May's US new home sales dove 11.3% month over month against analyst expectations of a mere 0.2% drop. The US Census Bureau also reported that median new home prices fell to $417,400. Citi Global Markets posted its US Economic Surprise Index, which has reached its lowest level in over a year. Citi Head of Equity Trading Strategy Stuart Kaiser joins the show to give insight into the US Economic Surprise Index and what it means for the broader market.

Volkswagen (VOW3.DE,VWAGY) is will invest $5 billion in EV maker Rivian (RIVN) in a joint venture to build out electric vehicle technology. Tesla (TSLA) may face some competition in the robotaxi space as Croatian automaker Rimac Automobili is set to launch its new robotaxi service, Verne, in 2026. Yahoo Finance Reporter Pras Subramanian stops by to break down the new competition and how it impacts the auto sector.

YouTube is solidifying its position as a dominant force in the streaming sector, according to the latest Nielsen survey. Nielsen's data reveals that YouTube captured a substantial 9.7% of total viewership among streaming services during the month of May.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here.

This article was written by Nicholas Jacobino

Video Transcript

Here in New York City.

I'm Shana Smith alongside Madison Mills and let di into the catalyst moving markets today a into the housing market.

We've got a new home sales signaling that high mortgage rates could be keeping some buyers out of the market.

We're going to dive into the latest on that data in videos, a wild ride.

We got in video taking slightly higher today after rebounding yesterday, closing up nearly 7% the moved a double the entire market cap of JP Morgan in just five days.

We're going to discuss why the recent swing and in video stock price could have a big impact on broader markets and apples A I play is more privacy focused than its big tech competitors.

Could this be a boon for apple stock moving forward?

We're going to discuss.

All right, let's kick it off with the breaking news that we have at the top of the hour.

The latest data that we're getting out on housing new home sales falling just over 11% here.

Most recent month, the month of May falling to 619,000.

That was just below what the street had been anticipating when you dig into this data here, taking a look at how it compares to months here.

Median new home price that fell nearly 1% down 9/10 of a percent on a year over year basis.

At the average new home price or median new home price is 417,400 bucks.

That was down from average selling price of 520,000 houses for sale in May rising 1.5% on a month over month basis.

But again, the decline here from the previous month during the month of May is really what is capturing headlines right now.

Ma Absolutely Sean.

And it's interesting when you look at what we're seeing in terms of the mortgage application data for new homes that has been up despite what we're seeing broadly.

And that's because builders are kind of buying down mortgage rates.

In some cases, folks getting more rates as low as in the five ranges and that is inflating the numbers when it comes to applications.

That might be one of the potential reasons.

We're seeing kind of a difference in the data when it comes to new home sales versus what we're seeing in the application space housing.

Also obviously a big drag on the broader GDP data, the key metric that we look at when looking at the strength of the overall economy.

And this could give us an indication of how the housing market might be impacting GDP moving forward here, taking a look at the broader markets.

So I want to see how we're doing here still looking like the broader markets moving to the downside that is already continuing the market movement that we were seeing earlier today, that looks like the NASDAQ is starting to flip into positive territory right alongside and video.

We're going to turn now to that big story of our day, the tech trade and video shares bo and around this morning, we saw a brief sell off earlier in the week, a little bit of downward pressure earlier today.

Now that stop moving back to the upside, all that movement, highlighting the anxiety behind the A I rally.

So how should investors be positioning amidst that uncertainty?

Joining us?

Now, we've got Stewart Kaiser City, Head of Equity Trade Strategy, Stuart, great to have you in person.

Thanks for being here.

So NVIDIA, we got to talk about it first bopping around a lot this morning.

What is the central thesis that investors need to be focused on when it comes to the NVIDIA trade?

I mean, I think when people are grab to towards NVIDIA, it's I think the logic is I believe in the A I theme, I'm not sure who the winners or losers are going to be.

So I need to buy the stocks that are like the pipes of the system essentially.

So no matter who wins A I, they need these higher end chips and that makes A I and NVIDIA kind of an easy match.

You might throw Microsoft in that in that pile as well just because they're able to demonstrate revenue kind of related to A I.

But you know, this actually harkens back to even the crypto period when you might not believe in Bitcoin or you may believe in Bitcoin.

But you know, people need higher end chips and servers to deal with Bitcoin so you can invest in the pipe.

So that kind of taking a view on the theme itself has anything changed in the narrative.

I mean, I think the the the NVIDIA narrative, the narrative, I think, yes, I think on Nvidia's evaluation discussion, um valuation has gotten high.

You've also had this series of very large beats versus consensus.

So there's some concern that you get kind of long in the tooth.

And where does that go on?

The A I the more broadly, I think coming into the year people wanted to broaden out that the, you know, they want to go beyond a video either to other semi stocks or to software A I or even into power generation and kind of play those next two or three levels.

