is so we had to fight against. >> everybody gets a trophy. for the winner. thanks to tammy and laura. that's it for this week. jerry will be back next week right here on "the wall street journal" at large. thanks for joining us. ♪ jack: welcome to "barron's roundtable", i'm jack otter. coming up, rising interest rates, inflation and geopolitical upheaval, where franklin templeton ceo jenny if johnson is finding opportunity. and later, films that never even played in movie theaters have the most oscar nominations starting this weekend. who will win the streaming wars? but we begin, as always, with what we think are the three most important things investors ought

to be thinking about right now. stocks gained ground in another volatile week of trading despite a hawkish fed. oil prices have been fluctuating with the market, but gas prices are still hovering near their highs. the reason may surprise you. and mortgage rates have shot up as buying yields climb. will that cool off the red hot real estate market? my colleagues, ben levisohn, carlton english and jack howe. ben, it was a pretty good week in the markets despite some news that you might have thought would have tanked stocks. >> it was a great week for the markets and even better two weeks. the s&p 500 just had the best two weeks since 2020, and that tells you a lot, especially since we didn't start off of that well. jerome powell came out and said half a percentage point was a very real possibility. it was echoed by other fed presidents, and then neel kashkari, the ike uber-dove, who never if wants to raise rates, came out and said seven rate hikes looks realistic.

that that really gives us a floor. the ceiling, that's anybody's guess, but this has a much bigger impact on the bond market where the 2-year yield had its booster week -- worst week since 2009. jack: interesting point about the 2-year. what that means now is that the yield on the 2-year bond is extremely close to the yield on the 10-year bond. about 20 basis points' difference there. if that were to creep above the 10-year, we'd have what's called an inverted yield curve, and that is quite often a reliable predicter of a recession. are you worried? >> i'm not actually that worried yet. the 2 and the 10, it's one that we've watched a lot, but it's actually not the only recession indicator on the curve. the fed looks at the 3-month, 18-month. my favorite is probably if 3-month, 10-month, very close to the fed funds rate, that's their

benchmark rate, and it's going to move at a different kind of pace than the 2-year. right now there's a lot of space between the 3-month and the 10-year. we're going to hear a lot about it when the 2s and the 10s, when they invert, but i think we have to remain calm. it takes a long time for the recession to come. jack: okay. one eye on that. what else will you be watching next week? >> we're going to get payrolls for march next friday, and it's really the job market, i think, that the fed is paying close attention to. it is so hot right now, and wages have been going up. and really wages are what make inflation sticky. so if we get another hot report, i think it just means that we're going to see the fed actually go ahead with that half point rate hike and maybe multiple half point rate hikes this year. jack: thanks, ben. another factor in the market, of course, jack, is gasoline prices. you've been watching carefully, you are not optimistic that prices at the pump will be falling anytime soon, and interestingly, you say it's

refiners that play a key role in that. >> well, gasoline prices around $4.30 recently, we could flirt with 5 a gallon by summer when driving peaks, but then we could slide back down potentially below $4 by the end of the year when more supply comes online, that's according to a chief oil analyst at opus, that's the oil pricing and information service, now a corporate cousin of barron's. refiners have basically gone from starving to feasting. during the pandemic roads were empty, they were selling gasoline below their cost of making it, and so some of them cut capacity to save money. now demand has returned, supplies are tight, and margins are way up, and things could get better for refiners from here. i spoke with doug hegate, he runs oil and gas coverage for bofa research. he says look at natural gas prices. we're paying $5 and change here

in the u.s., they're paying $36 in europe. the difference is humongous. most people have no idea how much natural gas you need to turn oil into gasoline and other refined products. refinery's basically a giant moonshine still. you need a lot of heat to turn the oil into vapor. you can also use natural gas to scrub heavier fuels into more sellable fuels. and so basically, that price advantage on natural gas right now works out to a $9 cash margin advantage per barrel for u.s. refiners. their typical margin is only $5, so it's a big windfall. it's not going to go away soon or totally. jack: okay. we're running out of time, but real quick, any opportunities for investors as refiners mint money? >> i mean, bofa says the new golden era for refiners, v.a. valero, today see 40% upside,

