a very cold winter there, a lot of snow in Eastern Europe and Ukraine. And
04:22at least here in the short term, there's a little bit of a break.
04:25Well, you were right, by the way, about your forecast for cold weather and the fuel issues in
04:32Eastern and Central Europe, because some of our friends who were in Germany said it was really,
04:39really cold and they were keeping the temperatures down low because nobody could afford the the price
04:45of heat. Isaac, what exactly is the Delilah law and what problem is it trying to solve?
04:54Yeah, President Trump mentioned it in the State of the Union. It's a real it's a federal proposal
04:58aimed at tightening who can legally hold a CDL in the United States. It's aimed after a CDLs are
05:05commercial driver's license, driver's license, truck driver's licenses. That is correct. Yes.
05:10It's a young crash victim that stood up during the State of the Union that was struck and injured by
05:16an illegal illegal alien truck driver. At high level, it's going to restrict CDLs to U.S. citizens,
05:23lawful permanent residents and certain visa holders. And the biggest one, I think, requiring all
05:29CDL testing to be done in English. Here's a fun fact. California currently administers the CDL test
05:37in 20 different languages. 20. All right. How are people supposed to how are they supposed to read
05:44traffic signs? I'm still trying to figure that out, Gary. I've driven in places like the Middle East,
05:52Tel Aviv, West Bank, Palestine. Tell you one thing. If you can't read Arabic or Hebrew, Yiddish,
05:59there's no way you're going to get around those places. So how they do it here,
06:03you know, I'm left scratching my head, but also, you know, we're seeing the implications of that on
06:08our highways right now. And how much does a rig and a full trailer weigh? 80,000. What we tell
06:14our
06:14drivers is safety, safety, safety. You are 80,000 pounds, 70 foot long, doing 75 miles down a highway.
06:21By definition, if that's not a missile, I don't know what is. And how much does a flatbed loaded with
06:28steel way? No, you can get up to 82,000, 85,000 pounds on those. Oh, yeah. So those things,
06:33basically, if you get hit by one of those things, they'll be scraping you up with a razor blade and
06:37a spoon. Oh, yeah. No, it's real. It's real. You're looking at potentially 600,000 truck drivers
06:43leaving our industry in an industry that's reliant on about 2.2 million. So this isn't just a headline.
06:50This can change our industry here. This is arguably the biggest thing, the biggest change,
06:55rather, in our industry since deregulation. Okay. So, Isaac, if demand stays flat and drivers
07:02are disappearing, what happens to, well, obviously, contract pricing is going to go up. How bad will
07:08it be? It's already happening. All right. You don't need a boom right now in demand to move rates.
07:15The capacity tightening is, it's, right now, spot rates are up about 21% year over year, and that's
07:22climbing. It feels like, right now, hour over hour. It's, there's a lot of excitement happening
07:28in the industry right now. The emails, the phone calls are ringing off the hook, and the head,
07:34you know, the subject line in these emails from customers and brokers are open checkbook. And there's
07:40not an ounce of weather here in the mid, in the Midwest. So this, again, this is definitely,
07:45definitely, uh, capacity, uh, capacity restriction-based. Isaac, I have a question.
07:52What, what, if any sort of inroads do you see from autonomous, uh, trucks? You know, they're already
08:00on the highways right now. We don't see them as a risk, uh, uh, Bob, what those trucks are gonna,
08:04what those, what those trucks will do here in America is run undesirable freight lanes where
08:11there's not a, uh, a, a driver, a truck driver pool available, right? Middle of Nevada to 500 miles,
08:20middle of Nevada. You know what I mean? So, so we don't see many, many risks. And the way,
08:24the, the, the way I like to answer that amongst my peer group is this, Bob, if I'm still doing
08:29this
08:29by the time, uh, self-driving trucks affects my business, I have failed my friend. Okay. All right.
08:38Okay. But, uh, Isaac, if, uh, if demand increases by 5%, uh, will the, will the supply chain be able
08:47to handle it? No, no, the reality is no, we're, we're, uh, we're, we're facing down the barrel of a
08:53real prolonged super cycle here with simply just a capacity being wiped out and continuing
08:59to being wiped out. We get a bump in demand here. We reported, you know, I spoke about this,
09:03I think two Fridays ago, we're in, we're in for, uh, we're in for a very, very busy couple of
09:10years
09:10for the transportation community. Mind you, following a four, four year long, uh, freight
09:17recession, the longest, deepest freight recession that this great industry has ever seen in this
09:22great nation. Bob, moving on. Thanks, Isaac. Bob, interest rates seems to seem to be declining,
09:30albeit slowly. The 30 year fixed rate mortgage just went to 5.98%. Uh, that was breaking 6% for
09:38the first time since, since September 2nd, 2022. Do you see this trend continuing?
