critical race theory was to understand the intersection between society and race and we know that race has huge systemic effects. >> all right, we've got to go. that's if for this week. thanks to my guests tomi lahren and jessica tarlov. thank you for joining us and we'll be back >> "barron's roundtable" sponsored by global x ets. jack: welcome to "barron's roundtable" where we get behind the headlines and prepare you for the week ahead. coming up comes move sailing for cruise lines as american start spending on vacation again. jason liberty on increased demand and the recovery from the covid crash and soaring

grocery prices and food shortages being felt around the world, we look at companies solving the problem, investment opportunities to consider. three things we think investors ought to be thinking about, stocks rallied after an aggressive fed hike at a negative gdp report, the market closing of the month with sharp gains. a big week for big tech, apple topped forecasts on iphone sales growth but for some there are problems under the surface at a surprise agreement between manchin and schumer jolted renewable energy and ev stocks. my colleagues been levisohn, carleton english and al route. what put investors in a buying mood? al: two things. the federal reserve even though it did the supersized rate hike jerome powell hinted those rate hikes could slow down in the

market adjusted its estimates to the rate hikes ending by the end of the year which would be a big deal considering the ongoing 2,023 and a second thing is earnings, they haven't been great and did better than a market thought and we are seeing big moves from companies like amazon and that is helping investor confidence. these things are pushing markets up. jack: you were joking about recession. the fed is using 75 basis points to slow the economy. by some data it is succeeding. everyone is asking are we in a recession? if not will we be in recession soon? ben: the market is acting like we had a recession and it will end. we saw a lot of industrial stocks with massive moves over the past few days and two quarters of negative gdp which is a technical definition of

recession but not really one. it is too early to say. it will come down to the fed and whether it is tainted inflation. if it has in this rally, it will probably last and the economy will be doing fine but if it raises future rates at a fast clip to dial back inflation there will be problems. jack: we have dueling data points where the jobs market, no recession, how do you see it shaping up and what are you looking for for the levisohn indicator? ben: next week's payroll for ports has the fed struggling to how strong the jobs market is and if the job market shows signs of cooling-off that will make the fed more comfortable with the trajectory it is setting with right now. jack: for big tech, no recession insight. tell us about the great earnings for the biggest of the big. carleton: to use a technical term, all is well if you are a

gigantic tech company which is to say amazon or alphabet or apple. when you move down the tier, multibillion-dollar companies like snap, meta, and twitter, things are more difficult. jack: the old joke about knives to a gunfight, the twitters and snaps are the knives, full of crocodiles and sharks. how do you compete? let's talk about apple. the stock that everybody focuses on. iphone sales were strong. don't know that i need 14. there is no chip shortage. carleton: when you look at apple, demand for iphone sales remain strong, they doubled supply chain shortage pre-well but the other thing is you have an iphone 14 you may not rush to buy the 14 but you are going to buy it.

some of the other companies like amazon or microsoft have huge cloud businesses even if other parts of the business are not doing as well. jack: those are the markets driving those boats. speaking of driving, schumer and manchin came to a deal that surprised everybody, made the deal in the basement and we saw a big reaction in renewable cost stocks, electric vehicles. al: the inflation reduction act of 2022, big surprise and it's legals in overhang in renewable in overhanging renewable stocks, policy is important renewables like wind and solar, a big extension of investment tax credit and production tax credits, a danish stock with wind turbines, sun power, everybody knows that one,

rooftop solar, they were up 15% on the news. but that is the end of the overhang and now you can go back and see what the outlooks are but that is how big a deal that is for those stocks. jack: why do electric vehicles need subsidy? demand is high. al: good question, there's a case to be made the demand is great so why bother subsidizing? there was a big expansion of the benefit, you could get $4,000 off of a used ev now but it is a sliver of the overall market and president biden and the automakers want to sell 50% of old cars so it makes sense but stocks have been not as impacted by policy. rivianhad a big move, that was 5% of the big move. that is what happened with those. jack: less impact when it comes to pharmaceuticals. after years of talking about

this there is a deal where the government will negotiate drug prices with pharmaceuticalmakers but the market shrugged. >> i opened the tape thinking pfizer and merck must be getting crushed. everyone expected this to happen. the things that happened that should happen in the marketplace. jack: as americans start traveling again demand is surging for cruises. why it is so affordable and cruise lines relax covid rules next.

