Tuesday - March 17, 2026
The Dividend Cafe
The Dividend Cafe - The Bahnsen Group
4.9 • 569 Ratings
🗓️ 17 March 2026
⏱️ 7 minutes
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Summary
Brian Szytel reports modestly positive markets from The Bahnsen Group’s Newport Beach office: the Dow rose 46 points, the S&P 500 gained 0.25%, the Nasdaq rose nearly 0.5%, and the 10-year yield fell 2 bps to 4.20% after trading in a 4.15%–4.30% range. Economic data were light, with February pending home sales notably stronger than expected, possibly reflecting slightly lower mortgage rates and pent-up demand. He previews upcoming PPI data and the Fed’s meeting conclusion, expected to leave rates unchanged at 3.50%–3.75%, while watching potential dot-plot changes amid new geopolitical developments. He addresses three market concerns—war with Iran, private credit default fears, and slowing AI capex—and explains fiduciary duty versus broker suitability standards.
00:00 Market Close Recap
00:41 Housing Data Snapshot
01:15 Fed Meeting Preview
01:39 Three Market Worries
01:56 Iran War Pricing
02:49 Private Credit Fears
03:51 AI Capex Reality Check
04:27 What Fiduciary Means
05:19 Wrap Up and Tomorrow
Links mentioned in this episode: DividendCafe.com
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Dividing Cafe weekly market commentary focused on dividends in your portfolio and dividends in your understanding of economic life. |
| 0:12.2 | Good evening. Welcome to Dividend Cafe. I'm Brian Saitel, your host for this evening. |
| 0:18.0 | Speaking to you here from our Newport Beach, California office here at the |
| 0:21.5 | Bonson Group, on a day that was positive overall in markets, but marginally so. We actually |
| 0:26.7 | ended up closing just off of the lows for the day. So markets gave back earlier gains, |
| 0:32.5 | but we ended up positive on the Dow by 46 points. S&P was up a quarter of a percent. Nasdaq was up almost a half of a |
| 0:40.7 | percent. So there's your stocks. On bonds, we lost two basis points on 10 years, so we closed at 420. |
| 0:48.2 | 10-year yields have been trading right around this range of 415 to 430 at the highest. As far as the economic data on the |
| 0:56.1 | day, there was not a lot of information. We got a pending home sales for the month of February |
| 1:01.5 | that was significantly better than expected. So there is a chance that some slightly lower |
| 1:07.0 | mortgage rates are causing some unthawing of housing. That and just the pent-up demand and |
| 1:13.0 | the fact that it's been stuck here for, call it five years, with rates having moved up 500 |
| 1:18.3 | basis points from their 0% lows. So some of that activity, I think, is definitely a good thing. |
| 1:23.6 | It's a big part of the economy. But that's all there was in the economic calendar. |
| 1:27.8 | Tomorrow we're going to have two things out, which are more important, which is the PPI number, |
| 1:33.0 | and then the conclusion of the Fed's two-day meeting. And it's widely expected they're going to |
| 1:38.1 | leave rates unchanged at 350 to 375. But it'll be interesting to note where some of the dot plot changes may occur |
| 1:46.6 | now that there's this new geopolitical event for them to put into their calculus. |
| 1:52.0 | As far as some of the comments that David wrote about today, really there's three major |
| 1:55.8 | concerns for the market right now. |
| 1:58.1 | There's the war with Iran, There is fear over private credit, |
| 2:01.6 | and there is a change in the appetite for AI capital expenditure. So if we break all of those |
... |
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