Unfortunately, by and large, that stuff hasn't worked that great and there's been a lot of single stock risk around it.

And I think what you're probably seeing in the last couple of days is the video sold off a bit and people said, you know what, let me just go back to the, the clean and easy A I trade and not try to get cute with these other things.

So does that mean that investors are seeing more returns when they invest broadly with something like the QQQ versus trying to stock pick in the A I space?

You know, that's been our impression.

We have a list of about 35 A IA I winners, so to speak, only 13 of those stocks are up here to date.

So it's been hard to kind of pick the winners.

And even beyond that, there's eight stocks in that basket that are down 25 percent.

So not only has it been hard to pick stocks, but if you've been wrong, you've kind of been really wrong.

So kind of diversifying the A I theme hasn't worked as well as just being long queues or being long NVIDIA and kind of the known winners, even though the valuation has gotten a little challenging Stuart, I'm curious what you make of the concentration debate.

There has been much said about, hey, this is a huge risk in the market, the fact that there's only a handful of stocks that's really driving much of the momentum.

And then many have kind of taken a step back when you have your peers on the street and you include and just kind of evaluated, kind of what we have seen in the past and maybe what that could signal.

So, is it a risk to the broader market or maybe have some of those fears been overblown?

I mean, it's a little bit of a risk just in the sense that, you know, a lot of the returns have come from a small number of stocks.

So either those stocks need to keep performing or you need a significant broadening out.

But to your point, if you look back, historically, this is kind of how equity markets behave, you know, over any 12 month period, you're gonna have 40 to 50% of returns come from just 10 stocks.

So there's a a theme, a trend, um you know, a shift going on in the markets that tends to favor these winners momentum does well and those stocks do well, I think the last 12 months has been obviously a little, a little more than 40 or 50% and that's got some people concerned.

So it worries you a bit.

Um But again, it's not unprecedented.

So I I think we're trying to be a little more balanced about it last year.

Our, our takeaway was the reason you have concentration at price returns is because you had concentration and earnings growth.

There just wasn't a lot of companies and sectors generating earnings.

So people gravitated towards them that drove narrow leadership.

We expected that to broaden out a bit this year.

It sort of trickled down, it hasn't really broadened out.

Um We're hoping that it will ultimately happen later in the year, but yet it's been uh it's been fits and starts on that side.

Given that, what differences are you seeing in?

How kind of institutional hedge fund investment is positioning for a potential broadening out versus retail investors?

Retail.

It's a little hard to say because they tend to be more single stock pickers.

Our view on broadening out was just to go to S and P 500 equal weight.

So you're kind of broadening out a bit, but you're still staying in that larger cap, kind of investment grade type cohort and not go all the way down to that.

Russell 2000 small cap.

And the logic for that was that Russell has a lot of growth and interest rate risk that you don't need to take on right now.

You can just go down to S and P equal way and do that.

And I think if you look at how markets have been performing, I think institutions are generally doing that.

Yeah, they're broadening out, but they're broadening out very selectively.

They still want to be in a stock that if we do get this long awaited recession or if the fed does stay higher for longer, they're not too exposed.

So I think that's why it's been a trickle down.

People are being very methodical about kind of how they move down the cap structure and they're not generally doing it into, into lower quality stocks, I guess you'd say Stuart earlier this week, a pivoting conversation just a bit and focusing maybe on the econ data that we have been getting out over the last several weeks and earlier this week.

As part of, um, our morning brief newsletter, we focus, our chart of the day was on city's economic surprise index here and, and what you guys have been seeing and for those who maybe aren't familiar with it, it measures just the rate, I guess that some of the econ data is coming in better than expected, but it's actually hit its lowest level that we've seen in more than a year.

I'm curious what that signals to you and maybe what investors should be sussing out from that reading in terms of where we could be heading or some of those risks.

Yes, I think we try to balance the surprise with the underlying level of growth.

So I think what you've seen, the reason surprise has got negative, I think is because consensus has revised up their numbers as the recession hasn't materialized.

So you kind of set a higher bar from consensus.

Now, the data has been coming in below that higher bar since early May.

So it's, it's concerning um just in the sense you have negative surprise on hard economic data and that's the stuff that will go into GDP as well as like soft economic data, which is more your survey stuff the level of growth has also slowed, but it still remains kind of solidly positive.

So I, I think now you're looking at that surprise data and you're saying, all right, maybe expectations got a little ahead of themselves or maybe I'm getting a little warning sign here that I should prepare for deceleration from an investor's perspective that just tells us risk, reward kind of isn't as clean as it was early in the year because we're, we went from a period of low expectations with data coming in better than expected to now, higher expectations with data coming in a little bit worse.

And I think you just have to respect that and say, you know, maybe this is a time for me to be patient when I'm looking at things.

So what's the next big data point that you think will be the big catalyst for the market?

Is it going be PC or are you looking to labor as always?

I mean, P ce matters just because it matters to the fed.