[whistling] when you have technology that's easier to control... that can scale across all your clouds... we got that right? yeah, we got that. it's easier to be an innovator. so you can do more incredible things. [whistling] my little family is me, aria, and jade. just the three of us girls. i never thought twice about feeding her kibble.

but about two years ago, i realized she was overweight. she was always out of breath. that's when i decided to introduce the farmer's dog to her diet. it's just so fresh that she literally gets bubbles in her mouth. now she's a lot more active she's able to join us on our adventures. and we're all able to do things as a family. ♪♪ get started at longlivedogs.com

only two things are forever: love and liberty mutual customizing your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. if anyone objects to this marriage... (emu squawks) kevin, no! not today. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ jack: the cruise industry rebounding from the covid crash, pent up demand leading to a surge in bookings. joining me is jason liberty. i would rather be where you are than where i am.

you are in miami, the bahamas shortly come your ship is at capacity. >> reporter: exactly right. good to speak to you. i'm standing on freedom of the seas, this ship is at full occupancy sailing to the bahamas and will hit private island perfect today at coco k, 10,000 passengers a day. jack: your rubbing it in. let's talk your earnings report. in many respects most notably by reporting a profit, i was amazed to see bookings are 30% over 2019, that is pre-covid. where does royal caribbean stand in recovering from the covid crash? >> it has been 20 months since we have been able to say we were cash flow positive. we have seen our business come

back up and running for all 63 ships, back on the water, some occupancies returning to normal levels. for the second border we reported 82% on our load factor, more than people expected it to be. what we saw in the month of june is sailings at or north of one hundred%, the business has returned to normal and we are back to doing what we do best, which is the best vacations in the world. jack: there's less testing required. is that affecting your operations? is that a step toward normalcy? >> the cdc who we worked with closely over time gained respect for our protocols and moved recommendation status so we are now starting our voyages on august 8th, folks that are vaccinated, that is going to begin to unravel what is still

a hurdle to broader travel as well as cruise which is testing and vaccination. jack: one hurdle, more appear particularly inflation. the cost of diesel is going up. how much of food costs have gone up and are you seeing price gains moderating? >> if you look at our cost structure, two areas we have inflation, what is fuel, we are 50% hedged going out which is helping abate the risk. the other is food. what we have seen in the market is food costs, inflation between 40%, our incredible supply chain has kept that south of 30% and that is being able to source products from all over the world. we are seeing quarter over quarter increase is beginning

to shrink and when we talk to our suppliers they are telling us, coming close to that inflection point where they believe inflation will pool back as relates to the product. jack: give us a sense of scale. how many meals does a ship like that serve in a day? >> i think at this very second we have 125,000 guests sailing with us and on average we are providing somewhere between 20, to 30,000 meals per day on these ships. a ship like this is probably 22,000 and oasis class ship around 30,000. it is a lot of meals, a lot of incredible crewmembers put that together and we have great culinary experiences. jack: 125,000 is your entire fleet, not a single ship. i want to ask about the revenue

side. how much pricing power do you have? weaker competitors have gone out of business. >> there has been one weaker player that has taken that path and it is good to see it has been bought in and will come back into service. what we really benefit from is the best brands in the industry lead in the segments, the most innovative suites in the world, the best crewmembers and people in the world and that combination has thrown strength in demand and we see in the second quarter, acceleration of demand and that plus the easing of these protocols will leave us in strong posture. there is still a sizable value gap between us and land-based vacations, there's a lot of room for pricing power to increase.

jack: a long-term challenge, rising interest rates, your industry has a heavy debt load, one hundred 50 ton ship is not cheap with rates going up, that could be tough. how are you positioned for that? >> 80% of our debt is success and we can abase some of that. we have a pretty healthy new building program. before we take a delivery or order, we have all the financing in place and benefit from financing so we are borrowing at low rates all things considered and that is an important part of the industry. jack: thanks for coming on the show, enjoy the cruise. >> all the best. jack: storing grocery prices are global phenomena. how technology is helping to solve the problem creating opportunities for investors, that is next.

♪ well the sun is shining and the grass is green ♪ ♪ i'm way ahead of schedule with my trusty team ♪ ♪ there's heather on the hedges ♪ ♪ and kenny on the koi ♪ ♪ and your truck's been demolished by the peterson boy ♪ ♪ yes -- ♪ wait, what was that? timber... [ sighs heavily ] when owning a small business gets real, progressive helps protect what you've built with affordable coverage.

this is xfinity rewards. progressive helps protect what you've built our way of showing our appreciation. with rewards of all shapes and sizes. [ cheers ] are we actually going? yes!! and once in a lifetime moments. two tickets to nascar! yes! find rewards like these and so many more in the xfinity app.

