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00:10Good morning. Welcome to the Myers Report Fast 15. It is Friday the 13th, 2026. As we all know,
00:18Friday the 13th is not known for good luck. It's quite the opposite. What a week we've had.
00:25Perhaps the biggest news, which nobody seemed to notice, is the possible demise or certainly
00:32the lessening of the influence of Lloyd's of London. Founded in 1689 and operating for over
00:40100 or for 337 years, Lloyd's is generally considered to be the oldest still operating
00:48insurance company in the world. But beyond that, Lloyd's coverage of ships was critical
00:54enabling in enabling the British Empire to grow and maintain its geopolitical dominance over the
01:00world. Without insurance, ships are a complete liability for their owners. They're the shippers,
01:07people that would ship things on those boats, and also for the harbors where the ships may be sitting
01:13because harbors don't want ships that are uninsured because if something goes wrong, who's going to pay
01:18the bill. It was this power and influence over international policies of nations and even the
01:27outcome of wars that Lloyd's has had. This was almost as much a key to the British Empire's growth and
01:35strength as the British Navy was. With Lloyd's refusal to keep insuring ships in the Iran region,
01:43which traditionally for high risk, they would just simply raise the rates, a void was created.
01:49President Trump filled that void by providing insurance justifying the filling of the vacuum
01:56left by Lloyd's on the grounds that the U.S. was protecting energy security and global trade stability
02:03coming out of the crisis with the Strait of Hormuz. Next, we're going to see how this goes. This is
02:10just another step of the demise of British influence throughout the world historically, and is it
02:18going to mean the complete demise of Lloyd's? Probably not, but British influence has just taken
02:23another sledgehammer has just hit British influence. Now, on the other question, there's been interesting
02:31news that has come out on the asymmetrical warfare. The Iranians have been throwing up $35,000
02:40drones, and people were saying, well, this is not really good for us because it takes a million and a
02:46half dollar missile to knock them down. Well, this is not totally true. There's a new missile system
02:52called the Leonidas, named after the Spartan general at Thermopylae, that now costs less than $3,000 to
03:05take down these missiles. But even better than that, the cost of killing drones has gotten much better
03:12with a system that the U.S. has now called Thor, Tactical High-Powered Operational Responder.
03:20This is a microwave system that can take drones out of the air in one fell swoop, dozens or hundreds
03:29of
03:29them. And the cost of taking down a $35,000 drone for the U.S. Navy is now somewhere between
03:37$3 and $5
03:39to take down, which renders these drones totally useless. Okay, today with us is Don Day,
03:48our ever-dependable climate and weather guy. Isaac Issa, our teller of logistics and trucker tales.
03:55And Dr. Robert Janetsky, our chief economist who is trying to make sense of a crazy world.
04:02Don, you called it, winter is back. How bad is it going to be? And will spring ever arrive?
04:09Well, we've had bouts of spring here recently. That's for sure. But winter is going to get the
04:17last laugh. We're going to have a massive upper Midwest, northern Great Lakes blizzard that's
04:24going to be developing late this weekend and early next week. We can see two to three feet of snow
04:28in
04:28parts of Wisconsin, the northern lower peninsula of Michigan, the upper peninsula of Michigan into-
04:34Two to three feet? Feet. Not inches. With 60, 70 mile per hour wind gusts. It's a doozy. And we're
04:42going to see snow get all the way down into northern Illinois. Chicago area is going to get some snow.
04:47We'll see freezing temperatures get all the way to northern Alabama. So this, I think, is the last-
04:53What happened to global warming?
04:56Oh, that's causing this, right? Well, this will make five polar vortex this year, the polar vortex
05:07coming in the lower 48. In a normal winter, we'll get zero to two, but we've had five this winter.
05:14So, you know, but so it's going to be a shock to the system. However, temperatures are going to spring
05:20back and warm up a lot about a week later. So this isn't a permanent change back to winter, but
05:27for several days, it's going to feel like January again. How warm will it be after this week?
05:32Oh, we'll get back into the 60s, 70s, and get back into spring again.
05:37Hallelujah.
05:37But it's going to be, we call it whiplash, weather whiplash.
05:41Got it. We're hearing from the friends that we're talking to that both Russia and Ukraine want to
05:47get this war over with. What are the weather conditions like in Ukraine and Russia right now?
05:53Well, pretty nice. Actually, there's really not over the next week much weather at all in Ukraine.
05:58Temperatures are going to be a little warmer. There's going to be some moisture in western
06:02Russia and far eastern Ukraine. But overall, the weather is kind of a non-factor in Ukraine.
06:09Now, I can't say that about Iran. I do think Iran has got two weather systems coming that may affect
06:17military operations. First one comes in late Sunday and into early next week. And this is going to get
06:24portions of Iran like Tehran, the western areas near the Gulf of Oman with some rain and thunderstorm
06:30activity and some wind. There's another system about a week later coming in. So I do think the
06:37military is going to have to factor in the weather a bit more here over the next couple of weeks
06:41there.
