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It's time for Yahoo Finance's market minute stocks lower as investors highly anticipating Nvidia earnings after the close. The report is seen as a crucial test for markets amid tariff uncertainty. Octa topping Wall Street's expectations in its first quarter, issuing disappointing guidance for seeing shares fall on that news. The company saying it's factoring potential risks from economic uncertainty in its forward guidance, and of the medium trade GameStop buying 4700.Bitcoin worth over $500 million its first purchase since unveiling the plan back in March. A company looking to capitalize on growing crypto adoption as its video game sales remain pressured. Macy's shares higher after reporting better than expected earnings in Q1. The company trimming its full year guidance, citing tariffs and slowing consumer demand. That is your Yahoo Finance market minute for more on what's trending on Yahoo Finance, scan the QR code below to track the best and worst performing stocks.

Welcome to Wealth brought to you by Synchrony. I'm Brad Smith, and this is Yahoo Finance's guide to building your financial footprints. Our community of experts will give you the resources, tools, tips, and the tricks that you need to grow your money. On today's show portfolio checkup, I'll talk to one market strategist about how to defensively position in the tech sector right now, and it's Nvidia earnings day. We're going to go beyond the hype and talk about the.Pros and cons of investing in the AI Titan plus all week going well we're talking about saving for higher education vis a vis a 529 investment account. Today we're going to hear from someone who's not only a financial adviser but also a parent of four kids, and we'll discuss his personal saving journey. Stay tuned for that. All that much more this hour, but first, let's take a look at some of the market action.90 minutes into the trading day, stocks now slipping, edging lower ahead of Nvidia's first quarter earnings due out after the bell as we continue to see an uncertain market environment. My next guest has some tips to help investors position defensively. Joining me now, we've got Walker Williams, Lido advisors, private wealth management, chief market strategist. Good to have you here with us, and you say that tech could.Become a defensive sector during a growth slowdown. How should investors position themselves within the sector right now? You know,

I think this is a great point. We have a transformational potential tailwind happening in the technology sector, as we all know, artificial intelligence and its implications from an investor standpoint and a market standpoint are really something to take pause and think through.You know, when we're looking at the markets and at a whole right now there's some headwinds. You have tariff pressures, you have slowing economic growth and valuations are high. However, when we look at the tech sector specifically, we do see the opportunity to position there with some sort of valuation discipline.So typically in software companies where they do have an AI intent or tailwind behind them, we think that trend over the long term is going to pose opportunities and some resilience in apullback

and so within the tech sector right now as you're thinking about some of the prevailing themes that are not just AI but also trying to understand.And how there's going to be continued capital expenditure that investors should be evaluating and seeing how those dollars that companies are putting forward in marking, how that pays off over time. What is the timeline that they should be grading these companies on?

You know, I think it's a great point of timeline. It's like, you know, you're never wrong, you're just really, sort of a joke, but.I think when you're looking at capX and how quickly things are moving, typically those programs are years in the making. There's another dynamic happening right now and I, I'm gonna say currency, right, because a lot of the cap X is domestic and international. So how does the dollar, for example, the Taiwanese dollars, appreciated, the Japanese yen has appreciated, you know, earnings guidance is pivotal for this because, you know, Navidia is reporting today.That's great. I'm more curious about what they're gonna say from a manufacturing perspective and if they're slowing downAX or things of that nature because it is really a global economy now does that make the costs go up? What implications does that have? Now you know innovation is innovation, right? Last week's innovation could be next week's or could not. I think we need to judge this trend over the long term, you know.3 to 5 years going forward if we go back in time to the original Internet bubble of 200, 2001, some of those innovations happen quick. Some were like transformational over the next 5, 1015 years and if you think about it, you know, if we go back to 2000, right, we would probably agree the Internet's a thing we didn't have an idea of how it would affect our lives today, right?And if we're thinking about, you know, various things in tech capex, artificial intelligence, we all agree it's definitely something and it's a tailwind, but the implications for daily life and how would it affect things from a standpoint of capex software development, investment, jobs, things like that, that's gonna take years and years to to to slush out. So you look at the capex plans and how they're working, I think you need to have a 3 to 5 year timeline on those and especially coming.Watch what the companies say when they report, especially with caps, especially with the global supply chain, especially with tariffs and how they go. But at the end of the day, given where the markets are, quality matters. It's sort of back to the future, the old disciplines. What's your debt limit? How much is your cash flow? What is the valuation? What is your game plan? It's sort of, you know, dust off the old game plan and stick to it, not just in tech but in other sectors. Quality matters because.Quality gives companies the luxury of options and flexibility in a dynamicmarket