>> jack: soaring food prices hitting household budgets and one third of people worldwide don't have access to food, some companies turning to new technologies to help food shortages. they are new opportunities for investment. that is the cover story of this week's addition of barron's. everybody knows about serial costs more, less known is this problem is global. the un food price index for commodities up 60% since 2019. al: we got hit with a triple whammy of war, pandemic, and climate change and it exacerbated these trends, this

pressure on the overall food system. the un statistic, one third of people lack access to the appropriate amount of food, that's up tenfold so you can see how extreme these moves can be when you get a bad year or confluence of negative events. it is funny but people that have to solve this are largely americans and brazilians, dominant producers of food around the globe. it is our problem to solve. jack: that's not enough bad news. the quantity of arable land around the globe is getting smaller, in the us, 11 million acres and in other countries, climate change is causing water scarcity, how do we solve that? al: we need to double food production and 50 years which

sounds scary, 2% or 3% a year, but do it on the same land-based, you need productivity enhancing technology which we always needed but the pressure is even greater than it has ever been before because of all the old adage that we are not making anymore land. jack: who are they selling to? al: the company has been around since the early 19th century and transformed into a tech company. they want 10% of their sales to come from subscription services, using drones, gps, developing self driving tractors, they are leaning into the productivity trend and it is a dominant producer, a good company, good stock. jack: there is a smaller company, less well known doing the same thing?

al: farm implements, lower multiple less-expensive stock, not reputation but they are trying to catch up and investing in all these productivity precision farming type solutions, that another one we like. jack: not just tractors and drones but stuff that goes into the ground like fertilizers and seed. al: another stock back, seeds the farmers need to plant every year, herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, dominant producer always investing to make the product better, 8% of annual sales going to r&d and fertilizer, the same amount of land every time you grow a crop it sucks nutrients out and you put them back, that creates demand for fertilizer. there's potash based fertilizers. fertilizer is a commodity business but yields 10% strong cash flow. carleton: i don't want to worry about do i want to buy -- i want to buy the whole farm.

al: you can invest in farmland. there are farmland partners, entities that go -- it is a counter cyclical investment. what's going on in farming is not what is going on in the broader part of the economy. farmland in iowa was 30% in the first quarter year-over-year following a few years of flat performance. farmland is going up while we are in the midst of this recession. jack: you don't purchase farmland without expect in a quick fix. don't purchase the farm. roundtable members looking at investment ideas for the coming weeks and the hottest real estate markets right now. stay right there.

new projects means new project managers. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. when you sponsor a job, you immediately get your shortlist of quality candidates, whose resumes on indeed match your job criteria. visit indeed.com/hire and get started today. ♪ if you shop at walmart, you get it. ♪ you know how to spend a little less to get a little more to make life a little better. ♪ dad, when is the future? um, oh wow. um, the future is, uh, what's ahead of us. i don't get it. yeah. maybe this will help.

so now we're in the present. and now... we're in the future. the all-electric chevy bolt euv with available super cruise™ for hands-free driving. - dad. - yeah? do fish get thirsty? eh. find new answers. find new roads. chevrolet. if you have age-related macular degeneration, find new roads. there's only so much time before it can lead to blindness. but the areds2 clinical study showed that a specific nutrient formula can help reduce the risk of dry amd progression. ask your doctor now about an areds2 supplement.

>> "barron's roundtable"

brought you by global x ets, visit "barron's roundtable". jack: the wall street journal and realtor.com came out with their new emerging housing index. let's start with the affordable. given all the volatility in real estate an interesting list. carleton: they looked at fort ability and employment metrics in various regions, and things to do. there's plenty of cheap places but you don't want to be twiddling your thumbs in the middle of nowhere. in indiana, two hours outside chicago, the rv capital of the world where most recreational vehicles are produced and on employment is one. 6%. %. another one is burlington north carolina, which is just outside the research triangle in the north carolina region and it can be cheaper.

jack: the luxury market, i think of nashville and country music, it tops the list. carleton: bachelorette parties, and condos and a lot of companies, not just in nashville and the sunbelt in the us, have been moving their headquarters there or a large part of operations due to favorable tax treatment. other area stopping the list would be cities in florida and other spots in the sunbelt. jack: time for actionable ideas. ben: liquefied natural gas, it wants to export. it has been going sideways but with all the problems in europe, natural gas looks pretty interesting. jack: what do you have? al: one to avoid, 3m has struggled since 2018, probably the cheapest large industrial i can point people to, they will

spin out their healthcare been asked - business, -- business, they have tens of billions of dollars of legal liabilities. no one knows how to size these things. i don't think it is time for 3m. jack: people thought it was time to get in, thanks to carleton and then. check out barron.com and follow us online, barron's online, that is it for "barron's roundtable". for watching. >> happened weekend to all. welcome to the program. that handout lyses the week that was and helps position you for the week ahead. i'm maria bartiromo. democrats in denial, the u.s. economy now in recession with two consecutive quarters of economic contraction. president biden saying it doesn't sound like a recession to me while democrats agree to billions more in new spending. andy poser is