Yahoo Finance

Take a look at the market headlines here to start the hour. This is sponsored by Tasty Trade. You are looking at a bit of a reversal from the earlier declines for the S&P and the Nasdaq, both now in positive territory of the NASDAQ leading that rebound here up just about 2.2%. The Dow just below the flat line. Now this mixed action that we have seen for much of the morning, uh, following the jobs print that we got out at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time, when you take a look at the headline number, it was a slight miss there unemployment.ticking slightly higher, but again, the initial reaction was that it wasn't as bad as feared, and that was enough to alleviate some of the trepidation and concern within the market here. But here we are not too far from the flat line, just about a half an hour into the trading day, flipping it over to the bond market, the reaction there and the move lower that we're seeing in yields. You got the 10 year yield at 426, so just off the lowest here of this session and then Bitcoin, we're seeing a little bit of risk on action here right now, at least in terms of Bitcoin. It is back.Above the flat line up just about 90% above 90,000. And of course that move coming ahead of the White House's crypto summit that that could potentially be a huge driver here for the industry that's getting underway in just a couple of hours.

All right, that February jobs report came in and be a bit weaker than expected with unemployment ticking up to 4.1%. Now this comes as big banks warn that markets are signaling growing recession risks sparked by weaker data and.around President Trump's tariff policies. Joining us now, we've got Joe Lavonia, the former chief economist at the National Economic Council under President Trump. Great to have you here, Joe. I've heard and Sean and I both heard from a lot of guests this morning that there's some evidence of slowing, but broadly the economy is holding up. So let's just not muck it up with any big policy shifts that could lead to an economic slowdown. How are you thinking about the potential risks of Trump's policies on our economy?

The, uh, too much growth, uh, thank you for having me. Too much growth has been driven by, by government spending. We saw that last year with the budget deficit at nearly 7% of GDP against the backdrop of full employment. So we cannot stay on this path. That is a, uh, a partisan issue. The question is how we fix it. The administration is trying to fix things and, uh, I like their, their approach, but most importantly, we need the clarity on the, on the tax package. There seems to be a disproportionate amount of attention.Focused on the tariffs and it really needs to be more of the tax policy, which is central because you have a massive tax cut and historic increase in taxes next year. And what's happening is the longer we go without knowing whether it's one budget bill or perhaps two reconciliation bills, uh, the more business uncertainty will persist and the weaker growth will be. So if a bill can be done shortly.That makes me very optimistic that growth will do quite well this year and these rising recession odds are in fact grossly overstated.

Yeah, but Joe, how realistic is it really that we're going to get a bill in that timely fashion?

Uh, that's a good question. I don't know. I mean, this is going to be based on how the House is working with the Senate. The budget blueprint did pass a few weeks ago. That was sort of at least moved the ball further up the field. We'll see. Uh, Jason Smith, who scores the bill in the House, has said he can get something.To the president's desk in short order because they were working on it during the campaign season. But, but we're going to see, and this is where politics sometimes can, can slow things down much faster than what markets want. But I, I expect there will be a bill, but I'd want one, you know, somewhere closer to the 1st 100 days, not late in the year, which would be a risk for 2025 GDP.

We heard from the president yesterday saying that he is not watching the stock market, which is something that investors thought would potentially be a check on this administration's policies. Do you think that's accurate?

In the short term, yes, uh, look, the market had soared, uh, when the President, President Trump was re-elected. If the policies are implemented, it'll be very good for growth. I mean, my forecasts reflect that. Um, so I think right now, yeah, I mean, you can't really worry about day to day volatility in the market. It's where's the economy 18 months from now? Where's the economy 36, 48 months from now? Like, what's the, you know, what does the forward look like? And as Secretary Besson has been commenting on, there might be somesome short term pain. You actually said the economy needed a detox, and that's largely from unsustainable government spending, which has propped up the economy the last few years.

Joe, I'm curious to get your thoughts just on the idea of a Trump put and how closely he is watching the markets and of the selling action that we have seen, of course that has been dismissed from the president himself, but just given.Your experience and your sourcing and what you've been following, I guess, how big of a driver do you see that being for his policies?

If, well, I mean, look, here's the thing, if the stock market goes down because it looks like there's two reconciliation bills and taxes aren't going to be done late in the year, that's a problem, and the president's going to be very worried about that.However, if he's able to implement the policies he's want with congressional action, then I think he'll be more than willing to look through any short-term distortions and, and be optimistic that the economy is on a much stronger uh glide path. So the equity markets.but it depends how that market is declining. And right now, we've seen some volatility, but again, you get corrections periodically through time. This is not unusual. So I think people are probably hyperventilating over, over market adjustments in a way that in the short term, I think is overdone.

