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It's time for Yahoo Finance's market. Stocks are sinking amid renewed recession fears as US GDP contracted for the first time in three years, declining at an annual rate of 0.3% in the first quarter. Meanwhile, the Fed's preferred inflation gauge PCE came in line with expectations. Big tech earnings and Friday's April payrolls report are the next key tests for markets. An individual company knew Starbucks delivering a weak second quarter, missing on revenue and earnings while reporting.The same store sales declined for the 5th consecutive quarter. Still, CEO is expressing optimism about the company's turnaround plan, and Zuber microcomputer on track for its worst day since February. The company lowering its 3rd quarter guidance, citing delayed customer platform decisions, and that's your Yahoo Finance market minute for this morning. If you want to follow more of what's trending on Yahoo Finance, you can scan the QR code below where you'll be able to track the best and worst performing stocks of the session.

Welcome to Wealth brought to you by Synchrony. I'm Brad Smith, and this is Yahoo Finance's guide to building your financial footprint. Our community of experts will give you the resources, tools, tips, and the tricks that you need to grow your money. And today's show, tech investing playbook. We discuss how you can think about investing in AI and some top picks in the sector, and one strategist tells us why.Mi bonds, yeah, those municipal bonds may add value and safety to your portfolio right now. Plus meta Platforms launching its own AI assistant app. Our own tech editor Dan Howley breaks down how it compares to the likes of chat GPT. All that much more coming up during the hour, but first, let's take a look at some of the market action. We're 90 minutes into the trade.Day stocks falling after negative GDP data. The US economy contracting for the first time in 3 years. Joining me now, we've got Mike Bailey, FBB Capital Partners, director of research. You're looking at companies that can adapt to new tariffs and find creative ways to grow. How can investors locate these opportunities?

Absolutely. So they're, they're certainly everywhere, you know, you just take a look at the S&P 500. You can look at the top of the list, kind of work your way down. I think for us as we're thinking of, of navigating some pretty choppy waters here, tariffs, you know, when are they going to happen? How big are they going to be? Is it going to drive a recession? A lot of questions out there. A few things to think about. One is quality. You know you're buying a quality business. What does that mean? Generally, is it a moreProfitable company. So that's something that can help you out. If you're a big company, profitability is pretty good. If the tariffs kick in and they're pretty challenging, you've got a little bit of wiggle room there. You're not gonna maybe get crushed as much as sort of a low quality company that's barely scraping bias that's something to think about. The other piece is diversification. So, uh, if there's a business that's doing 2 or 3 different things, you can talk about maybe Amazon, they've got e-commerce.They're doing cloud computing, they're doing online ads, things like that. The businesses that have got scale diversification, they can sort of minimize some of that risk that may hit more concentratedcompanies.

And so Mike, with that in mind, as we were breaking down some of the latest economic data, how are you kind of reading through and assessing companies that are best positioned to weather any type of GDP or broader economic contraction?

Yeah, that's a great question. Now, in general, you know, if, if this is, let's put aside tariffs and say, hey, this is just a regular economic cycle. It goes up and goes down. If the economy is shrinking, typically as more defensive type companies do better. So you're looking at consumer staples, maybe utilities, could even be telecoms or pharma, for example. So those companies tend to do, you have to go out and, you know, buy these type of products or use them regardless of the economy. So that tends to be the part of the economy that's done better. Those sectors have done OK this year, year to date. I think investors are worried about a recession.Um, so that's generally kind of the starting point. However, I think the, the caution is that, you know, if you sort of put everything in your portfolio into that safe part of the, of the, uh, market.As the economy turns and improves, you're going to miss out on the everything else kind of recovering faster cyclicals, tech, and growth, etc. So it's certainly important to be diversified in that portfolio, but keeping an eye on some of those safer defensive names, definitely keeping some of those in the portfolio this year will behelpful,

right? And as investors are once again hearing even more of the R word getting tossed around here on the day in recession, important reminder that the technicalis typically 2 quarters of consecutive contraction here on the GDP front and then even after that we still gotta wait for the NBER to come out and say, OK, yeah, it's happened and we'll validate this, and they look across a range of factors, all those things considered here Mike. I wonder what is your top thesis right now prevailing in the markets, especially given some of what's expected to be continued chop.