06:42Now, after that, it should settle down. But I do see the weather impeding some operations.
06:48So during that period of time, we may see some more negotiations, if military actions are restricted.
06:58And so we'll just label it restraint and see if we can cut a deal.
07:02Yeah, I will tell you, though, the technology that's aboard a lot of our aircrafts, even in what we would
07:07call IFR weather, instrument flight rule weather for pilots out there, they can still operate.
07:14It's just that it does make things a little bit more cumbersome.
07:18So really, not much is going to change. We can do this in any weather.
07:23Mostly, yes.
07:24Okay. Isaac, how are the markets reacting to the recent increases in diesel prices,
07:31considering that diesel prices went up, the oil prices went up to 115, but are not now back into
07:39the high 90s. And hopefully, they'll get lower. What's happened in your field?
07:43The trucking Jumanji continues, Gary.
07:49Yeah, the market's in shock right now. Diesel's, as you all know, and you just stated, diesel moved up
07:55extremely fast. Companies are scrambling to figure out how to adjust pricing without losing customers,
08:02especially on freight that moves at all-in rates right now. Drivers are demanding, and where it is
08:09demanding, significant increases in pay. Most trucking companies are trying to balance two things
08:14right now. Covering the rising cost of fuel while not pushing rates so high that customers shift
08:21freight elsewhere. Carriers...
08:23Where else are they going to take it?
08:24I'm sorry?
08:25Where else are they going to take it? Everybody's paying the same fuel prices.
08:28Well, that's the thing, right? So you'd think these conversations with customers would be a
08:32whole lot easier. I will tell you that customers are not accepting these fuel surcharge,
08:37emergency fuel surcharges that we're trying to apply. They are pushing back, surprisingly.
08:42And that's what, right now, carriers across the country are applying emergency fuel surcharges,
08:47just renegotiating lanes. And in some cases, simply, and we have one customer I was talking
08:53to yesterday that just said it, some of our rates in China that are all-in, we're just simply not
08:59accepting them. And that's what they're doing. They're refusing freight that no longer makes
09:03economic sense. Yes, the market will eventually adjust, but in the short term, it's creating a lot
09:08of pressure on the entire supply chain. Is the intermodal market starting, market share
09:17is starting to gain, is the intermodal area starting to gain market share due to rising
09:22trucking costs? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, as trucking costs rise, especially as this fuel's gone up,
09:29rail's looking a lot more attractive to shippers again. When diesel spikes, long-haul trucking becomes
09:36very expensive. And that's where rail stops in and takes market share.
09:41So the future of rail stocks, while we are in a crisis right now, or certainly it's under stress,
09:50the future of rail capacity, possibly even as an investment in the long term, is still very real
09:57because it can handle these shocks. Absolutely. Absolutely.
10:01Okay. Has the war impacted freight volumes or changed anything overall in the overall freight
10:07mix? It has, yeah. Again, going back to the rising costs of diesel here, we've seen a drop in imports,
10:14but at the same time, we've seen an absolute surge in domestic container freight. We've been flooded,
10:21the entire market here in Chicagoland has been flooded by 53-foot domestic container moose.
10:27What does that mean? I'm sorry? What does it mean? What does that imply?
10:31So a 53-foot domestic container versus ocean container import, right? The ocean containers are
10:38coming in from China. We're importing them, hitting the ports. Some of them will be transloaded and go
10:43truckload, or some of them will hit the rail to go to Chicago and other places. A domestic
10:49container is exactly that. It never leaves the United States. It's always domestic. So for example,
10:55a local driver out of LA will load a domestic container, take it to the rail,
11:00where then they'll go to Chicago for its end delivery, for example, in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
11:05The domestic containers compete against truckload, right? So when fuel goes up, it's a lot cheaper to
11:12move that container via rail than truckload. So that's the significant difference between the
11:16domestic containers and the ocean containers. But right now what's going on, because diesel's risen
11:21so high, they're consolidating the ocean containers. Ocean containers are 20-foot and 40-foot
11:28in length. So what they're doing, shippers are doing, is they're consolidating the freight
11:33into a domestic container once it hits the port and railing it to the Midwest, where it'll end up in
11:40in its end delivery, for example, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. So we're seeing this happen in real
11:46time right now, which explains why we're seeing a surge in 53-foot domestic containers.
11:52Got it. Isaac, overall, are you seeing an increase in shipping then recently?
11:58It's hard to say right now. If you look at all the data points right now, the Stratto-Hermuse is
12:03adding
12:03more shipping time. We are seeing bookings cancel on the ocean side of things. It's hard to say,
12:11Bob. It's hard to say. We're tracking the data as closely as possible. What we are seeing is what
12:16I'm stating on this. We're just seeing a rush of domestic container freight right now. We did see
12:20the drop in ocean freight. You got one side of the aisle that's saying, well, it's just a delay,
12:25right? These things are going around and it's going to add another seven days. You have the other side
12:29of the aisle. It's definitely speaking about or declaring a decrease in volumes in the upcoming
12:38months and weeks. Well, let's watch it closely to get some early warnings of either good or bad
12:45things happening in terms of the economy. Dr. Bob, no surprise as war-related costs are moving higher.