and so in the kind of spectrum or or range of companies in the tech sector from most offensive to least defensive, where are the most offensive plays for the portfolio, you know,

honestly, if you're looking at spend the software companies like from the standpoint software is a service software development that are exploring AA technologies, you know, are very much defensive. There's constant innovation, constant from that standpoint.As a whole, I do have to say this things look expensive, especially with items pulling down and this is why with tech, a long term view is best, right? It's sort of you're sitting here and looking at the long term and the implications with this, you know there are companies that are just expensive, but you have to look at what they're doing in their thesis you know, obviously the ship manufacturers different things, companies that drive strong recurring revenue back to discipline and especially exploring things are where I would spend time.

Great to have you here withus

and thank you for having me.

Thanks for taking the time.Now time for some of today's trending tickers. We're watching Octa and Vail Resorts. Joining me now, we've got my morning brief co-host Madison Mills. Mattie, first up, let's set the scene here on OCTA. OCTA plunging despite an earnings beat after giving a weaker than expected outlook for the second quarter in the firm, sees current remaining performance obligations are PO at 2.2 to $2.21 billion. That's just shy of estimates. Analysts say that the outlook.Could be conservative shares right now they're down by about 13%.

Yeah, not only important for Octa investors, but we like to look at cybersecurity companies like this because it can be a check on demand from their customers, and that's the exact sticking point here. Analysts seeing the forecast going forward as conservative, particularly RBC Capital Markets talking about how the company does appear to be on track with their prior assumptions. They're seeing some good traction while not seeing.Any macro pressures here, but there is of course that uncertainty in that second quarter outlook which is guided lower and was mismodeled by the street. Having said that, there is some potential here. We have JPMorgan saying there's meaningful potential for the stock to re-rate higher if they are able to execute on their current plans, then maybe it was a quarter to give more conservative guidance because of all the uncertainty given some of the question marks about deal execution that is.Needed to drive reacceleration for the company going forward, I think that's going to be the key question for them. But having said that, Scotiabank ending this saying that they had a very strong end to the year here, even though the results were a little bit less exciting thanexpected.

All right, keeping tabs on shares of OKTA here. Next up, we've also got Vail Resorts that's upgraded to neutral from underweight at JPMorgan. The firm sees potential for the company with the return of its former CEO, who they see as having.A growth track record. Taking a look at shares of ticker symbol MTN. That's up by about 12, just shy of 13% here during today's session.

Yeah, it's interesting here. We've got JPMorgan obviously with that upgrade here saying that they expect Katz to bring growth to Vail Resorts given his first term as CEO here, and you can see that's obviously playing out in the stock action here again this this.The operator of ski resorts reappointing Rob Katz as CEO succeeding Kristen Lynch, and reaffirming its fiscal 2025 guidance. Analysts more broadly do seem to think that this leadership change is positive here. Katz is well regarded by the investment community for, according to True Securities, his ingenuity in what was or is arguably a more mature industry. Also Jeffrey is taking a look at his previous tenure.From 2006 to 2021, seeing growth over that time period, resulting in share price performance in that period being positive as well. So Jeffrey is expecting a more positive outlook heading into the next quarterly report here. Katz is going to serve as the chairperson of the board going forward here and the company again reaffirming its outlook going forward as well.