Yeah, absolutely. So just looking at, you know, where markets are now and kind of what, what's next, I think we're kind of viewing things as frankly a tug of war.So markets are down about 10% from recent highs. That's sort of almost a no man's land. You know, if there's a recession, stocks are going to be down probably 20% plus. If tariffs go away, there's no recession, we'd probably flip right back up and go back to where we were back in, you know, kind of February. So this is a little bit, there's definitely some tension here as we're thinking through what's next, we do see, you know, tariffs having a significant impact already. We're seeing slowdowns in international shipping, seeing some kind of tea leaves suggesting thatare slowing down. So I do think there is a risk of a bigger economic slowdown. Uh, and yeah, I think investors again, you do want to make sure you've got that diversified portfolio. It makes sure you've got some safety or defensive type stocks to own. Maybe you own a little bit more now, wouldn't go too much overboard there, but um that's kind of where we're looking again, pretty tricky here. Again, is the policy is changing hour by hour, but I do think some of the stuff that's happened is leading towards slightly higher odds of recession. You want to make sure your portfolio at least has some.Action in case that doeshappen.

Just lastly here, Mike, how should investors be thinking through their portfolio as to whether or not the companies that they've invested in or sectors that they have exposure to will actually see exemptions come their way it is and I guess within that is relief enough of an investment strategy, uh, especially knowing how much of some of the contraction that we've seen in the market pull back is self-induced.

Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, I think it's certainly the big question, you know, which companies will really feel the heat if tariffs kick in in a big way. So at this point we've seen a few things around the edges. We've seen airlines kind of see some pressure. We've seen shipper shipping and transportation see some pressure. Other than that, it's really been kind of hit or miss. We really haven't seen a clear indicator of which companies really are going to see a lot of downside.Uh, so it's, we're gonna have to sort of wait and see. And that's, that's certainly not a, not a great answer, but I think that does get back to diversification and I think you're going to see a lot of surprises. Uh, one example could be in healthcare and pharmaceuticals, you know, certainly there are some tariffs threatened, uh, that, that could be coming against drug companies. However, big global, uh, multinationals are out, out there saying, even if tariffs kick in, some of these big companies would scale.The ability to start moving around their supply chains and make local and sell local so that can minimize some of the tariff risks. So really a lot of moving parts, I think, given the unknowns, it's really important just to stay diversified, make sure you've got some of these quality companies that that kind of are doing different things, and that's probably the best way to go. All right. With

that wait and see, some more volatility is expected here. Fortunately I've got my floaties. Mike, thanks so much for taking the time. Thank you.Now time for some of today's trending tickers. We're watching Etsy and Airbnb. Joining me now, we've got my morning brief co-host Madison Mills. Madison, first up, we've got to talk. Etsy reversing earlier gains after reporting a beat on revenue in the first quarter. Some analysts say that the results were better than feared, but the stock, as you can see, is falling. It's down by about 7.25% right now, just about 90 minutes into trade.

If you caught me sort of staring into the camera there for a second, it's because I.I was awaiting that stock price because I'm fascinated by the degree of downward pressure we are seeing on Etsy right now given the results of the quarter as typical for a lot of these earnings. What is the problem? It's what's going to happen in the future because the stock market is forward looking, and that is perhaps why you're seeing shares down so much. The results were better than feared. We had a couple of bright spots. Advertising revenue, unlike Snap, was better than expected, building demand at Depop as well. That is their kind of vintage.Secondhand platform for consumers there and those results better than feared though Citi noting that shares are likely to be range bound until there's more clarity on the company's direction moving forward. Keybank also noting the outlook points to sequentially lower profitability, profitability, and continued softness moving forward, and several of the analysts notes coming in here talking about how that outlook moving forward is the sticking point and key issue, especially as we continue.You to hear from several companies and even from the economic data this morning of a softening macro environment.