And we also heard Treasury Secretary Scott Besson also talking again about his desire to have the 10 year low of yields low, to have energy prices low. How are you thinking about the impact that could have on our economic growth throughout the year? Yes,

so yes, energy is very central to the administration's program. If they can get energy costs down, then inflation is going to move lower. Energy moves literally, oil moves literally one for one with the energy component within inflation, and I calculate we can lose easily at least 0.5 point.On the headline, and the indirect effects could be upwards of 3/4 of a point if energy can move down from where it was $80. It was actually $80 in January, $76 last year. Excuse me, if we can get it down to $58 which is where it was in the 1st 3 years of President Trump, the administration should be very successful, uh, in accomplishing, uh, much lower prices. And the fact that we've now hovering around 65 $66 a barrel is encouraging. So we do need lower energy costs without question.

Joe, always great to get your insight. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. Talk to you soon.Well, stocks not too far from the flat line here this morning to close out what has been a very volatile week here for the markets. Much of that volatility fueled by whips saw tariff policy and also the latest econ data. The VIX, it's a key measure of market fear that jumped to the highest level of the year as investors scramble to navigate market volatility. Joining me now, I want to bring in David Booth. He's a co-founder and chairman of Dimensional Fund Advisors. His firm strategy is rooted in academic evidence-based investing rather than trying to time the market or pick.Individual names both also helping to shape the landscape of institutional investing a focus on quantitative investing and factor investing. David, it's great to have you here at Yahoo Finance. We also want to welcome in our executive editor Brian Sazi as well. David, there's so much to get into here with you. I'm, I'm curious to see your sense of where we stand today following the sellout that we have seen in the markets. Obviously some of the jitters that are clearly very evident right now from investors and and then pairing that with.Some of these slowing econ data that we have been getting, how should we be thinking about where we stand?

Well, I think if you're talking about investing in stocks at all, you got to continue to focus on the long term, you know, trying to time short term movements, uh, it's pretty difficult, you know, this week, you know, the news that's out and the amount of adjustment all seems kind of sensible to me. I mean.Unless you could forecast these events happening, uh, you know, it's hard to make money off of that, um.So we counsel our uh.Our clients and our advisors.To focus on the long long haul and you know educate people more and more about how markets work. The more people understand about how markets work, the less anxious they get in times like this, and the better able to uh able to stay for the long haul. And if you can stay for the long haul, you get that benefit of that magic of compounding, you know, uh, the way that Einstein talks about as being the 8th wonder of the world, you know, so every time there's a.I've been in the business over 50 years, and if you look at the things that make me unhappy, uh,Uh, it's every time the market drops a lot, with a certain number of our clients panic and go, you know, the sky is falling. I gotta get out of here, uh, and that makes me sad because it's very difficult to get back in once you make that decision, you know, you, you get out and you go, then the market takes off and people go, Well, the trains left the station. I can't get back in now, you know, uh, I didn't, I thought it was overpriced before, and now it's even higher.So you just have to be very careful about all of that, David. The headlines are coming in hot and heavy. Are your clients panicking right now? Uh, no, we have.Well, the kind of the history of our business is we have new clients come in probably like everybody else's new clients and they're gonna try it out.And then you go through a couple of downturns and up you know upturns and over time, and we've been in the business 43 years now, what we have are clients that are uh really are long-term investors, um.And frequently call up and say, look, uh, let's chat about you don't you don't need to talk to me. I know what you're gonna say and you know I, I'm in this for the long haul now. uh, I do think there's the other side of the coin is, you know, in setting investment policy you try to set it for your particular situation, your conditions, OK, so, OK, well, maybe the market people focus on what's happening in the market. Maybe you should focus more on what's happening in your personal life. I mean, uh.The uh there may be more variability in on what's happening in the personal life if you look at all the potential for a lot of layoffs and so forth, you know, maybe spend a little more time thinking about that, but in general, when you go home at night instead of trying to, uh, time short term moves, you know, spend a little time with their kids and and be a little bit more relaxed I guess. Are long term investors becoming less optimistic on the long term because of the policies we're seeing from the administration?The, uh, one of the interesting things about studying the behavior of the stock market over long periods of time is it doesn't, you can't find much connection between which party is in power, which congress is leading the way, you know, uh, markets, uh, it's always helpful to remind people how markets work. These are buyers and sellers coming together.And they don't trade unless each side thinks they, they got a good deal. And that's what happens with that kind of environment is prices the way I view it.Every day prices are getting set uh at, at, at levels that induce people to come in to invest. If prices were too high, they wouldn't invest, uh, so and.That's kind of the, that's that I think that's what comes out of the of the research into uh securityprices and David,

I know that in college, I believe you worked on a stock service that aimed at you trying to come up with ways to beat the market when you were in your early twenties and I imagine.That was very difficult. We have a lot of retail investors listening. Do you think it's possible for retail investors to beat the market just given how much access to data, to information institutional investors have?