The fact is we have PPP and CP I already.

So the market has a pretty good idea of where that PC number is going to come in, most likely um labor market for us is the key to the markets.

You know, our general view is you want to run along your US equity portfolio unless and until you get a significant slow down in payrolls and by payrolls, I mean, you know, non farm payrolls and claims.

Um, there's a lot of little, you know, cracks under the surface and more nuanced measures of labor.

But yeah, for us it's, it's payrolls.

Um, next Friday, unfortunately, the day after the fourth, which is, uh, unfriendly for you.

Right, Stuart.

Yeah.

Well, you know, it's, it's a go America moment.

So we're just, we just hope the data comes of Trump.

There we go.

Stuart.

It's great to have you.

Thanks so much for taking the time to join us here in studio, strict Geiser.

He said he's head of equity trading strategy.

Thanks again.

Thank you.

And let's turn now to Rivian is one of the top trading checkers on Yahoo Finance today.

Shares are surging.

Look at that up just about 30% the move higher coming on the heel of Volkswagen saying that it's going to invest up to $5 billion into the EV maker as part of a software development partnership.

Now, Rian shares are down almost 50% so far this year.

So we wanna put that in perspective for you.

But could this be a major catalyst for the EV maker?

And also what does this tell us about VWs ambitions?

We wanna bring in Tom Narayan.

He's RB C's Global Autos Analyst.

So Tom, we can clearly see the excitement play out on the street when you take a look at the pop that we're seeing and shares of Vivian.

I'm curious though, what your first reaction is to this partnership.

Yeah, the first reaction is obviously this is great for Caribbean, right?

They get a cash infusion that kind of lets them fight another day, takes them to R two, a couple of years.

It lasts longer.

Uh The question is what this really is for for VW.

Um And that's ultimately questionnaire.

They've had their own challenges with software.

Do we understand how doing AJ V like this?

Uh They get to use some software that's already up and running some labor from Rian that's already there and they only have to pay uh you know, uh 2 billion into the JV.

The question is why do you then need to buy $3 billion worth of Rivian stock though?

We suspect that's part of the deal to get it done.

Maybe they see some upside in Rivian shares uh just like many investors clearly do today.

But that's really where the question has been coming in here.

Like what is really in it for VW to spend 5 billion?

Why did they need a big stake in Rian if all they needed was software of, you know, a 2 billion contribution.

But for Rian, this is obviously a great news.

It doesn't necessarily answer the question of will they be able to get the profitability on their car business, et cetera?

But it lets them fight another day.

OK.

So if it lets them fight another day, that's really interesting to me.

Because if you look at the details of this deal, it says something like up to 5 billion, right?

So there's a little bit of a potential out for VW here.

Given that, do you think that that up to 5 billion is kind of a drop in the bucket or is it something substantial that to your point VW kind of needed?

Um Well, Caribbean, yeah, that for them, they definitely needed the cash.

Uh I think they lost something like 5 billion this past year and they have 9 billion of liquidity.

So if you keep losing that amount, then you run out of cash.

Um, so they're getting 3 billion of a cash infusion from VW.

The other 2 billion just goes into the JV.

Um So it let some kind of last a little longer.

Uh I think that's the way to look at this.

But certainly if they don't reach profitability and they keep losing cash, billions of dollars, it's really more of extending the life of the company.

Um, and their, and their endeavors.

Uh they're losing what, $38,000 per car they lost last quarter.

So as long as that keeps happening, uh it doesn't matter how much cash you keep putting in it, it, it, you know, they keep losing it.

And the other point I would make is I don't think VW would come in and use more cash.

I think this is a one and done type situation.

Um it's happening, like you said, over many couple of years.

Um I think in the event, Rivian doesn't work out.

I think VW would just take out this JV and use it on its own, you know.

Uh So I think that's the way to, to put things in context.

Tom, I think a lot of people are asking, I guess how confident they are that this partnership is ultimately going to work.

We've seen failed partnerships, especially with the auto space in the past, just given the merging that we're going to see of cultures and how various companies do things.

Uh How confident are you that this is actually going to work out well for, for both companies of all, it's a good question.

Uh I don't have, uh you know, either way, 2050 50 I guess like the JV.

Uh but, but I do think ultimately remember this is a, it's actually when you read the, the uh press release and you listen to the two calls, the two companies held yesterday, it's actually very narrowly defined structure.

It's just software.

There's some Rivian head count, there's some cash to pay them.

So I think they're intentionally keeping it very narrow and they both said it very clearly.

We're operating totally independently.

We're competing, head on with each other.

Remember VW has that scout brand that they're going to launch in the US that competes with the Rivian.

So I think it may be OK. Because it's such a narrowly focused endeavor, uh just software, you know, for the specific purpose, it's not like the two are merging or Volkswagens buying Rivian or something like that.

If that was happening, then you'd have the culture dynamic.