All right, excellent breakdown on both of these here. We'll continue to track both of those tickers OCTA and MTN for Vail.Throughout the rest of today's trading session, Mattie, thank you. You can scan the QR code below to track the best and worst performing stocks of the session with Yahoo Finance's trending ticker's page.Coming up, Nvidia anticipated first quarter report we discussed the pros and the cons of investing in the AI darling. Stay tuned.Bitcoin pulling back after touching fresh all-time highs last week. The cryptocurrency trading just above 107,000 right now. This is top government officials and crypto heavyweights attend the 2025 Bitcoin conference in Las Vegas. Joining me now on the ground, we've got Chris Klein, Bitcoin IRA co-founder and COO. Chris, good to have you here with us. Just wanna start with some of the key takeaways from the energy on the ground there.

Absolutely. Well, as you can see behind me, this is the line forming for Vice President JD Vance. We'll be taking the stage here in about 15 to 20 minutes. It actually goes downstairs, wraps around the expo, and almost to the casino floor. So lots of energy and enthusiasm. Interestingly enough, I'm seeing a lot more sport coats this year. That's why I put one on today, which I think is indicative of the big banks retail or the institutional players that are really starting to show up big here in the crypto space. All

right, more sports courts, fewer hoodies, it sounds like.OK, so that is the at least attire vibe that we've seen a massive shift in here, as you know that more companies are moving to hold Bitcoin on their balance sheet too. We know that there are recent announcements that are probably knocking around and being talked about there on the ground as well. Trump Media raising $2.5 billion to buy Bitcoin GameStop announcing their first Bitcoin purchase. How should retail investors think about these names and how is it being discussed there?

Yeah, it seems to be this race to reserve is still carrying forward. The announcements out of DJT and GameStop this morning clearly indicate that we're at a space where people are racing to put this on the balance sheet, and it's not just a Bitcoin play. You see groups Ethereum and Salanana starting to capture the attention. This is a conversation, not just a theory that's happening in boardrooms across America.Michael Saler's strategy has really proven this to be a solid practice, and it should be very interesting to see where we'll be towards the end of this year when we start getting earnings reports from this. You

know, one of our news heads here was talking earlier within within the newsroom just about this premium that typically gets annexed to some of the companies when they add Bitcoin to their balance sheet. Why do you think that is?

Oh, I think it's, I mean, any business that's in the Bitcoin space is also getting premiums right now. I just had the pleasure of having dinner and drinks with the president, the CEO of eToro here in the United States. So in general with the hype and the expected price movements ahead as we were talking about when I saw you last month, my target is 180,000 for this year. That's a huge growth in the balance sheet for these groups, and I think that's getting priced into their models.

You know, as we're continuing to see visuals of the line forming behind you and that is for Vice President JD Vance as we think about the number of different profiles that have tried to either annex themselves to the crypto growth that we've seen or be the face of crypto, there's none more so that's trying to do that than.The current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and President Donald Trump, is that good or bad from what you're hearing talked about at the conference, especially knowing that there are past profiles that have had tragic falls, uh, over the course of their own professionalism and and lack thereof, I should say within the crypto space.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I was in Nashville last year. This is my 4th conference, and I think a lot of the buzz around because Donald Trump actually joined us as a candidate then, it was a lot more even the audience, you felt there was a segment that was folks that were there for Trump and then folks that were there for Bitcoin.This year with JD Vance joining us and this administration overall is showing at least indications that they're going to be more pro crypto and friendly to us as we move forward, which is in stark contrast to what we saw 4 years ago in the last administration. But hope isn't a strategy. Most folks that are looking at Bitcoin are in 2030, sometimes 40 year cycles that they're just holding and hoddling and waiting until that moment.Time where maybe we'll reach a million dollars Bitcoin or a $10 million bitcoin, and so we're gonna have a lot of administrations between then and now and so it's hope is not a strategy building out and doing things like retirement planning with crypto are great tools to use to your advantage. But yes, it's, it's going to be interesting to see how it all hashes out across the next few months.

And so what is the best way for.who's just trying to figure out what their exposure to cryptocurrency and to Bitcoin should be if there are early innings in building out that portion of their portfolio and trying to figure out should I buy shares of a company that's publicly traded that holds Bitcoin on the balance sheet versus buying an ETF versus buying the cryptocurrency directly.