Well, it's possible. It's not likely, but it's possible, I think.You know, too many people feel like they are outsiders and it's really just the insiders, these institutions that are getting all the business. The good news about all the research is that's not true. The, if you look at.It's very difficult for individual investors to beat the market. It's very difficult for professional investors to beat the market, you know, and if you look at the likelihood of beating the market, it's not the same for each, which is very encouraging in the sense that it's the democratization of investing, you know, everybody has about an equal chance of, of, of picking a winner, I guess.And that's the way you would hope markets would work.

David, I guess your assessment of risk today versus what we saw 10 years ago, 2030, 40, 50 years ago, there, there's a lot of consistency there. I'm curious to get your perspective just how has social media at all influenced some of the moves that we're seeing today, and I guess.How that then affects maybe the calculus or psyche of so many investors today when it didn't necessarily obviously before we had social media 20-30 yearsago.

That could be, I mean there's definitely a lot more information, uh, actually there's a lot more data. I don't know how much information is out there. I mean there's a lot more noise. I don't know if there's if there's any more signals in those noises and that noise, but, um, um.You know, that's, you know, you look at the VIX today, you're talking about that it's uh it's kind of it's shot up recently, um.Uh, as, as you look back on, on things, you look at the first Trump administration, one of the characteristics was extremely low volatility, uh, and even a lot of that carried through with the Biden, uh, years as well. So over the last, say, couple of decades we've really had historic low volatility. Now when we go back to, don't know, but, uh, you know, it's a worry when.Uh, everything's so combative and there's, I think the amount of uncertainty probably is a little, uh, greater now. I mean, just reading the newspaper, I'm not forecasting anything, but, uh, this in some ways it kind of reminds me of, uh, 2020, March of 2020. The market's down 20%, you know, COVID has just really hit. People are going God what is this COVID all about? What? How can we look at all the uncertainty and.What we said back then and I'll probably say now basically every day is, hey, look, um.People, when bad things happen to them, they just don't sit there and take it. They figure out what it takes to get back on track and send with firms. And so with this COVID hit, you know, you know, firms are gonna do what it takes to get back on track and use their ingenuity, and they'll be winners and losers along the way and I can't, I don't know who the winners and losers will be, but what makes all of this go around, what makes this all work for all of us is human ingenuity, you know, people, I don't know if, if bad things happen going forward.People will react to it. I, people sometimes say I'm an optimist. I'm a realist. That's, that's human. That's the way humans work. We, we want to improve our lives, and I think that's, that's the thing to keep in mind always.

So then I wonder how you're thinking about the tech trade. I know you don't.Even bubbles, but do you think that we are heading toward a tech, whatever word you would use for evaluations? I, I

wouldn't, uh, that's not my guess. My, uh, my, uh, based on the study the markets, I think maybe your best, um, um.The idea of what the expectation is is basically about whatever the market does maybe a little less just because uh people view them as being lower risk now and if you believe in risk and return related, uh, if you think they're less risky now than the market, then you might expect a little lower return uh it's a little simple sounds simplistic, but.Uh, look, let's call the.You know, Fab 7 or however many, I'm a basketball player, 5, Fab 5, the, um.You know, if there's now let's say that's a third of the market. Uh, well, think of that as being starting with your portfolio, maybe that should be a 30 year portfolio and then argue you up and down from 13, not 0 or 100%, uh, I think is a better way and.That'll keep you, uh, you know, out of the kind of extreme outcomes, I think you're out with a new, uh, documentary we've talked a lot here about noise impacting stock prices. I mean your documentary is called Tune Out the Noise. Is that, can you have you really been able to do that over the decades of your career just isolate yourself and just.Almost like Warren Buffett, you know, just invest for the long term and just focus on sales, margins and cash flow and kind of forget everything else that's happening around you, uh, yeah, that's right. I mean, here again, going back to our markets work, you know, uh.I sit back and let everybody else do all the work, you know, setting prices, and I figure, however, however it comes out for the market, that's probably a better uh estimate of what what prices should be than if I tried to figure them out. So, uh, I'd rather focus in on my how my portfolio maps into my personal life, you know, uh, I'm getting closer to the retirement age.I keep telling myself that, uh, so you have a lot of dividend payers. Is that, is that, does that still hold true own dividend payers when you're nearing retirement? Are there, is that like a good tip for those nearing nearing, uh, yeah, yeah, you, most people, it depends on your situation and what your objectives are. Most people when they, uh, start planning, uh, for the end.Um,Frequently say I'd like to leave some money for the kids and some money for some charity, and other than that I wanna spend all the rest and uh uh.So in that kind of environment, probably taking some risk off the table is a is a pretty good idea.Oh yeah, sorry, go ahead. No, on my case though, I look at it and go some charity is the residual claimant on, on what I have. And so if I take the risk and that just means and I lose it and I lose and the charity will end up with less money.But at that point, I won't care.