Uh So, yeah, I think it could work because it's so narrowly defined.

I want to end by asking you, does either company here stand to be better fit as a competitor to Tesla off the heels of this deal.

Um I don't know if I would look at it in that context.

Uh I, I think what this basically does is it gives a cash infusion to Rivian so we can fight another day for Volkswagen.

They've had software challenges.

Uh And it basically gets them there quicker instead of having to do it in house with the challenged internal uh software arm that they have.

You know, I think that's, that's all this is just 20 ems who have their own issues and there's a complementary dynamic here with a very narrowly focused uh JV structure.

All right, Tom Ryan.

Always great to get your insight.

Thanks so much for having on with us this morning.

RB C's Global Autos Analyst.

Thanks Tom.

Keep right here on Yahoo Finance.

We got much more of your market action ahead.

Again.

We're just about 45 minutes into the trading day.

You're looking at a mixed picture.

You've got the Dow and the S and B trading just below the flat line.

You've got the NASDAQ though, holding on to gains up just about 3/10 of a percent.

We'll be right back.

You're watching Catalan take a look at some trending tickers that we're watching this Wednesday morning, taking a look at shares of Myron up about 7/10 of a percent ahead of the company's earnings report.

That is expected to come after the close today.

Expectations for the company are high with investors looking for proof that the A I hype is paying off for the company.

Now, this comes after shares of my are already up about 65% this year.

Just to put those expectations into context, the stock has been gaining ahead of this report and just to run through some expectations from the street $6.7 billion in revenues expected for this quarter, that's going to be an 80% jump from a year ago and that is going to be driven primarily by pricing power.

We've been seeing a recovery in the demand for P CS for smartphones and the cyclical nature of that is getting a little bit more attention from Wall Street because it's little bit easier to anticipate than what we might be able to expect from the A Ir Shana, we know the PC and smartphone demand structure a little bit more clearly.

So seeing a return to that kind of cyclical demand is a positive catalyst for this stock.

Yes, I think the main focus here for investors is going to be if we see any shift in terms of that demand, when it comes to the supply side of things, whether or not they able to meet that demand and what exactly that demand, more specific looks like.

And then what we can suss out from that in terms of what that then tells us about the overall health and strength here of the chip sector because like we were just talking to Stuart Kreiser about earlier in the show and he's been following it as well as many strategists out there in the street.

Just more broad based the out performance that we had seen of many of these names and interests of many of these uh investors in the chip makers almost across the board here over the last several months.

And, and that has started to shift just a bit.

But I think when you take a look at a name like Myron, the out performance of the stock relative obviously to the SNP but even relative to its peers within the space, it's up 70% so far this year.

So when you take that into account with, it is largely viewed as a big beneficiary, obviously of the A I trade of A I adoption and exactly the role it is it is going to play in that story going forward and we've seen that name swept up with many others that are on the screen right now, when you're taking a look at NVIDIA and a Broadcom.

So again, what exactly this signals about the overall health of the industry and demand wise, I think is really going to be the focus there of a micro after the belt today.

All right, let's talk about Apple.

It's getting an upgrade this morning.

Rosenblatt analyst, Barton Crockett is saying that now is the time to buy the stock specifically citing the company's privacy focused A I work.

Now, Crockett increasing his price target by 64 bucks to 260 bucks.

A share upgrading the stock to a buy from neutral when it comes to some of those reasons.

And the strong privacy is by far the top feature consumers want in A I.

He said that as a result of a survey of us consumers done by Rosenblatt.

So again, seeing more room for the stock to run with that strong price target here on the stock implying just over a 20% gain from right around where it's trading today.

Yes, it's interesting.

And this is something that we spoke about when there was that initial news of Apple and open A I going into a partnership potentially moving forward.

And this idea that consumers were going to have to opt into every individual A I interaction on their smartphones that is really similar to kind of the ethos that we've seen at Apple with regards to privacy throughout its tenure here as the main iphone maker when it comes to consumer sales in the US.

At least, I also think it's interesting in this note, they talk about Apple's chips specifically saying apple, apple silicon appears to immunize Apple from cost at hyper scaler.

Talking about the other hyper scaler that maybe haven't been able to get ahead of the R and D required for making their own silicon for their own chips.

Apple has been a leader in the space when it comes to their chip making and that is potentially creating a little bit of a moat to protect them from that pricing power that we just talked about from a company like a micro which can kind of raise prices at the expense of these hyper scale moving forward.

Another stock that we are watching here, Robin Hood could rally another 31%.

That's according to Wolf research analyst, Steven Sh upgraded the company to outperform from pure perform the analyst noting that Robin Hood has strong fundamentals and we will be able to build on what has already been a strong year for Robin Hood.

And also we should mention that the stock is already up in the trade this morning as well.

And this though still would have, I'm so sorry, imply a 31% upside for the stock moving forward.