Yeah, it's really interesting, especially given that Etsy has been one of those companies that investors look at and evaluate how the business does when there's the absence of excess cash in the consumer mindset here and as we're looking at the makeup of services versus good spending and the services, the necessary services really getting that prioritization.Etsy is one of those businesses where you can and have in the past been able to see that kind of correlation as well here so worth continuing to track as well as this next business Airbnb upgraded to buy from neutral at DA Davidson. The firm lays out four key reasons for the upgrade here as we're taking a look at shares of AirBnB. The shares are down by about 4.6%. 0 yeah, I might add that this company is also going to be reporting earnings this week too. Yeah,

Ithink it's fascinating to have this upgrading, uh, to buy headline passed through my feeds this morning.Right as we were getting earnings in from the likes of some other travel names including Norwegian, which showed a lot of weakness in consumers this quarter. Some of that weakness playing out in Airbnb stock. It's down over 4.5% despite this upgrade from DA Davidson to Bay. They know four reasons here. They talk about resilience of online leisure travel, AKA you're going to switch to Airbnb maybe instead of using your hotel because maybe it's a little bit cheaper. Uh, inventory, breadth and depth, and a focus on affordability maybe that again is.A tailwind for them as consumers look for a more affordable Airbnb versus a hotel. Also talking about the new product cycle, they've got a tech stack development in the works here that could bring more profit to come moving forward. And then they talk about the company's recent valuation as well because that recent 23% pullback in the shares over the course of the last year, trading at about 16.5 times their lower 2025 Ebi a guide. So talking about that valuation and then a couple of key pieces of the company as potential.Moves to the upside to come in

the

future,

you know, all due respect and great respect for the team over at DA Davidson, but there are some issues that I take with this and only because of the environment again on the consumer front that we find ourselves in, where a lot of consumers typically when they are pulling back on some of their vacation spend or there's unclarity around how much they're willing to spend.They look across where they can deploy points and rewards, and that has been one area that it left kind of investors perplexed a little bit when it comes to some of the verbos of the world or the Airbnbs of the world. How are you going to be able to leverage some of those points and get a similar experience that you would on some of the other accommodations but think Marriott, think Hilton, think the historic hotel.Businesses as well, so that's just one that I, I think is gonna be interesting to see how the business and Airbnb continues to discuss that in this environment going forward, and we'll see what they say on Outlook when they report this week as well. Really great point there, Brad. Mattie, thank you for joining us. Coming back here on set. You can scan the QR code below to track the best and worst performing stocks of the session with Yahoo Finance's trending ticker's page.This week we're talking all things tech investing as we get results from some of the biggest names in the sector, one of which is Meta Platforms, making its next AI play by announcing an app meant to rival, meant to rival here Chat GPT and other assistant competitors like Claude and Gemini, and so we wanna dig into one of.Street's hottest trades artificial intelligence here with us we've got Kimberly Forrest who is the Boca Capital Partners founder and chief investment officer. Kimberler, good to have you back here with us today. We're talking about how investors should think about investing in AI. I, I'd love to just start with your overall thesis here for picking companies.

Sure. Well, I come to this industry from software engineering where I was doing AI. Can you believe the luck of that, right? So today is your lucky day. Um, but regardless, I started in the industry in '99 where dot-coms were a craze. I did not fall for them because I had worked in software and I'm looking at them going.I don't really get it. This this company doesn't have a product or this company is years away from delivering the product, so I have a very practical approach to looking at and evaluating technology. The first thing I ask is what problem is this technology solving.And then at what price can it be delivered? And if that price is higher than the product or than the problem that it's being solved, I take a pass on it and that might hurt like in the short term, but you're gonna be right in the long term. So that's what I'm doing is I'm evaluating all this new AI stuff saying what problem does it solve and what's the price to deliver it.

Yeah, no, that's really brilliant. So as we're thinking about the investing and the different buckets, they're, they're kind of three main buckets of generative AI investing and you know I, I kind of harken back to what we had heard from Mark Zuckerberg many moons ago. I think it was about 2 years ago, essentially when he was laying out the vision for what their own investments would look like, and he kind of laid out the investment thesis.Well, in the buckets, applications, those are the products that people get to use like Chat GPT, Microsoft co-pilot. There's also learning models, the models, the so-called engine under Gen AI applications such as Chat GPT 4 or GPT-4 rather which powers Jet GPT, and then there's the chip makers that all of this sits on top of and the data centers like Nvidia and Taiwan Semi.So break down how you think about investing in each of these buckets and perhaps we start off with applications where consumers are touching it.