Very valuable advice, David. It's great to have you here on set. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us.

Thanks for having me. I enjoyedit.

David's new documentary Tune Out The Noise explores how firms like Dimensional disrupted Wall Street's traditional model of investing. You get you now on YouTube and of course our big thanks to Brian Sazi as well.Coming up, a closer look at Wall Street's fear gauge with stocks in translation host Jared Blicker. That's coming up next.

Wall Street's measure of volatility has been steadily rising in the face of tariff uncertainty. So how did the VIX's recent moves stack up to history, and what does it tell us about the future of volatility? I'm Jared Blickery, host of Stocks in Translation, and I can hear Steve Soznick's voice in my head. Don't call the VIX a fear gauge. Why not? And let's explore what the true definition is here. The SIBO Volatility Index uses options prices to estimate.Expected volatility in the S&P 500 over the next 30 days. So it's a measure of traders' expectations of volatility over the next month. And a lot of times when the VIX is going up, well, that's a sign of turbulence in the market, hence the fear gauge term. But the VIXs can also rise when stocks are going up if they go up in a more volatile manner. That's exactly what the DAX is doing in Germany right now. But I want to stick with the US and let's go to a chart.This is a year today of the VIX. We've got some candlesticks on here and what you're going to notice is there's a nice block of days. There's about 11 days in here when it has been steadily rising day after day. Now I want to contrast with another movement that we saw in December. We had a surprisingly hawkish Fed meeting, and this move in here, well, basically the entire distance was traversed from 15 to 25 plus in 2 days. And then we saw a quick fall.Now that critically is not happening right now. That entire move up and down was 11 days. We're still going up and holding here. So investors might say, is this the time to buy VIXs for protection and not to be glib here. The time to buy was when it's down here. You want to buy protection when you don't need it, not when you need it. And right now investors are thinking they might need it. So to say even if the VIXs were to hover at these current levels, 25% doesn't mean that stocks can't go down more.They simply probably will not go down with the same momentum. All right, now I want to highlight another use of the VIX, and this is a seasonal map that we've cooked up here, and this is quite simply. You go back to 1990, that was the inception of VIX trading or VIX calculations at least, and you take an average of every year since it's a mean reverting asset, it goes up and it goes down. You can just take those averages and you come up with this map here and right now we are in.So I want to show you exactly how the year is traced out. You can kind of see that in green here. The bottom line is we have right on schedule in the month of February and leading up to it, we have spiked higher and what you're going to notice is we're pretty close to a time when the VIX tends to turn down, and this is going into April. And guess what? April also coincides with stock seasonality, and that tends to be the month in which stocks lift off here.Just close with that real quickly and show a stock seasonal map of the S&P 500 that we prepared and I went over the other week. We are right down here by the bottom, so we might have a little bit of a hiccup in March, but April, in April it gets to be smooth sailing and the VIX kind of confirms this. So tune into stocks and translation for more market decoding deep dives, new episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays on Yahoo Finance's website or wherever you find your podcasts.

Now it's time for some of today's trending tickers. You can scan the QR code below to attract the best and worst performing stocks of the session with Yahoo Finance's trending tickers page. First up, let's take a look at Gap. Shares are surging after the retailer blew past analysts' expectations for its 4th quarter, issuing an inline outlook gap, noting that it will take a small hit to its margins this year because of tariffs. Our executive editor Brian Sazi had the chance to speak with Gap CEO Richard Dixon, asked him about the impact of tariffs, and here's what he had to say.

Our goal always is to minimize the impact to the consumer. We've got to work hard to do that with any cost inputs that happen, and you know, whether it's the price of cotton or oil or tariffs, these are circumstances that any high performing company needs to deal with in their plans. So our ultimate goal as a consumer centric company is to minimize the impact on the consumer.

Obviously I have a huge concern here for Gap and it's and other competitors out there trying to figure out and decipher and navigate what has been a very, very uncertain time for a number of business leaders and really across industries obviously uh far reaching their the implications as of that. But many, when you take a look at these numbers and some of the trends that were very clear within this report, there is a lot to like. There was especially their namesake brand Gap that was some called out by Citi, the 7% jump in comp sales exceeding expectations by a wide margin. They also.results in Old Navy and in Banana Republic. On the flip side, Athlete is struggling a little bit. I don't know how much to read into that, but I think the overall takeaway and given just the magnitude of the gains that we're seeing here this morning, the street very encouraged by the turnaround playbook and what has been undertaken and done so far under its CEO Richard Dixon and what the quarters to come could potentiallylook like.