And interesting that he's pointing out the fundamentals underpinning the stock uh as opposed to something that is a little bit less clear given that Robin Hood has seen a, a positive catalyst from the less clear trades, the mean stocks, the roaring kitty of it all that has been a beneficiary.

Robin Hood has been a beneficiary of that.

Uh, but this analyst notes that the fundamentals here are part of what's going to drive the stock.

Yeah, you sh he went on to note that some of the recent price swings, especially the spikes that we have seen in Robin Hood related to the meme stock rally.

A lot of that, he characterized as just noise and really having no bearing on the company's positive view here of a Robin Hood.

So of reasons as to why they are bullish on this name.

A lot of it coming after a recent meeting or conversation the analysts had here with Robin with Robin Hood's Chief Financial Officer saying that that conversation left him with more conviction and the durability here of Robin Hood's earnings growth algorithm.

He goes on to say that he expects Robin Hood could double gap eps over the next two years.

The strongest growth algorithm in our rate sensitive coverage.

He also went on to say that he continued to compound at a 30% annual rate beyond 2026.

So again, setting a price target of 29 bucks a share about seven bucks higher from where we are trading today.

And again, very positive of some of the underlying fund meals, the momentum that we've seen in the name and very much uh independent of some of that excitement that we've seen that has been driven by that meme stock rally here uh over the last several weeks.

Absolutely.

Well, coming up, we're gonna speak with an analyst calling Uber a quote sleeping giant.

We'll dig into the details behind that call after the break.

Uber getting a bullish call from Piper Sandler.

The firm reiterating its overweight rating on the stock raising its price target from 86 bucks a share to $88 saying the Uber scale makes it a quote sleeping giant.

Let's talk about it.

The analyst behind this call, Tom Champion joining us now, Tom, it's great to talk to you.

So I guess break down this view of why you see Uber as a sleeping giant relative to many of its peers within the space.

Hey, good morning.

Thanks for having me on.

Yeah, we dug into the topic because earlier this month, Lyft talked about its longer term ad revenue and, and bookings targets and we received a lot of questions from clients on, you know, the uh uh the the likelihood the Lyft would be able to achieve those.

And so we, we wanted to dig into the topic holistically for the for the gig economy group overall, so that this would be the bucket that includes Uber, doordash, Lyft and, and Instacart.

And through that analysis, we came away impressed with Instacart existing opportunity in uh in advertising, they have a very well developed uh ads business at, at this point with a very high attached rate on, on bookings.

But the sheer scale of Uber was, was quite compelling and led us to think that, you know, really in the context of this advertising opportunity, uh U Uber is the name to watch.

OK.

So Tom, I just want to take a big step back and walk our viewers through exactly what we're talking about here.

So when you talk about Uber having opportunities, I know they just opened up journey ads.

For example, you're talking about advertisers being able to target Uber riders through the Uber app after bookings.

Is that correct?

Yeah, that's correct.

Or um uh via the, the Uber Eats platform uh as as well or in, in increasingly in the future uh on, on the grocery side, that's an urgent area of uh their business as well.

But I think the, the, the way to frame this is we've seen over the last uh you know, six or eight years.

Uh Amazon build this gigantic advertising juggernaut.

And um a lot of this is done through um sponsored listings, the ability of Amazon merchants to, to advertise and promote their goods.

And we, we believe that in all transaction platforms, there exists this promotional advertising opportunity.

Um You know, in, in the gig economy space, Instacart is the one that has um uh developed this, this part of the business uh most um to this point.

But um with, with Uber's scale which, which really kind of dwarfs the rest of the space.

Um the future looks, looks very interesting.

So John, when you take into account, I guess how much of a jump or how much growth we could see in the ad revenue and what that opportunity looks like for a name like Uber versus a name like Instacart leaders within the space versus some of the other smaller players.

When it comes to the gig economy, I guess putting that in context for your, for our viewers, how confident you are that Uber is gonna be able to capitalize on this opportunity.

And then more specifically how big of a driver catalyst you see this being for Uber stock.

Sure.

Um So what I, what I would say is that I, I believe management in their comments um are uh over time revealing the playbook here and what what they are attempting to, to build and with many of these uh transaction business models or, or gig economy business models um unit profitability is, is sometimes challenged.

These are not overly um profitable consumer internet models, but advertising is a great model.

And so over time to the extent that these businesses can evolve or develop their, their advertising business, I believe that this can prove quite accretive to uh to margins.

And there again, I I would just highlight that um we believe there's a $5 billion advertising revenue opportunity for Uber by 2027.

Um And if they're able to hit that II, I think there's going to be upside to uh consensus he to die expectations, which are about 13 billion to that.

All right, we're gonna have to leave it there.

Tom, thank you so much for joining us on this call.

We really appreciate it.

That was Tom Chan.

Thank you for having me.

He's Piper Sandler's senior research analyst, Tesla has got some new competition in the autonomous vehicle space, New Robo Taxi service called Vern created by the Croatian automaker.