Well, you know, that's great, a great question because we're seeing all three of those channels live here today at the conference. You've got sponsorships from some of the ETFs that are out there, obviously buying shares of a company that's also holding Bitcoin on the balance sheet. Those are great tools for you to get some access into it. But you know, the pure and most I guess direct way is to get your hands on Bitcoin itself, the real.Thing buying it directly through an exchange like Coinbase or using it in your retirement savings plans with groups like us. All tools are great because they give you exposure to Bitcoin but in different ways. And let's not forget Altseason is around the corner. Bitcoin will have its runs and Al Alts will have their day in the sun here soon aswell.

Chris, great to see you. Enjoy the conference out there. Look forward to seeing some of your updates online.

Absolutely, thanks so much for having me today.

Investors are looking to Nvidia's first quarter earnings report as a signal for the broader markets. Wall Street hopes strong results could drive some gains even as trade war fears they prey on markets. Nvidia shares though roughly flat so far this year, they have skyrocketed nearly 1,500% over the last five years.And so we wanna talk about Nvidia in the context of your portfolio and the calculus that goes into owning such a big name. Here with more we've got Tom Soznoff, who was the founder and CEO of Tasty Live. Tom, always a pleasure to grab some time with you here as you're evaluating Nvidia in this market landscape, knowing how.Range bound some of the largest firms are saying we could be until we get more clarity on the tariff and trade policy front and then additionally the other catalysts on the tax policy front all that considered, where does Nvidia sit within the mindset of investors?

Uh, it's a great question because I wish I knew the answer, um, you know, Nvidia has had, had a pretty monster run the last, the last month or so, and it's up, you know, just, just under all-time highs, um, you know, from a, from an expected move.Perspective, it's the stock is a little bit, let's call it soft right now in the sense that volatility is pretty low in there and even going into earnings so the expectations are for something range bound to happen.

And so with that in mind, what is the kind of pro and con of investing in Nvidia itself right now?

Well, the, the pros are that it's super liquid, it's got a, um, the underlying super liquid, it's, it's got a, it's got a very liquid derivatives marketplace, so you can do lots of different strategies and things like that.It's absolutely still a market leader, so depending on, you know, how you where you like to put your money with respect to like it's, it's the bluest of all blue chips right now. So I think in that's, that's the pro, you know, the the cons on this is that it's, it's a crowded.There's a lot of kids on the bus. It's a crowded trade, um, Nvidia is pretty fully priced and, and the other thing is for the first time we're not seeing, and, and you have it on the screen in front of you, for the first time we're not seeing any call skew in there, which means that the derivatives markets, which are pretty good at pricing, you know, like kind of upside expectations are kind of mixed right now. They're saying, you know what, upside and downside, we have similar expectations, so.Um, I, I think the con is that if Nvidia misses, there's pretty decent pot odds that the downside move could be greater than the upside move if they hit it. So I think that's, that's the con right now.

Howcan investors temper their emotions when trading around very crowded names?

Well, that, that's the whole thing when you're, you know, it's, it's easy to sit back and say when you're trading crowded names, it's probably time to get out and take your profits, but the, the flip side to that is the same names have been crazy crowded for almost a decade now and if you weren't in the crowded names, you know, you just didn't participate. So it's, it's much easier said than done, you know, to sell into strength here. Um, I think the way investors could at least.Make themselves feel more comfortable about being in some of these names like Nvidia is maybe you know you buy stock and you sell an out of the money call against it or you find different ways to maybe if you want to lighten up a little bit and just spread off into a few other similar underlyings but some that may not have run up as much as Nvidia.Um, that may be a way to handle the chip stocks and handle the space and be in the sector and have some, you know, exposure but not be all in on one stock like Nvidia.

We were talking about the run that Nvidia has been on over the past 5 years. I believe we were showing that chart to our viewers a moment ago here, even as we're taking a look at some of the compounding that's taken place over the last 2 years in itself, 2023 and 2024, we've seen the stock price go up.Essentially 800% somewhere within that ballpark. So as we're thinking about if Nvidia can still lead, what probability would you place on that as there are other plays that investors are gonna be looking for to try and get more shareholder return over time, even knowing that Nvidia has continued to show how much it can still run to the upside?

