Fox Business Host Expresses On-Air Shock Over Rising Prices Amid Iran War: ‘It’s Bad News’ | EUROtoday

Fox Business host Stuart Varney on Monday couldn’t assist however discover amid the continued warfare on Iran launched final month by President Donald Trump that the costs of oil and gasoline have begun to skyrocket, asking his visitor in seeming shock, “It’s bad news all around, isn’t it?”

“Jeff, we’ve got oil this morning at $102 a barrel and we’ve got gasoline at $4 a gallon,” he instructed Jeff Sica, the founder and CEO of Circle Squared Alternative Investments. “What’s the effect of these high energy prices on the housing market? It’s bad news all around, isn’t it?”

The funding adviser confirmed as a lot.

“It is bad news, Stuart,” mentioned Sica. “And high energy prices are kryptonite for the housing market. And the housing market, the best way to describe the housing market has been a blood-stained hellscape because of what’s happening with interest rates.”

While the “Varney & Co.” host chuckled at Sica’s vivid description and known as him “dramatic,” the housing market has been plagued lately by mortgage charges larger than 6% — which is plainly unaffordable for tens of millions of first-time consumers.

“Yes, I’m being a little overly dramatic,” Sica mentioned Monday. “But what I would say is, if you look at what we were hoping for, we were hoping for rates to come down and for mortgages to be affordable. We were also hoping for construction costs to come down.”

He continued, “Now we get hit with this double wave of negatives, which are construction costs are going up — because when oil goes up in price, everything goes up in price — and mortgage rates are not going to come down.”

The excessive vitality costs in query, in the meantime, are a direct results of inflation and Trump’s warfare on Iran. The now-regional battle has led Iran to successfully shut the Strait of Hormuz, via which a fifth of the world’s oil passes, threatening to set off a worldwide vitality disaster.

“So affordability, especially for those first-time homebuyers, is now an elusive dream until oil prices come down and interest rates come down,” Sica mentioned Monday.

Varney went on to mirror on simply how pricey gasoline has change into since Trump launched the warfare, noting that the typical value for a gallon of diesel has jumped by $1.66 in just one month to $5.41. He as soon as once more discovered no consolation from his visitor after stating, “That’s highly inflationary.”

“It is,” mentioned Sica. “And think about the importance of diesel on trucking, because right now, in order to get real estate prices down, in order to make houses more affordable, they need to build more houses and everything … from the steel to the lumber is shipped through trucks.”

He continued, “And diesel fuels the trucks. When … diesel prices are up and oil prices are up, it affects everything. So you’ll see in the housing numbers, you’re going to see a slowdown in construction — which is very, very negative.”

Watch the complete “Varney & Co.” section on YouTube.