Rema will be launching in the country in 2026.

That's according to an announcement from the company today.

Yahoo Finance is pro is here with the details.

Pro thanks so much for joining us on this.

So another new Robo taxi service.

What do we know?

Well, it's called Vern, right?

Kinda after the author Jules Verne who sort of invented the future, right?

It's sort of the the their, their North Star there.

But yeah, I mean, it's a very compelling looking vehicle.

Uh and it's part of an ecosystem, right?

So this vehicle uh looks almost like a VW golf on kind of asteroids, like really great auto uh aero treatments.

But then the inside is actually near luxury premium level level interior, no pedals, no steering wheel, it's gonna be level four autonomous robot attack.

You're gonna be operating in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, I believe in 2026.

But I think the big picture is they've come out with this vehicle a few months ahead of Elon Musk's Robo Taxi reveal, right?

Is Musk Robo Taxi gonna look this good and have this kind of level of of luxury kind of appointments and and also work with this as an ecosystem, right?

This comes with an app and has like a a mothership, they call it to service the cars.

Like what's the Tesla offering gonna be like?

And uh we're kind of seeing what other competitors are doing.

Yeah, I was gonna say, I'm curious from your perspective, I mean, the analyst that you've been talking to like a company like this, the their ability are, are they really a threat to Tesla, do you think in the longer term or is this something that Tesla could actually use to its advantage and say, hey, here are maybe the XYZ issues that this company has since they are first to the road and here's why our Robo taxi then ultimately makes more sense for the longer term.

So, so Remounts is obviously smaller than Tesla, but it's, it's no slouch.

It's, it's um it's, it's technologies being used by BMW.

Uh it owns the uh it owns Bugatti now it's Bugatti Ma is the, is the joint venture.

So they, they do a lot there in the automotive space.

The guy Amate Rima is the founder of around 30 years old is known as Musk without the baggage, right?

He's a, he's a brilliant guy and entrepreneur but doesn't have some of the other things that kind of make Musk some somewhat problematic.

So there is some comparison there.

Now we're nowhere near as big as a company.

Obviously, Tesla kind of has that industrial, know how and, and base to kind of make things happen.

But I think they can look at this and say, oh, what do we have to do here to kind of, are we ahead of them?

Do we have to meet some sort of criteria that they already have?

I think it's a good way to kind of show where the two sides are at right now or whoever else is in the space.

Really good point.

Thank you so much.

And I think the vehicle looks, looks, looks beautiful and the thing is, are we going to see the Robo Taxi and Tesla look like a mini cyber truck?

That's the issue if you see that car, like a little wedge shaped, you know, stainless steel thing.

Are you gonna hop in that or this?

I mean, that's, that's kind of the big question.

This would be my answer.

I mean, this company does say that they do want to deploy this worldwide.

So there is worldwide ambitions for them.

It is interesting though.

I've seen one Robo Taxi in Manhattan.

Have you seen more than that here?

No, I mean, Not, not yet.

Not yet.

It just, it really sticks out.

You know what I mean?

You're like, that's different than all the other things.

One could call it an eye sore.

I'm not saying that.

Thanks so much for joining us.

Really appreciate it.

Coming up here after a big month for tech stocks in May 1 ETF Fund made the decision to reduce exposure to tech in the month of June.

We dive into why after the break, volatile week for in video here.

But that has not derailed the overall market rally too much crafts A I enhanced us large cap ETF that's under ticker symbol.

QR FT has decreased its allocation and video from over 6% in the month of May.

Now down to just 0.7% in June.

Joining us now to discuss this, we Weldon Rice.

He is craft technologies head of A I ETF Weldon, great to speak with you.

Thanks for coming on the show.

I mean, let's start with exactly that right.

Decreasing your NVIDIA allocations by that much is a curious move.

Given the overall market rally that we've seen, I mean, a third of the S and PS rally has been attributed to just NVIDIA alone.

What's the justification?

Sure.

Uh Thank you for having me on and uh yeah, just to uh you know, for the viewers out there that may not know who we are.

We are A I investment technology company and, and for QR FT and all three of our ETF S that we have, we use artificial intelligence to actually select the stocks in the portfolio.

And so, yeah, uh this last rebalance that we had, uh we, we, we changed the holdings every month and uh NVIDIA, you know, suddenly dropped out from the, you know, it was one of the top holdings in the previous month dropped down from 6% all the way down to, you know, just below 1% in the portfolio.

And uh you know, what we've seen over the years with our ETF S, which are now over five years old is that uh they tend to, you know, sometimes want to take profits uh in some of these stocks.

And, you know, NVIDIA is one that has, you know, had an unbelievable year uh to date and had a great may.

So, uh you know, we, we feel that the, the A I model was thinking that it is a great time to take profits.