Well, it's incredibly rare for stocks to be in the.You know, kind of in the pole position with respect to leadership and growth for too long. I mean, eventually, you know, you get old, the motor breaks down, stuff like that, or, you know, you just, it's you're oversaturated. I think in the case of Nvidia, it's probably, you know, it's got some legs left to it for sure because, um, just because, uh, just because of what it's shown in the last couple of years, you know, it's, it, it hasn't shown enough weakness to scare people yet.What I will say about any one of these kind of like, um, let's call them mega, mega tech monopolies or whatever you wanna say.It is very rare for them to continue on to perpetuity without being disrupted. Occasionally you'll get someone that can last, you know, multiple decades like a Microsoft or an Apple or something like that, but for the most part there is some disruption along the way. um, but Nvidia is still early in its life cycle, so you know you can't start to play for what might happen in 2027 or 2029 or 3031, you know, 2031. So I think for from an.For an investor in Nvidia, it's OK to lighten up a little bit, but if you're a passive long term investor, you kind of just gotta hang in there and say, you know what, until if it ain't broke, I'm not gonna try to fixit.

Tom, always a pleasure to grab some time and hear some of your insights. Appreciate it. Thanks so much. Don't miss our special coverage of Nvidia's first quarter earnings starting 4:15 p.m. Eastern time.Coming up, why 75% of potential home buyers think now is not the right time to buy. That's next on well.We are excited to partner with Synchrony Bank, our premier sponsor for Wealth. Synchrony Bank is working with Yahoo Finance and Wealth to bring you the insights for your personal finance playbook and help you make your money work for you. Let's get a check of the markets here as we are 2 hours into today's trading session, the big one where we're keeping tabs on, of course, after the bell and video's earnings report, but prior to that, take a look at some slippage taking place for the Dow Jones Industrial Average. That's down by about.3%. I'll put this on today's intraday activity here. We did start off just barely in positive territory here. However, we've seen this steady step lower over the course of today's trading activity. Nasdaq Composite, you're seeing that flat, but to the downside as of right now we haven't been able to get back in positive territory. We exited that early in the throes of today's trading session and the S&P 500 as well, similar chart here that we're seeing that step lower. We are off of the session.But still in that ballpark right now down by about 0.25% so we'll continue to watch that very closely here as we move on throughout the rest of today's trading session. Also taking a look at the sector activity here transpiring today, utilities bringing up the caboost that's down 1.2%. However, hey, take a look at communication services that did touch negative territory earlier in the 10 a.m. hour, but we've now moved back into positive territory, holding on to gains by the.Of our chinny chin chin up 0.1% and the Nasdaq composite tech heavy average here. You got a lot of red on here, some deep red if you're talking about micro strategy on the day strategy that's down by about 3.3%. And taking a look at that year to date move, I want to put this in context for you as well, still holding on to gains of about 24% year to date. We were just talking about some of those companies that hold crypto on those balance sheets and none more of.Poster child and micro strategy on that front you have a new entrant into that game in the form of GameStop as well. I'll just take a quick look at how GameStop shares are doing on the day. GME is actually moving lower by about 11% here during today's activity. There was an initial pop, but we've reversed course here actually that is a longer term view. Let's take a look at the intraday and we'll ride out with that view. Yes, did start off the day in positive territory, marched lower by about 11% right now.All week long on wealth we're talking about saving money for college using a 529 account. 529s are state sponsored investment accounts designed for you to save for higher education, and they're powerful because your earnings grow federally tax deferred and qualified withdrawals are tax free. And today we're talking to a financial adviser and father of four here with more we've got Andy Esser, financial adviser with Edward Jones. Andy, good to have you here. You advise people on managing their money for a living, but.Like most things, personal finance, this is also a personal journey for you too, so talk to me about wearing both hats financial advisor and parent in your own education savings journey.