09:46Uh, yes, I do. Uh, I don't think it's going to be dramatic. I don't think we're going to go
09:50down,
09:50for example, by another half a percentage point immediately, but I think the trend is going to
09:56be downward. We've been in the vicinity of 4%, uh, or let's say 6% on mortgages to six and
10:03a half
10:03percent for quite some time. And there's been a tremendous amount of stability and I, I believe
10:08it's going to continue that way. But Bob, historically a 6% or sub 6% mortgage rate has been
10:17considered
10:17really low. It was only considered high when it fell down to two or 3%, that which was unusual.
10:23Uh, Bob, despite everything that's going on, the stock market seemed to be relatively flat.
10:30Why and what comes next? Well, it's not only been flat for the past week, it's been flat for the
10:35past
10:36four months. Uh, this is a, a really unique period of stability. Uh, if the S and P 500,
10:44it's gone up to as high as 7,000, it's gone down as low as just below 6,800, but
10:52that range has
10:53existed now for four months. And this is an extreme period of stability. And, uh, if we're looking at
11:00short-term movements in the stock market, uh, my stock market model says that there's a 60%
11:06probability that we're going to stay in this range for at least the next two weeks, 60%. Now,
11:12what does that mean? That means that there's 40% left and it's split evenly between the possibility
11:19that the market would go up or down. So we only have maybe a 20% probability, according to my
11:25model,
11:26that stocks are going to go sharply higher above their upper range in the next two weeks
11:30or sharply lower. Uh, now what's important is not what they do week to week, because you're going to
11:37see a lot of up and down within this range, but what's important is what's going to happen over
11:43the course of the year. And here we use our fundamental analysis, which basically says the
11:48economy is going to continue to be strong. Inflation is going to continue to go down.
11:54And even though markets are overvalued in terms of traditional measures, uh, when we have all that
12:00good news coming, I believe the market's going to go higher. How are jobs and, uh, order new orders
12:08looking? How are those reports looking? And guess how strong is our economy? So far, they're looking
12:12very, very good. Some of the, uh, January, uh, December, January, early January figures are looking
12:20good. It looks like orders are coming in at a pretty rapid rate. We already know we saw some very
12:25extraordinary gains in the job market. So all of the good news that we've been talking about for
12:32quite some time, we still expect that to occur. Now there are going to be some setbacks. Uh, Don,
12:38your weather forecast, while accurate, really holds back the economy in a number of areas.
12:43It also sends inflation temporarily higher. These are all the kind of bumps in the road that you should
12:49expect and that we talked about in the past. But once these are through, we're going to see these
12:55long-term trends continue to move in a positive direction. Bob, it would seem to me that if
13:01inflation spikes up temporarily because of the cold weather, uh, when the weather warms up,
13:07uh, I mean, it's, it's gone. The inflation looks like it's going to be high, appear higher than it
13:12actually is. And so when the new, uh, warm weather comes in, then inflation is going to be, come across
13:19as being lower than it actually is. Yeah. We had a report this morning showing that
13:24wholesale prices went up very significantly in the latest month. And that kind of shook the stock
13:31market, which was soaring, uh, earlier in the week and now is declining. And these are all the sort of
13:38up and down moves that I think we continue to expect. And, uh, we talked about the rise in
13:45inflation because of the weather it's going to last for another month or two at least, but then things
13:51will get remarkably better as the, as the spring comes and as the weather turns better.
13:57Okay. At the end of the day, I do have a quick question. You know, speaking of inflation,
14:02I, one thing that I've been watching the oil markets and they're definitely responding to the
14:07potential situation over in the middle East. I mean, Brent is up almost $2 today. Um, so it does
14:15look like the move in oil prices looks inflationary to me until the Iran situation has settled.
14:21Yep. I agree.
14:23Okay. Really fast. What did you guys think in a, in a word or two, what did you guys think
14:28of
14:28the state of union this week? Don?
14:31Well, I made it for the first half of it, but he talked past my bedtime, but I, but, uh,
14:37I,
14:38I liked what I heard. And then I, the post analysis is, is, uh, you know, he talked about what
14:43I wanted to hear. Isaac, two words, Delilah law. Okay. Bob, I missed the first part of it because
14:53we had a dinner engagement. Uh, and I thought he was going to speak for three hours anyway,
14:58so I'd be able to hear the rest of it. Uh, I thought on balance, it was very patriotic,
15:04very uplifting. And in terms of how he made the Democrats look, which I thought was just embarrassing.
15:12Uh, it, it was a success from the standpoint of what it's going to do terms of helping in the
15:19next election. Well, from my perspective, I thought it was masterfully done and the insanity of some of
15:28our, of, of how our politics has gone has been, it was just proven anyway with that. Uh, I'd like
15:36to
15:36say, have a good weekend, say, stay safe. We'll see you next week and God bless America.
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