Um, you know, so in, despite, uh you know, not having NVIDIA in the top holding, uh you know, it's put up about 5.3% this month uh in terms of performance, which is outperforming the S and P so you can knock it down as one of the few funds probably out there outperforming the S and P with, you know, without NVIDIA.

Uh So I think that's quite interesting.

So I'm, I'm curious because you said that it's an A I driven ETF, so you're strictly relying on A I technology to make these types of decisions, I guess.

How much is there this human element of uh of the human involvement?

And, and is there any rationale, I guess behind some of the moves that have been made here over the last several weeks, their funds?

Absolutely.

So, uh in terms of how we construct our portfolios, you're absolutely right.

We use artificial intelligence uh purely.

So, uh now, obviously humans are at the, you know, construction of the model.

So we're, you know, we have experts here in, in house that are helping to drive, you know, what data points are, are, are made and what types of models are being used and, and those sorts of things as we, as we research more and more.

But once the model is made and trained, it just takes in new data every month and then based on its training, it makes its decisions and we don't uh you know, change those.

So, uh yeah, when it, when it came through the NVIDIA, you know, I dropped down that much, you know, there was no human that said, oh no, that's the wrong way to go.

Uh We need to, we need to change that uh in terms of the rationale uh behind it, you know, uh that actually is one of the, the bigger challenges of, of artificial intelligence is that it is somewhat of a black box because we are, you know, using these deep learning models that are looking at very complex relationships, you know, uh relationships of relationships of data.

And so it becomes a little bit difficult to uh you know, understand that.

But uh one kind of breakthrough we've seen recently, uh not exactly in QR FT yet.

Uh but the recent fund that we launched in November with LG I research, um that fund has an element of using large language models, which is basically like CE PT.

And so now we've been able to uh LG I research uh has actually been able to produce a report uh looking at why the, the A I model picked the stocks that it did.

So, uh it's actually quite interesting.

Uh We're actually just now starting to put that up on our, on our website for investors to go look at and we think this is really a, you know, really the next step in, in A I innovation for, you know, uh investment decisions with A I.

What's the math that the A I is using, that investors are not using to suss out NVIDIA?

So I, I think that, you know, the way that artificial intelligence looks at the market is very different from a human uh one, we're just looking at it purely from the data perspective.

But the way that we're able to look at, you know, generally in the past, when we look at either fundamental managers or when we look at quant traditional quant managers, uh the the models T typically are quite linear.

And so what we're able to do with artificial intelligence is as again, we're looking at the relationship, the data, but we're looking at the relation, the relationships to the data.

And we get this kind of nonlinear look at the market uh that a human is not able to see.

And I think that's what makes this so unique.

And I think this is what is is really promising for investors is that you're getting a very different look at the market that in your portfolio than you would from a, you know, traditional human active manager uh out there.

All right, Waldon Rice Craft technologies, head of A I ETF very interesting.

Thanks so much for joining us.

Yeah, appreciate it.

Thank you.

Let's turn now to the streaming space, youtube, dominating its competitors, making up almost 10% of all viewership on connected and traditional TV.

S in the US in May.

That's according to the latest numbers out from Nielsen Yahoo Finance's Alexandra Canal joining us now with the latest on that and Ali it's pretty impressive, almost 10% there of overall viewership all be all driven by uh youtube it looks like.

Yeah.

So youtube, not only uh taking over your computer screens, but also your living room, television screens as well.

And I want to reiterate that stat 9.7% of overall viewership on connected and traditional TV.

S in the US for the month of May.

Now, this is the largest share of TV for streaming platform ever reported by Nielsen.

And the difference between 1st and 2nd place illustrates just the overall dominance of youtube as well since Netflix came in second with 7.6% of overall viewership.

And then if you look at the pie just among dreamers, youtube's total viewership was close to 25% of overall market share.

And media companies are certainly starting to take notice here.

Even with my conversations among different executives, analysts, youtube is consistently brought up as a top competitor.

And then if you think of the success of user generated content and how youtube has really been able to leverage that, you wonder if some of those competitors will perhaps dip their toe into user generated of their own.

And remember that earlier this year, the company did announce that users watched more than 1 billion hours of youtube content on TV screens every single day.

So a lot of potential there are youtube creators are now in a position where they want to start being considered for any awards.

They want to start positioning themselves as real producers, directors that can stand side by side with the rest of them in Hollywood.

So youtube, it's been around for a while, but now it seems like it's finally starting to have its moment in the sun and a lot of these media companies are going to be forced to look at them as a real competitor.

I wanna zoom out a little bit here because I know you've been following some of the conversation around streamers, potentially offering free access to their platforms while also kind of having an ad supported tier that can pay for that.

Is that even I'm so fascinated in this because why would Netflix do something like that when I'm already used to paying?

Why would they offer free?

It's obviously to gain market.

I'll let you answer the question.

I just, I'm so confused by the thinking.

So the thing is there's a lot of different types of platforms out there, right?