Brand, thanks for having me. It's not an easy role to split between having to be a father and try to fulfill my family's own education goals and also work with potentially hundreds of families to help make sure that they're making progress too.And Edward Jones recently conducted a survey of around 2200 people and shockingly, 52% of families, including parents, don't even know what a 529 college savings plan is. And as a father, my job is to make sure that my kids' potential is only their imagination, not their education, which is why I'm never gonna be able to retire. I'm always gonna be able to do something to help my kids move them along towards their goals to make sure they can be the best people they could be.But learning some things personally to help my own clients accomplish their goals as well, it's a fulfilling responsibility and job.

And so as you think about the strategy that that you've rolled out for yourself, I mean you talk about having to try and make sure that you're filling 4 different accounts here or just making sure that everybody has access to the necessary amount for their own education goals, how do you even kind of start the process?

Well, the starting point was to determine what our philosophy was going to be. Did it, was it something where, as I'm working with parents, what's their philosophy on fulfilling the kids's higher education? A lot of people grew up where they could just lifeguard during the summer, get enough education dollars that they could afford a semester's tuition.That isn't quite the case anymore, especially as education institutions are looking at some pretty big holes in their annual revenue because of federal cutbacks and research grants and potential contracts. They could be forgiven for maybe looking to have to hike tuition in order to close those gaps. So once we figured out how do we try to make sure what our philosophy is, then we've got to make the decision between this an education savings account or something like a prepaid tuition account.An education savings accounts gives people the flexibility to choose investments and as you say have funds grow tax advantage but if a person likes their state tuition, their state colleges there, and they want to make sure that that's their goal, then we can look towards something like a tuition plan to maybe get education credits. There may be some state restrictions, but working with an adviser who's in who's familiar with.A lot of different states plans can help make sure that you're getting the right plan for your family'sgoals.

What are some of the check-ins that you create as a family to really understand some of the education goals that are either reach goals or some of the baseline goals that the the family and the kids as they're receiving their education and then ready to, you know, submit an application as you're kind of planning all that, how do those check-ins go?

Well, the check-ins when I'm when I'm working with clients is to see, are they on track to what the goals were? I've got kids who range from age 12 to age 1. My 12 year old is beginning to get a sense of what college is and where she might want to go. My 1 year old can't talk yet, so somehow I've got to make sure that we're setting him up for success for whichever direction he may choose to go. And that's where some of the enhancements to 529s have helped make those check-ins.Bit easier if somebody we thought was going to launch, maybe want to go to something like an Ivy League school. If for whatever reason they have changed their focus on what they want out of life, we can help at least make sure that those dollars can be used in a way that are flexible and accommodate what their new goals are. And if more funds end up in their plan afterwards, those funds could be used to help pay down student loans, could even help jumpstart their retirement through a Roth IRA.So 529s have become a, a really attractive and powerful vehicle to help fulfilling whatever a family's education goalsmay be.

You, you have to excuse me if this is a simple question with a simple answer to it, but if you have multiple kids, do you need multiple accounts?

No, but there could be advantages to having multiple accounts. For example, a kid, my 12 year old, my one year old, they're gonna have vastly different investment objectives. My 12 year old is closer to the finish line than my one year old. But if I had a one size fits all education savings plan, I would have to homologate their philosophy, their, their portfolio objective among whatever my kids were, wherever they were in their life stage. Some need more aggressive, some need more conservative. So the advantage to having multiple plans, theCost is negligible, if any, to having multiple plans, but it helps to tailor make that portfolio for what that kid's education goals are and also align with whatever market opportunities are going to make sense for them. All right,

Andy, you're helping a lot of households save from potentially the realization of who the favorite child is by making sure that they're having some very productive and constructive conversations about these college savings plans. Andy, thanks for taking the time. Brad, thank you.We've got all your market action ahead. Stay tuned. You're watching Finance.Housing market uncertainty, it is at a 3 year high, according to the Bank of America HomeBuyer Insight report. 60% of home buyers and homeowners can't tell whether now is a good or bad time to buy a new home. For more, I want to bring in Matt Vernon, Bank of America head of consumer lending. Matt, good to have you here with us. Just take us into this survey. It was conducted back in March and April. Do you think that uncertainty remains high?