Yeah, and this is very anecdotal, but I feel like, given the marketing and influencer marketing I've been seeing from Gap, I feel like.Potentially taking some market share from Abercrombie and Fitch who we obviously saw struggling after their earnings print, and now I'm just constantly seeing influencers talking about Gap as the new kind of It girl brand in New York City. So we'll see if that continues to be the case on my TikTok for you page, but I, I noted to you, Sean, I think that that decline in athletic is really interesting and if I, I would be curious to learn if that is about gaps specifically or if that's a decline in athleisure sales more broadly, potentially we would get some clarity from the likes of Lulu.earnings on that, uh, we spoke with on holding CEOs yesterday who are experiencing a lift in their athleisure apparel sales. So I wonder if that is specific again to Aleta and some pressure that they're seeing in terms of uh consumer sales and then of course I have to mention for our executive producer listening in the Banana Republic has that new White Lotus line out today. So something to look that up, the success of that campaign we will continue to cover it is expensive, very vacation friendly attire there.Well, next up, HPE falling on the heels of weaker than expected full year profit outlook. They see adjusted earnings per share of 170 to 190, short of the 212 analysts expected. HPE saying its profits this year could be hurt both by tariffs and execution performance. The company also announcing it will eliminate 3000 jobs, and I think it's really interesting to take a look at Hewlett Packard Enterprise here. Those shares down 14% right now. They were down as much as.16% earlier in the trade analysts noting that those weak gross margins were adding to investor concerns. I wonder if we can pull up a longer dated stock chart here just to see the movement to the downside that we have been seeing over time here when it comes to HPE. You can see that drop over the course of the week, of course the biggest drop being today off the back of these results here. They talk about Morgan Stanley talking about inventory issues on AI being expected, but the pricing issues were an unexpected blip in the print.

Yes, certainly we are seeing some pressure here on HPE's business. The CEO Antonioieri saying that some of this just came down to execution performance and the lack thereof that really weighing on the performance that we saw the most recent quarter. They talked about discounting during sales, higher than realized costs, a buildup of older generation semiconductors, as some of the headwinds there that obviously have been weighing on their business, putting a bit of a dent.In profit here for the quarters to come. I think as you look ahead, you try to figure out how HPE fits into the AI trade, how big of a player, how big of a winner. Maybe they will continue to they could potentially be here over the next several quarters. I think some of that may be called into question just given the guidance, given the job cuts, given this, um, strategic move that we have seen here from CEO Antonio Nieri. So again that drop of just about 15%, and we could be looking at the largest intraday decline that we have seen since March of 2020.Finally, Nintendo under pressure amid tariff concerns for gaming consoles. Bloomberg analyst writing in a note that with tariffs on Chinese imports, game consoles like the Nintendo Switch 2 could see higher selling prices in the US, with most being either manufactured in China or at least relying on suppliers in the country for parts. That could significantly or be a significant headwind here for Nintendo, clearly reflected in the share price move to the downside here today.Of just about 6.5% and I think when you take a look at a story line like this, the narrative here, of course that begs the question just the ability to pass along that higher cost to the consumer and Mattie, you and I have been talking to so many economists, strategists, CEOs even over the last several weeks and several months asking about the consumer resilience story, and I think it's very clear that companies don't have as strong a pricing power as a clear.We have here in the most recent years and that really begs the question as to how much some of these businesses are going to have to stomach the higher cost and how big of a drag that's going to be to profits here in the quartersto come.

100%. I think what's interesting and I did that story earlier this week about how tariffs impact prices for consumers, and we talked about how Nintendo was actually one of the products that could potentially get away with passing on the full cost to consumers because there's not really an off brand.Console that you can get if you want the Nintendo you're gonna get the Nintendo, right? But maybe there's a line where this is obviously a consumer want not a consumer needs. So perhaps the price increases that investors are anticipating are so high that they're thinking that consumers will just forgo the product entirely and that's of course weighing on the share price today. Well, coming up, how AI is transforming the energy sector, we're taking a closer look at the future of the industry next right here on Catalysts.Alibaba unveiling a new AI model that it claims could rival Deep Seek. This is just the latest development in the AI race as companies look to produce higher performance models and capitalize on growing demand. Now another race is on to power, the AI revolution. Joining us now on this, Amir Orrod, Kraken's CEO, and Kraken, as a reminder, provides AI-powered operating systems for energy utilities. Amir, it's great to have you on. Talk to me about Alibaba unveiling this rival to deep Seek. How does this.that's heating up among the AI players impact your business.

We'reseeing an arms race in the AI market which may be actually good for consumers at the end because we get better and better technologies. When it comes to energy specifically, AI has two roles to play. Number one, it consumes a lot of energy, so we need more capacity in the networks. It can also be used to optimize the energy grid and actually make it easier for us as consumers.

Amir, just the ability to meet that demand, what does that look like?