marathon petroleum, phillips 66 and hs sin care. -- sinclair. jackie: carlton, something else that's going up, mortgage rates. what are you seeing there? only two years ago we were at about that level, but it's been a very steep rise. >> yeah. i mean, the cost of owning a home is going up. we are seeing monthly mortgage rates going up by about 10%, and for potential buyers, i mean, that's a budget buster. that translates into a higher monthly payment of a few hundred dollars a year or a few thousand dollars a month or a few thousand a year. and as we've been talking about, we're already in an inflationary environment. jack: is this going to put a crimp in the housing market, or is that demand strong enough to stomach higher rates? >> we are still seeing a ton of demand as well as supply. you know, you look at something like kb homes, wall street did not like their earnings report, but if you listen to the call, they have no problem starting to build a house, but if you want that house to have cabinets or

an hvac system or a garage door, you're going to have to wait. and as we were talking about earlier, as the labor market remains tight, you do have a large pool of buyers. some of those weaker credits are going to fall off, but you have gen-z entering the buying market, and rents are going up. so people who are moving to some of those hot cities, if they want to plant their roots somewhere, they're going to look at mortgage rates now about 4.5%, probably going to go up to 5%, but rents that are going up double digits, you kind of say which makes sense for us? jack: geopolitical upheaval, jen jenny johnson says there are plenty of opportunities right here at home. she joins me, that's next.

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jack: the war in ukraine has been rocking the market, but stocks were already reacting to covid reopenings and sky-high inflation. i recently spoke to franklin templeton ceo jenny johnson about how to invest in this environment and where she's finding opportunity. thanks so much for coming on the show, appreciate it. >> thanks for having me, jack. glad to be here. jack: i think we have to start with the headlines. not to discount the awful human toll that we're seeing in the russian invegas of the ukraine, but how long -- invasion of the ukraine, but how long should long-term investors be thinking about this sort of geopolitical upheaval? [laughter] >> yeah, you know, this is one that, certainly all the rules we've learned about diversification, because you never know what's going to happen, apply right now. i think putin completely underestimated the ukrainian people's willingness to fight him, the capability of his own army and, frankly, the coordination of nato.

and so this looks like this is going to drag out for a while, and, you know, i think it's on top of what we're already seeing with rising rates and supply chain issues. so this is just going to exacerbate inflation. i mean, it actually could bring you into a little bit of stagflation. so, you know, i think investors have to be prepared for that kind of environment. jack: so you talk about diversification, obviously, looking at portfolio allocation, you ought to be in emerging markets, you ought to be in europe with. it's a particularly scary place to be. do you just follow the buffett mantra, be greedy when others are fearful? [laughter] >> well, there's sure always an opportunity there, but, you know, i think a couple of things. i think, obviously, in an inflationary environment you want things like real estate, commodities, even arguably gold if you're worried about currency. but i think there's some fundamental trends that you can take advantage of which are

things like demographics. so if you look at emerging markets, not all country countries are the same as far as populations like india with, indonesia, philippines, africa, you know, those are young populations, places where you have a rising middle class. so, you know, i don't think you want to -- this is where active management's important, right? i don't think it's ad broad brush. i think it's finding the areas of opportunity. other big trends are technology, right? so the digitization of the economy. there's still going to be opportunity there because we're in a massive industrial revolution. i think climate change, climate change is here for good, and so finding opportunities, you know, whether obviously renewable energy we're all aware about, but things like agriculture technology. i think one of the things that scares people is recognizing when you've got 25% of, you know, wheat and corn where you're worried about whether the ukraine can be planting and how that's going to affect the food

supply, you're going to have people starting to think about how can you have, you know, food independence. and there's a lot of new technologies around farming, vertical farming, you know, precision farming that are all very, very important. and i think there's opportunity to invest in those kind of things. jack: so your grandfather named the company after a benjamin franklin. now you've got an innovation that, i assume, would have thrilled ben franklin, blockchain, and you've launch. ed a money market fund based on a stable coin. can you briefly explain what that is and why you should do such a thing. >> absolutely. i like to say that ben franklin is the elon musk of his day. [laughter] he was an a incredibly innovative guy who was incredibly successful at a lot of different things. so, you know, we hi that blockchain -- we think that blockchain is going to be a key component to being able to unlock that liquidity that exists and bring it to, you know, basically the masses.

