U.S.-Iran talks, ICE in airports, gemstone investing and more in Morning Squawk

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Happy Monday. If you were watching CNBC earlier this morning, you might have caught the premier of “Morning Call” — CNBC’s new 5 a.m. ET show anchored by Morgan Brennan.

Stock futures are surging this morning. The three major averages are coming off another losing week.

Here are five key things investors need to know to start the trading day:

Stock futures are soaring this morning after President Donald Trump said the U.S. would postpone any strikes against Iran’s energy infrastructure for five days following “good and productive conversations” between the two countries.

Here’s what to know:

• Dow Jones Industrial Average futures surged more than 1,000 points following Trump’s announcement, while oil prices tumbled.
• Stock futures pared back some of their gains, though, after Iranian state media denied that the two countries were in direct talks.
• In a phone call with CNBC’s Joe Kernen shortly after the announcement, Trump said that “we are very intent on making a deal with Iran.”
• The president had said on Saturday that the U.S. would attack Iranian power plants if the Strait of Hormuz wasn’t reopened in 48 hours.
• Stocks are coming off a rough patch: The Dow notched its fourth straight losing week for the first time since 2023, while the small cap-focused Russell 2000 entered correction territory.
• Follow live markets updates here.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will be deployed to U.S. airports to help ease long security lines starting today, White House border czar Tom Homan announced yesterday. Homan said ICE agents would assist in roles like guarding exit doors so Transportation Security Administration agents could focus on screening travelers.

Travelers have faced long airport security lines at airports across the country, as the Department of Homeland Security shutdown stretches into its second month. Several hundred TSA employees have quit since the shutdown began, while additional staffers are calling out instead of working without pay.

Meanwhile, an Air Canada Express plane carrying passengers and crew collided with a fire truck as it landed at New York’s LaGuardia Airport late last night. Both pilots died and several dozen people were injured.

A California jury on Friday found billionaire Elon Musk defrauded Twitter investors ahead of his acquisition of the social media platform. Attorneys for the plaintiffs said damages could total as much as $2.6 billion.

The class action lawsuit was filed in 2022 after the Tesla CEO purchased Twitter — which he later renamed X — for $54.20 per share. The plaintiffs argued that Musk’s comments and tweets in the run-up to the acquisition amounted to a scheme to pressure Twitter’s board to sell him the company for a lower price than he originally offered.

Following Friday’s verdict, an attorney for the plaintiffs called Musk’s behavior “a great example of what you cannot do to the average investor.” Musk’s attorneys said in an emailed statement that the verdict was “a bump in the road” and that they “look forward to vindication on appeal.”

OpenAI spent last year inking a salvo of infrastructure deals to ensure compute capacity. But as the artificial intelligence startup readies to potentially go public, it has started taking a more measured approach.

In recent weeks, CEO Sam Altman has acknowledged supply chain problems and the fallout of severe weather on its data centers. He said at a conference this month that “so much stuff goes wrong” when working at this scale.

Altman appears to be realizing that OpenAI will need to walk back some spending plans and let some ideas fall to the wayside to make the company palatable to Wall Street. As Futurum Group’s Daniel Newman said: “OpenAI has come to the realization that the market doesn’t necessarily appreciate the reckless approach to growth and spending.”

Market volatility is pushing wealthy investors toward tangible assets. One particularly popular investment: colored gemstones.

As CNBC’s Lisa Kailai Han reports, resale markets and the surge in gold prices have bolstered jewelry’s standing as a haven that can maintain value over time. Now, collectors are looking beyond diamonds to stones like rubies, sapphires and emeralds.

For an example of the demand for gemstones, look no further than a Christie’s auction late last year: A Tiffany & Co. necklace with a sparkling blue tourmaline gem sold for 10 times its low estimate. A matching pair of earrings went for prices that were similarly higher than expected.

Here’s what we’re following this week:

• Monday: Construction spending for January
• Wednesday: Beyond Meat earnings (after the bell); Import and Export Price Indexes for February
• Friday: Consumer sentiment data for March

— CNBC’s Michelle Fox, Azhar Sukri, Anniek Bao, Sam Meredith, Sarah Min, Lisa Kailai Han, Sean Conlon, Garrett Downs, Leslie Josephs, Lora Kolodny and Ashley Capoot, as well as Reuters, contributed to this report. Josephine Rozzelle edited this edition.