Hey, I think our respondent and Brad, good to see you. I, I think our respondents have, have told us very clearly that they are a little bit confused right now and uncertain on whether it is a good time to buy with all of the different factors that are occurring from home prices and rates and volatility in the market. That said, 52% of our respondents are actually more optimistic that the house.The market is heading in the right direction up from a year ago at less than 45%, so the movement is there and then importantly 75% of our respondents are absolutely interested in buying a home and they're ready to act as soon as they see some signs that rates are coming down or prices are coming down, they're gonna jump right in and be very optimistic.

And so do you think this will affect the current home buying season, the sentiment at least as evidenced through the survey data?

Yeah, I think certainly we're off to a bit of a slower start. All the data shows that than we've traditionally seen in the spring market. That being said, the word opportunistic is probably the word of the day, right? Cause folks are waiting for something to incent them to get back into the market. So right now, if we were to see rates come down like we've seen and go up by theWay over the last call it 4 months when it comes down, I would expect folks that have prepared for home ownership, have found that property, have worked with a professional to jump back in and capitalize on that opportunity.

And so we know that mortgage rates continue to remain lower than 1 year ago, more inventory for buyers to choose from in the last few years as Freddie Mac's chief economist.Also remarked in the recent rates that were released. So how are you seeing some of the buyer propensity in comparison to years past at this point in the season where we know people are checking their list, they're getting out there and they're trying to figure out what's going to sit within their price point and whether that be on the existing or the new home side.

Yeah, I think it's, it's an opportunistic market as I spoke to just a few moments ago. Rates are now in this new normal trading range of call it low sixes to the upper sixes, and yet they move in there. So for those perspective home buyers who've done their research that have saved, have prepared their credit.And they found that home when they see something that is gonna again sent them to go do it, they're gonna jump on it because if not there's someone else more than likely that's looking at that same property so having a pre-approval and getting out there with a real.A professional and making that offer when the when the rates are good or the prices come down is gonna be incredibly important in this competitive market.

What are you seeing in some of the generational differences members of Gen Z even maybe financing their home purchases.

Yeah, interestingly enough, right, the Gen Z and the millennials still believe that homeownership is an achievement in life, and it builds long-term wealth, and ultimately they're doing the things that I would say past generations have done to achieve dream of home that dream of homeownership.Whether that's taking out an extra job to save for a down payment, whether that's I'm really considering moving in with siblings, we saw some good data on that or even asking mom and dad um for a loan to get into that in addition to some of that 529 work that our previous your previous uh individual was chatting about.

A study we know by the National Association of Realtors found that the average first time home buyer was 38 years old last year.Do you think that number could retreat or go down in the near term?

You know, it, it has certainly been increasing over the last call it 5 years to the number that you talked about that 38. I would not frankly be surprised if it moves a little bit here in the interim, but then I really do think it's gonna flatten out as this new normal environment kind of takes place.And we begin to see inventory come online and the market begins to function a little better than it has here recently and more closely to how it hashistorically.

I told myself I would own a home by age 32 when I was graduating college, boy, did I have a lot of learning to do. Matt, thanks so much for taking the time.My pleasure, Brad. Thanks.Experiencing a layoff can be difficult to navigate, especially if you don't have a financial safety net to fall back on. And even if you're feeling confident in your job security, it's never a bad idea to be financially prepared. Here with more we've got Casey Bond, Yahoo Finance, personal finance editor for banking. Casey, good to see you. One way to prepare for a layoff is to have emergency funds. We talk about this time and time again, but what is one way that you recommend building that fund?

Right, so the key to a good emergency fund is to have that money set aside before the financial emergency actually happens. So experts tend to recommend 3 to 6 months' worth of essential expenses set aside, um, if your income is more variable or unpredictable, aim for a bit more, and if you don't have that money set.Decide yet, start now. That's the best thing you can do even if it's just $25 to $50 every week um being consistent in building that fund will get you where you need to be. um, and ideally put that money in a bank account that earns a decent amount of interest too.