It means we need as a country to have more energy. For the last 20 years, the US energy capacity was more or less flat. Now it's spiking up. AI, electrification, heating at homes, electric vehicles, we need way more energy than we ever did.

It's interesting in the context of just the popularity of AI. I think about the amount of energy it uses every time I ask chat GPT one of my silly questions, and I start to wonder if it's really worth it for me to be using chat GPT given where we're at with the climate right now. Is there a way to make AI clean energy friendly?

First of all, AI is becoming more and more efficient all the time.Like most technologies, you know, your phone, internet speed is becoming better and better, and clean energy is becoming cheaper and cheaper. Today's solar panel, solar power, is cheaper than any other alternative uh uh energy technology. So if you can use AI and have it use clean power, it's actually very cost effective and not polluting.

How receptive just in terms of the capbacks that you're seeing from your clients, their willingness to spend right now, has that at all changed over the last several months, or what are some of the trends maybe that we could extrapolate from that? And then that tells us about future adoption,

even though the administration changed and a lot of the language used is different, both the previous administration and this one are talking about more energy consumption in the US. That's no different.The talk about climate change may be different, but red states and blue states are deploying solar panels every day because it's cheap and we like cheap ship power. So that is not changing. People are investing in green technologies, investing in new generation, nuclear, gas, and clean energy.

And how are you thinking more broadly?about the policies of this administration, how they could impact you 11 thing that comes to mind is the focus of this administration on keeping energy costs low. Do you think that you could see more competition when it comes to people relying on old school energy models like gas, for example? Are we past that?

The economists had a big cover story that again solar is the cheapest period. End of story. 10 years ago we needed subsidies. We needed politics to help us. That's not the case anymore. So clean energy is cheap energy and that's good for consumers, good for all of us, and AI can be used to optimize all of this energy production.

I'm curious because you have such a global footprint. The conversations here in the US compared to those that you're having with clients in other parts of the world, how does that compare?

You definitely see geopolitics coming into play. People are looking for more energy independence and more local energy production. All markets are looking to modernize their energy systems. Our energy networks were invented before the iPhone, before the internet, before the electric vehicle. They have to be modernized, be it in Australia or in the UK or in the US. It's the exact same situation.

All right, well, Amir, we have to leave it there. Thank you so much for your time. Thanks for taking time to join us here on the set. You also want to be sure to tune into our special coverage of Sarah Week 2025 as industry leaders come together to talk about the future of energy. We will have interviews on Monday with Mike Summers. He's American Petroleum Institute's CEO. We have John Ketcham. He's next there's a chairman and CEO, and Joseph Dominguez at Constellation Energy CEO. That's all coming up next week on Yahoo Finance.

President Trump postponed tariffs on certain goods from Mexico and Canada for one month, announcing after announcing the 25% levy just days before. Now I'm going to talk about what companies are saying about the administration's ever changing trade policy here. So several companies raised red flags just about how tariffs could hit margins, supply chains, and their consumers. Target warning earlier this week that it expects to see meaningful year over year profit pressure in its first quarter, partially due.To that tariff uncertainty, other big box retailers also anticipate an impact. Best Buy saying the vast majority of its products are subject in some form to tariffs. Macy's keeping an eye on the day to day changes, adding that it recognizes the potential inflationary pressure that these tariffs could pose. Meantime, Hasbro CEO Chris Cox told Brian Sai on today's episode of opening bid that they're trying to offset the costs associated with China tariffs as best they can, but consumers may still end up paying more.

Maybe we can, you know, trim off a couple of things that the user won't notice and get the prices down, but at the end of the day when you're talking about tariffs in the in the neighborhood of 20% plus, um, that's a cost that we can't fully accommodate.

And Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg warning of rising costs due to the aviation manufacturer's fragile supply chain. In a speech to employees obtained by Bloomberg, Ortberg warned the tariffs were really, really expensive for the company. For companies with orders placed months in advance, their ability to offset tariffs is limited. Franco Salerno, co-owner of Dariana Bridal and Tuxedo, told the chamber.Of commerce, he expects margins will take a hit as he can't charge brides for tariffs on already sold dresses. In some cases, boycotts have become more harmful than the tariffs themselves. Several Canadian provinces removing US made alcohol from shelves in retaliation for tariffs on Canadian goods. Jack Daniel's owner, Brown Forman, calling the move worse than a tariff.