and so we wanted to make sure we understood how to do that, and, you know, there's a lot of stable coins, anybody who's dabbling in the crypto space understands that there's stable coins there yielding 8 and 10%. and if you have any, you know, investment background, you realize that in this rate environment, that's probably pretty hard to do. so we wanted to come out with a legitimate, regulated stable coin, so we worked early on with the sec to, you know, get it approved, and they really worked with us on that. so we built the shareholder record on blockchain, and now we can roll out other products there. and, you know, things like -- here's what gets me so excited about the tokennization. bitcoin is the greatest distraction from the greatest disruption that'll be happening to asset management. so just take one portion of that which is tokennizing illiquid assets so you can own a building and sell it to a million people. today you couldn't do that because if they wanted to sell

it to somebody else, everybody would have to sign off, and you'd to have to go to the title company. the cost of transferring your ownership is too hard. but if that could be embedded in a smart smart if contract and all i have to do is sell the token, that suddenly unlocks a lot of assets, and i think we're going to see some interesting creativity. jack: you could turn the empire state building into a mutual fund. jennifer johnson, thank you so much. >> thank you. jack: no matter who takes home the oscar, the streaming services have already won. netflix and apple both up for best picture at the a academy awards. what the latest battle means for streaming stocks and investors. that's next. ♪ ♪ you know liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need? like how i customized this scarf? check out this backpack i made for marco.

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hollywood is sol on streaming, wall street remains skeptical. we handicapped the streaming wars. barron's reporter nicholas wrote the story, and he joins the panel. it's your red carpet debut on the "barron's roundtable". thanks for coming on. >> thanks, jack, for having me on. great to see all of you. jack: this weekend we're getting confirmation on the red carpet, netflix scored 27 oscar nominations, more than any other studio. >> you're absolutely right, jack. netflix has more oscar nominations than any other studio this year. apple tv plus and amazon studios have plenty nominations themselves, and even a lot of the films that came from the traditional studio withs at disney and warner brothers, those films were shown exclusively on their own streaming services or at the same time as movie theaters because of covid and the fact that so many theaters have been closed. so streaming definitely has a presence at the oscars this year. you can also just follow the money.

the top ten streaming companies are spending something like $130 billion on content this year, and viewers like you and me are voting with our dollars. cord cutting is accelerating. the box office might never recover to what it was before the pandemic, and the average american household subscribes to about 4-5 streaming services at once now, so i don't think you'll find many in hollywood arguing that the future of media is anything else other than streaming. jack: we just saw a clip from "don't look up." that was very funny. wall street is not laughing, however, netflix shares are down 40% this year. none of the stocks are doing alternative -- terribly well, why not? >> there are 8 or 9 companies or services competing for 5 seats at the table. and unlike cable where you're locked into a long-term contract, with streaming services you can pick and choose, and you can sub vibe or cancel month to month. so in order to build the gold star of this rekerring -- recurring businesses, the streaming companies are

realizing they need new con content out every month, and that means a lot of content -- which is expensive. so on wall street there's a lot more i'll call it critical skepticism when it comes to the profitability of the streaming business. >> we have netflix, amazon, apple, they're the pure tech companies. who has the advantage there? >> well, netflix is way ahead of the pack. i think there's no other way to put it. it's the first mover. they basically traded the streaming business as we know it. it has global scale, over 220 million subscribers and very deep pockets. netflix is actually going to make money from streaming this year, the only one in the business doing that. they're going to generate free cash flow, management has begun to buy back shares, and we're bullish on the stock over the long term. amazon was also early to streaming and has the advantage of bundling that service in with its prime sub description. apple tv plus, it's much further behind. there's just not. that much content on there right now. the strategy is a little confusing to me. there's some tv and movies, some