Whatare the pros and cons of a CD certificate of deposit?

Right, so a CD um is a type of bank account where you set um a lump sum of money into the account.And in exchange, you're guaranteed an interest rate. Um, CD terms can range from a few months to several years, um, but the really big benefit.Into that great rate in time, um, of course the flip side to that is if interest rates are going up, you're stuck at that rate until the CD matures, um, and then also if you need to access that money you have to wait for the CD to mature or you could face an early withdrawal penalty, um, and forfeit some of that earned interest.

Casey, thanks so much for breaking this down for us appreciate it.Yes, no problem. Coming up, why Apple is having a tough year and faces more challenges ahead. That's next on wealth.It's time now for tech support, our weekly deep dive into all things technology, and one tech name in particular stands out. Apple. Year to date. Apple is the worst performing member of the Magnificent Seven stocks. Here to break down some of the challenges facing Apple, we've got Yahoo Finance tech editor Dan Halley. Dan.Let's just start with trade. How is Apple impacted by tariffs?

Yeah,uh, I mean, look, when they, uh, the original Liberation Day tariffs were announced, uh, Apple was kind of seen as a sitting duck, right? I mean, Trump went hard out for China, uh, raising the tariffs eventually to 145%.And that really was going to impact Apple. They, they sourced many of their products from China. Uh, they got an exemption for their, their iPhones, a multitude of their products at the same time they were moving, uh, some of the manufacturing for US bound products to India. Turns out President Trump didn't like that, uh, and so he called for 25% tariffs on iPhones as well as Samsung devices.If the uh the company doesn't start creating or building iPhones in the US, that's probably not going to happen.Um, there's just a litany of reasons whether that's the workforce hasn't been spun up as far as training to be able to build these devices. There's no factories to do this yet, so it's, it's unlikely that this will come to pass, at least within within Trump's term through the end of the next 4 years. And so that's really where, where the tariff issue stands at this point. They continue to say that they're gonna build the majority of devices destined for the US.In India, some in Vietnam, and that really is kind of where where we are with tariffs at this point. Apple had a reprieve briefly and now is under the gun again. It's

also facing some stiff competition from its rivals, especially when it comes to AI. Yeah, what's the assessment on that front? Yeah,

so in addition to just tariffs in general, Apple has been hit multiple times by analysts as well as just generally from Wall Street because it doesn't have the AI.Chops that other companies have. If you look at what Google's putting together, what Microsoft's putting together with OpenAI, Amazon, obviously Meta, all these companies are spinning up their own AI capabilities, and you know Apple is leaning on its OpenAI partnership to add some of the generative AI capabilities to its smartphones. They also have their own Gen AI large language models that you can use within your iPhone apps themselves, whether that's putting together some text or editing some.Images, but really they're they're not at the level that we'd expected and a big part of that has to do with the fact that Siri is delayed. There was supposed to be a generative AI version of Siri that was supposed to be out by now, and it's just not here and they said they had to delay it to the end of the year, and that just adds to this idea that Apple is behind when it comes to AI overall. And so the, the, the, the truth of the matter is right now they're going into their WWDC developer conference next month.If they don't show that they have something there when it comes to Siri, it's going to be a tough show. We only

got 30 seconds left. Over the years there's never been a leader like Tim Cook, especially when it comes to navigating some of these things. What do we anticipate this time? Yeah,

I mean,look, this is the biggest test of his leadership so far. I mean, he got through the COVID supply chain crunch, navigated that fantastically. They managed to get devices out the door. You know, there was some lumpiness obviously in revenue.At that point, but that was just kind of par for the course for the rest of the tech industry. This is a wholly different issue. There's, there's 4 different things they're facing antitrust problems. They're facing, uh, they're related to Google's antitrust matters, tariffs, and more. So this is, it's, it's a lot for him.

All right, Dan, great breakdown. We're gonna be tracking AAPL. That's it for wealth, everyone. I'm Brad Smith. Thank you for watching. You can stay tuned for market domination comes your way 30 p.m. Eastern time.