All right, thanks there, Mattie. Let's take a look at the market here just about 1 hour and 10 minutes into the trading day. You're looking at losses across the board with the Dow, S&P and Nasdaq now back in negative territory. You've got the Nasdaq now the biggest decliner of the 3 off just about 0.1%. Nasdaq 100 tumbling into correction. The tech sell off really intensifying. Here's something we have been closely monitoring here on Yahoo.Finance of course questions just about surrounding the jobs print that we got out this morning coming in slightly weaker than expected, clearly not enough for the market to reverse any of its earlier losses this week in order of in a more sustainable fashion as of late. But again, all three of the major averages moving to the downside here. We now have the Nasdaq off nearly 1%. We'll be right back.Tech leaders are heading to the White House. President Trump reportedly planning to meet with the CEOs of HP, Intel, IBM, and Qualcomm. It's according to a report from Bloomberg. HP confirming in a statement that the company is set to attend a White House meeting, saying, quote, Some of the topics top of mind for our leadership team are trade policy and US manufacturing. This comes after President Trump called for the elimination of the chips Act.

is a horrible, horrible thing. We give hundreds of billions of dollars, and it doesn't mean a thing. They take our money and they don't spend it. You should get rid of the CHIP Act and whatever is left over, Mr. Speaker, you should use it to reduce debt.

The Trump administration is still legally bound to distribute over $30 billion in CHIPS Act funding through fiscal year 2026. Some of the largest beneficiaries of the CIPS Act funding include Intel, Samsung.And TSMC, President Trump announcing a separate deal with TSMC worth $100 billion that came earlier this week. Now since the CHIP Acs the passage in 2022, domestic chip spending has risen by over $100 billion. President Trump has said that he shares the goal of the CHPS Act to see as many as 40% of AI chips made here in the US.The Justice Department and Google are scheduled to submit final proposals today for restoring competition to online search market. The proposals are the next step after a judge ruled last year that Google legally monopolized the online search market. Yahoo Finance's Alexis Keenan is here now with a closer look. Alexis.

Hi Shana. Yeah, so today is the day when the Justice Department in their big antitrust case against Google search, the market for search, they have to.Put in their final proposals that Google does and the DOJ does to say this is how we want the remedies to look. How do we fix the problems in the search market? The judge in the district court in the District of Columbia finding last year that Google held an illegal monopoly in the market for online search. Now why these filings could be really revealing is because this case has gone through now 3 administrations. You had.The Trump administration filing the case and doing the investigation. You had the Biden administration prosecuting it and filing what is a preliminary idea of how these remedies should look, what should happen. Well, according to the Biden administration, they wanted to do things like end the contracts that make Google a default on devices, particularly Apple, but across different mobile devices. Also things like limit Google from investing in AI and a big one, maybe even break up Alphabet and.that it let go of its Chrome browser. So last week Google reportedly had gone in to talk with the new Justice Department officials to say let's not go ahead with this breakup scenario. Let's find another solution. So negotiations probably still under way here, but the case now bounces back to the Trump administration. So these documents that are filed today, they should be really revealing about aBig question in the antitrust world, which is how is this Justice Department now going to handle antitrust? Is it going to be more aggressive than Biden, less aggressive? Is it going to look the same? And on top of that, you have another wild card, which is the fact that Gail Slater, who's Trump's pick to lead the antitrust division, she still has not been confirmed, so she may not be as much in the mix as she will be. So so much to come, a lot could change in this case just.

And that's a great rundown of what's happening over at Alphabet with Google, but what do we know about some of the other pending cases and just some of the questions that remain for those as well?

Yeah, so this might be right, a preview of what's going to happen in these other cases to some extent. You have the Justice Department and the FTC, which share jurisdiction for enforcing the federal antitrust laws. You have cases against Apple, Amazon, Meta. You have a case with the FTC going against.Meta that will go to trial in April on the 14th. You also have Amazon facing a couple of cases. Apple, their case was brought by the DOJ. The DOJ saying that the company has illegally monopolized the smartphone market. That one hasn't been set for trial yet, but certainly a ton on the plate, and we would expect that a case like Apple's, for example, would go all the way into the next administration as well.

All right, Alexis, great breakdown as always. Thank you so much for joining us.Well, Elon Musk's SpaceX experiences its 2nd setback in a row. The company losing connection with its starship rocket shortly after it launched at Brownsville, Texas last night. SpaceX later saying on X that the spacecraft exploded while ascending, and the company is working with safety officials to collect debris. The FAA is saying it will require SpaceX.To investigate the cause of this explosion. Now a similar incident happened in January when SpaceX's Starship rocket blew up shortly after launch, causing the FAA to impose flight restrictions in the surrounding areas to protect other planes from being hit by debris. Last night's explosion also disrupting commercial flights. The planes in parts of the Caribbean being diverted.To the aviation tracker flight radar24 and the FAA delaying departures from Fort Lauderdale and Miami airports. SpaceX was successful in guiding the rocket's booster back down to the launch pad. That is the 3rd time the company has been able to do so. That is a critical part of SpaceX's long term goal to regularly launch rockets into space.We're gonna have all of your markets action ahead here on Yahoo Finance. You're still looking at losses across the board, your S&P off about 60, your NASDAQ down about 7.1%. We'll be right back.90 minutes into the trading day and the major averages are all moving lower. This comes after a week of major volatility from tariff policy, and that's slightly lower than expected jobs print. We had weakness for tech stocks this week as well. So how should investors be approaching all of that uncertainty? Well, it's time now.Our weekly FA corner brought to you by Capital Group and joining us for our first rendition, we've got Katherine George, Wealth stream advisors financial advisor. Catherine, great to speak with you here. Just want to get a sense of what you're hearing from clients about how they're digesting the volatility right now and what they're most concerned about.

Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of times we have to separate what's going on in the world and, uh, our financial situation and markets. Um, markets don't always act rationally, so it can be tough for people to, um, take what's going on in the world and really apply it to their long term plan. But really, I think the the most important thing to make sure our clients feel comfortable is making sure they have enough cash on hand.Um, making sure you can weather any upcoming storm, um, and that you don't have to, you know, sell stocks at the worst possible time. Um, cash is really king, especially when you have clients that are nervous.

Are you seeing some opportunity, uh, Katherine, to put some of that money to work? I know it's important obviously to remain some sort of your positioning within cash, but to the degree of the sell-off that we have seen, is that a bit of a buying opportunity?

I think it really depends on um which market you're looking at. Um, when we look at the, the companies that everyone is talking about in the news, and that's mostly tech companies, but really companies within the S&P 500, they have really outperformed their long-term averages in recent times. So, um, even with this recent sell-off, uh, when you look at the price you're paying.Paying for, you know, the profits and the money that's coming in. Is it on sale? I, you know, I don't know. But when we look at other places of the market, whether that's value companies or smaller companies in the US, but even internationally, um, there are opportunities there, and that's really just because these larger US companies have done such, have had suchOutsized returns and really over the last 10 years, um, and, and at some point that has to revert back to the means. So when that will happen, of course nobody knows, but I do think there are other places of the market with that haven't had those outsized returns and that's a longer term trend that you could really make sure you're diversified and you're thinking about all places in themarket.

Well, Catherine, earlier we spoke with David Booth, Dimensional Fund Advisor's founder, and he was warning about the risks of pulling money out from the market. Let's take a listen.

Every time the market drops a lot, a certain number of our clients panic and go, you know, the sky is falling. I gotta get out of here, uh, and that makes me sad because it's very difficult to get back in once you make that decision, you know, you, you get out and you go, then the market takes off and people go, Well, the trains left the station. I can't get back in now, you know, uh.I didn't. I thought it was overpriced before, and now it's even higher.

So in our final minute here, Katherine, you'd mentioned this, where are the corners of the market where you think investors can find some of that safety without selling and risking losing out on all that compound interest.

Well, I think even if you know you're gonna need the cash within the next 2 years and for really nervous investors, maybe even 2 years, you need that cash no matter what. So regardless of what's happening in the market, I would take that cash out now and make sure that you can let the market do what it's gonna do without your fears and concerns. Um, with that being said, stocks have still had, um, you know, a decent run over the past couple of years, so it's not likeUm, we are, you know, taking at such a big hit and such a big loss. That being said, if the market continues to go down, there are still things investors can do, whether that's rebalancing. So making sure you have, uh, an asset mix, a plan in place, and if, um, if your stocks fall, there might be an opportunity to take some of your bonds and and buy stocks at this low opportunity, um, and making sure that that long term plan is in place. Another piece is, um, tax laws.Harvesting, you know, if you're in a high tax bracket or in a city with a high taxes, could be a good opportunity to to do some tax laws harvesting and planning and save some money on taxes. And so there are things that you can do, um, but I would say prepping in advance and making sure you have the cash, you have a plan in place before, um, you know, continued potential market downturns is really important.

All right, Katherine, we got to leave it there. Thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it.

Thank you.

And before we close the show, I wanna take a moment to wish the best to my co-host Shawna Smith. All the best to her. She prepares to welcome a new member to her family. Shawna, we're gonna miss you so much. I hope that I get pictures as soon as you are physically comfortable and obviously you have to deal with creating and birthing a human first, but, uh, obviously love doing this.You every day and we'll miss you so much and wishing you all the best

thank you we're very, very excited. This will be our 3rd boy so if anyone out there has any tips on how to navigate that, especially having 3 boys, I'm always welcome for any sort of insight there, but I, I very much I'm going to miss you guys. I think it's safe to say my hands are gonna be quite full at least for the next several.Months as we try to figure out life with 3, but um we are very, very excited and I'm gonna miss you guys but I'll be back before you know it

ofcourse no we will miss you so much. It's crazy we've been doing cats together for about a year, so can't wait to get back to you almost to the day. Can't wait to have you back, Sean. Thank you so much for everything. We always appreciate you stick with us. We're gonna have more ahead for you on wealth.