kids' content, now there's going to be live baseball as well. but like with amazon, the service is -- it's a tiny part of a massive technology company. >> hey, nick, jack hough. you like netflix and amazon, you say there are five seats at the table. tell me your next two favorite. talk to me about disney, hbomax, paramount plus and peacock. >> yeah, jack, i think like you, me and carlton, we only wish there were more hours in the day so we could watch all the content on all these services. among the old guard we think disney certainly is a winner. it's got a super strong start in streaming over course of the pandemic. there are over 200 million subscribers combined on disney if plus, hulu and espn plus, and it's such a deep library, they're globally relevant. another name, warner brothers, which is right now owned by at&t, but next month it's going to be spun out and merge with

discovery, that's going to launch hbomax and other streaming services. you mentioned paramount, nbc, which is owned by comcast. they're similarly targeting tens of millions of sub scriberringing -- subscribers and spending billions of dollars on content, but at the end of the day, they might be competing for fifth place. jack: unfortunately, nick, we are out of time. really interesting stuff and, of course, we'll be watching to see who wins on sunday night. next, round table members give their investment ideas for the coming week, and jack is going to harsh on marijuana stocks. stay right there. look, your cousin dared me. i had no choice. my cousin is twelve. this is your captain speaking... 'cause they're like... captain's chairs? to be fair, i did say heads up. to be fair, you're sleeping on the couch. hey mercedes, change lighting to baby blue. i think you're actually more annoying back there.

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[laughter] >> that's quite an impression, jack. [laughter] cannabis stocks, they soared on thursday and friday because there's anticipation of the house voting next week on the more act which would legalize marijuana at the federal level. this is the end of prohibition moment that some investors have been waiting for. let me put it in a metaphor to explain to cannabis shareholders what i think is going to happen next. you're an 18-year-old living at home with your parents, and the more act is your bag of weed. the united states senate is your mom. mom if's gonna get your hands on her bag of weed eventually and throw it in the garbage. that's what moms do. the more act could a pass house, a lot of things could pass the house. some of those people seem like they could be high or hallucinating on any day, but the senate, those people were never popular enough as teenagers to be offered weed in the first place. now they're old and angry, and they're gonna kill your weed bill. i'm sorry i are to tell it to you like this, cannabis fans.

i do think these companies have a bright future, but careful in the near term. jack: wow, i can't believe you didn't buy my stoner interpretation. more actionable ideas, carlton. >> i am taking a look at bed bath and beyond, got a pop in friday's trading because three new members on the board. one i'm watching, we see a lot of activism in the retail space right now. bed bath and beyond has been an activist target before based on huge changes ahead of the pandemic, but the pandemic slowed its progress. just watching to see if it gets it right. jack: and trading places going on here because ben is one who has a bank stock for us. [laughter] >> that's right. i'm looking at m ask and t bank. -- m&t bank. the meld is raising rate -- the fed is raising rates, but it's not so great because of that yield curve. but m and t, they justed had their takeover of people's united bank approved, and that's something that they've been waiting for months and months

and months for this to happen. it removes an overhang. they have other ways to make the stock go up now, i think it looks interesting right here. jack: all great ideas. to read more, check out this week's edition of barron's.com. don't forget to follow us on twitter, @barronsonline, and that's all for us. we'll see you next week on barron's round thame. ♪ >> from the fox cities in newark city, it is maria bartiromo wall street. maria: happy weekend to open welcome to the program that analyzes the week that was an helpless position you for the week ahead. i am maria bartiromo. thiers growing as federal reserve chairman jay powell says it's going to take three years to bring down inflation. a new fox poll shows americans struggle with higher prices, marked on where things go from here. plus, president by and announcing new sanctions against russia after mti