12:53Interest rates also moved up a bit with the 30 and 15-year fixed and also the 10-year
13:01treasury moving up about a tenth of one percent. When do you see rates moving lower again?
13:10Once the Middle East issue is resolved and the oil prices come back down. The timing of that is
13:17clearly up in the air depends on how effective our military is. Interesting choice of words, but yes.
13:23Well, it depends on how effective our military is at keeping Iran from disrupting the shipping and
13:31disrupting the other countries in the Middle East. You know, Iran would like to see the area just
13:38simply blow up. That's their game plan at this point. They can't do a whole lot militarily,
13:46but they can't apparently do enough damage to just keep this turmoil going. And that's their game
13:52plan. I have a lot of faith in the military so far. They haven't been able to stop Iran from
13:59shutting the shipping in the straits. One thing we have been very good at over time
14:05is adjusting to the situation and solving problems. And I think these problems are going to be solved
14:12relatively shortly, probably within the next couple of weeks. And when that happens, I think the clouds
14:19will lift over the stock market and we'll see some gains. So with everything going on,
14:28what's your stock market model showing? Okay, the stock market model interestingly shows that
14:34although the momentum is out of the market, the upward momentum, but so is the downward momentum.
14:40And it suggests that we are going to continue to be in this wide range that we've been in for
14:47the
14:47past four months. And it's unlikely, very unlikely that we're going to break out on the upside of this
14:55range. We may get into the middle or upper area if things go really well, but the odds of a
15:03downward
15:03turn have increased. It's still not dominant, but there's something like 36% odds that we would
15:13continue to see a very sharp downturn in the market. Now, of course, those odds are going to change
15:19depending upon the real world developments in the Middle East. But right now, I'm looking for the
15:25market to remain in the range that it's been in for the past four months, because that's what the
15:31market says. Momentum is out. And when momentum is out, you usually do not have major moves in one
15:40direction or another. So basically, with what's going on, with the stock market not going way down
15:49and basically remaining stable, that is a tremendous vote of confidence, both in the marketplace and the
15:56geopolitical and military and economic outcome.
16:00Yeah, I'm given all that's happening throughout the world and given that the oil prices are up in
16:05the 90s, high 90s, and given at least so far, the US has not been able to open the Strait
16:12of
16:12Hormuz to that shipping. We've got a lot of negative things occurring and the market is staying within the
16:18range that it's been in for the past four to five months. Apparently, also, the Saudis have reopened
16:25or expanded an oil pipeline to go across Saudi Arabia that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz.
16:31There are ways to get around it. They're not ideal. And as time goes by, those ways to get around
16:39it are
16:39going to build and the markets are going to adjust. Okay. Now, how is everybody feeling with all
16:48this craziness? Don, are you optimistic or pessimistic?
16:53You know, I'm optimistic. And, you know, getting to the Iran situation, what I find interesting is
16:58the island they're on. They've been unsuccessful in really other than China or Russia getting support
17:05from anywhere else. So it's a lonely place they're on. And I think it's going to take a Hail Mary
17:11for
17:11them to think they're going to get through this. Isaac, what is your view?
17:17I'm a little disappointed about the cold front coming in. But I'm optimistic, Gary. Again,
17:27the trucking Jumanji continues. It's going to be a strong year for us. We'll get over this. I'm
17:33optimistic. And Dr. Bob?
17:35Well, pessimistic about the Midwest weather, but as for the economy, we've gotten some new
17:41information, recent information. And it shows that the economy going into the new year did
17:49reasonably well. Current dollar spending is up at a 5% annual rate. Real incomes after adjustment for
18:04inflation. Real disposable incomes in January were up at an 8% annual rate.
18:128%?
18:13Now, part of that is a Social Security increase kicked in. So that it probably was 6% without
18:20that Social Security raise that comes in January. But the wages also are up at a 6%. This is total
18:28wages. Excuse me, all wages in the economy. That was up 6%. So we've gotten some pretty good news there.
18:36And inflation is still around 3%. So there's some real gains that we're seeing.
18:41Well, no. The inflation rate, according to the latest data that came out today, and this is not the CPI.
18:49CPI was fine in January. These data show that inflation in January was about 4%, both total and
18:58after allowance for food and energy. So we've gotten some bad news on inflation in January,
19:05an alternative measure from the CPI. CPI was fine in January. However, CPI went up to 3% in February,
19:14and it's going to go up even more in March. So we don't have smooth sailing, but we do have
19:20signs
19:21that beneath the surface, the economy is moving ahead rapidly at the beginning of this year.
19:28So you're optimistic?
19:29I'm optimistic, yes.
19:31Wonderful. Folks, have a great weekend. Stay safe, stay warm, and God bless America.
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