You have your subscription based platforms that you can get from a Netflix or Disney Plus, but there's also free ad supported platforms.

They are called fast channels.

And that's your Roku TV to be, which is owned by Fox Pluto TV, which is owned by Paramount.

And I thought the same thing, why would you choose to want to watch a, why is this an attractive offering for consumers?

But Nielsen data shows that all of those fast platforms are actually having pretty significant growth to be, for example.

So 46% year over year increase when it comes to overall viewership, its average audience is now ahead of some of those traditional streamers like a Netflix or Disney Plus.

And then Ro you captured a platform, that 1.5% share of overall TV.

And was the only platform to actually climb the ranks for the month of May.

So it points to this desire for free content as all of these streaming platforms are raising their prices.

And it also shows the, the optionality that consumers have if you are choosing an ad supported here, if you are choosing to watch ads because it is free, you're more willing to watch.

Those ads are more g that's attractive to a buyers.

So experts that I spoke with said, that's largely the driver here.

Also going back to youtube, that's really the first free ad supported service that we had.

And if you think about it that way, a lot of these younger consumers are now more used to add, they're more used to having content at the click of a button and they don't have to pay those subscription fees.

So it's an interesting time that we're seeing among all of these streaming platforms.

And what does this mean in the future?

The experts that I spoke with said that it means more bundles and that potentially we could see a world where you could create your own bundle, have a fast channel, have a subscription based channel and then hopefully that provides all the the content that you want.

So it's, it's just a time of disruption right now.

But to me this out, especially as these new numbers trickled in for the month of May.

So interesting.

I find myself accidentally stumbling upon the free offer on my TV.

It's there, it's there.

Yeah.

And a lot of them are aggregators of really top pieces of content.

I think you can watch Top Gun on Pluto TV.

So, why would you not do that?

And then you have Roku dabbling in original content.

So, you know, we, they there for the consumer, it's great.

You have a lot of different choices.

Yeah.

And I also wonder how much of this is also just a sign of the more macro environment that we're in right now, right?

Just in terms of people being pressed for cash, many people having to make those tough decisions and maybe they that is contributing to some of that outsized growth that you were just mentioning of these free offerings versus those that Paramount announced they were raising prices on Monday coming August.

So it just keeps, keeps happening.

It it adds up at the end of the day.

It's really good point, Ali thank you so much for joining us and bringing that reporting to us, really appreciate it.

That was our very own Alexandra Canal.

And we're gonna have all of your markets action ahead as well as what we think you should be watching for the rest of your trading day.

So stay tuned for that.

You're watching Catalysts for about 90 minutes into the trading day.

Here are three things that you need to pay attention to three potential catalysts for today's trading day.

First up.

If you got Mike Ron earnings that are out after the bell, we've also got NVIDIA shareholder meeting and the feds the bank stress test.

Those results are actually gonna be out after the bell here, Mattie.

So a couple of things to break down here.

Let's kick it off with Mike Ron.

We talk a lot about the chip space and exactly what these earnings results are going to tell us.

It's going to give us an inside glimpse at what exactly demand looks like.

And then of course, investors can suss out what ultimately that means in terms of the catalyst driving prices higher potentially here if they're solid results for the broader chip sector.

Yeah, this is a stock that's up over 60% this year.

So they're going to have to prove that they've got a strong differentiating and competitive factor for this name that's specific to them and not just specific to the broader A I rally and whether or not the cyclical return of demand for things like P CS and smartphones are going to be enough for them moving forward, similar news in the chip space.

That could be a big catalyst to watch for the rest of your trading day.

We've got the NVIDIA shareholder meeting coming up today and Jenson one is going to be expected to be speaking, could that be a catalyst for the stock that's been, as we mentioned, bopping around throughout the morning, it was up, then it was down, then it went back to the upside here, it looks like and video shares still moving here down over the past five days, but obviously still up over 100 and 60% year to date.

Could we get some news out of the shareholder meeting today that could potentially be meaningful for the stock?

And then Sean, as you mentioned, we've got the feds stress test for some of the big banks.

That's another big catalyst for the trading day here.

That could be a big catalyst.

We'll have to see what the results are here from the fed that is going to be released after the bell here today just around a year ago.

I believe three banks did fail those stress test.

So ultimately, what exactly this means this is really an indicator just in terms of how much cash these banks have to hold to withstand a downturn here in the broader economy.

It's also going to determine how much they can return to shareholders via dividends and also via share, buy back.

So that of course, could ultimately be a driver here for this sector for many of these names within the banking sector here over the next several quarters.

So again, a couple of uh so you have the bigger names on your watch list as well as well.

Some of those smaller tier two names to that could move on the heels of these results.

Absolutely.

Sea.

All right.

Well, keep it right here because coming up, we've got wealth dedicated to all of your personal finance needs.

Our very own.

Brad Smith is gonna have you for the next hour.

Stay t for more.