Sure, well, I, I think it's important to note that most of the, um, uh, stuff that we're doing is a replacement for search engines, and there's a good reason for that. People who want to use a search engine want to get an answer to a question, not kind of figure out what the sentence should be to the computer and then scroll through.All of the links that come back as potential answers. So and it's at the face, chat GBT lets you ask a question and it gives you an answer. Now how much are you paying for that? You might be paying the 20 bucks a month or whatever to get premium service, but I'm thinking that is way, way under what it costs to deliver that.So in the long run, either the, the price of computing has to come way down or the price of accessing that has to come way up. The other thing is, if you're an investor in Google, you really have to um watch this because, you know, GPT and friends are eating Google's lunch. So that's one thing.Um, I think playing in a semiconductor layer is really smart because we don't really know what the end application is gonna end up at, what problem it's really solving because there's a lot of problems, but we know that it's gonna be delivered on a chip, so that's been an area that I've been playing for the last, um.Well, we'll say 6 years, not necessarily in reaction to AI, but there hasn't been a whole lot of compelling software companies to invest in that we're solving good problems in my paradigm where there's a clear problem, there's a clear solution, and it costs less than theproblem. OK,

and so the companies that are best positioned, who are your top picks and why?

So, I'm gonna concentrate on the semiconductors, and this is kind of weird. I love Micron. Micron is a, a weird, it's not really a semiconductor company. They're more in the area of memory.Um, but they have been able to come up with fast memory that Nvidia is using on their chips, and I'm thinking whoever is Nvidia's competitor is going to be forced to use there. It's called DRAM. We're, we're nerding out right now, but DRAM is really important for these chips that are doing the AI process.So we like them. The second way to play this is software that designs chips, and we like synopsis. And, um, they are buying a favorite local company of ours called ANSIS, which does um engineering simulation where you can, you know, test out, do, um.Online prototyping instead of physical prototyping and they do have a lot in the electronic design automation space as well, which is why Synopsis is buying them but anyhow, so we like that company Synopsis and Micron, and they're not necessarily directly in the line of fire, but I think a lot of whoever wins in the AI chip race will might use their products.

Fortunately, Kimberly, our viewers are looking for that deep analysis that you just provided, so nerding out totally kosher. Thanks so much for taking the time here with us.Coming up, everyone, we dive into some alternative assets that you may want to consider adding to your portfolio. That's next on well.Gold prices are ticking slightly lower today just off of its fresh all-time high from last week. Gold is broadly considered a safe haven asset, which means it's considered stable. It holds its value and even grows even when stocks and bonds are experiencing volatility.So for those curious about adding gold to your portfolio, we've got the tips for you. Joining us now, we've got personal finance editor Molly Moorhead. Molly, good to have you here in studio with us. For all the gold curious people out there, lay out the key steps in the gold investing process they need to know.

There's a lot of those gold curious people right now. Um, so step one would be what's your goal? Why do you want to own gold? I think, um, interest grows when there's market volatility, and so that's what we're seeing now.And uh you need to know why you're buying it. Um, a good reason is for diversification. It's an alternative asset that holds its value even when stocks are kind of all over the map. It's also, uh, can be a form of currency, uh, if you're really worried about the value of the dollar. Um, so just know why you're buying gold would be step one. Step two is the allocation. You do not want 80% gold in your portfolio, tip from me.Um, the standard advice is something like 5 to 15%, uh, again, because it can be a good hedge against, um, other volatile assets. It can be an insurance policy, um, that as an alternative currency, uh, and then step three is what form you're gonna buy it in.

And so with that in mind, let's explore those different forms of gold. I mean, I always had the thought.Coming into many of these conversations years ago, like, all right, am I buying gold bars? Do I need an amazing vault in my apartment in Brooklyn? How am I gonna get the permits to make sure that I can add on that vault? Let's explore those different types of gold though. What are the pros and cons of physical gold versus stocks and ETFs?

Yeah, so, uh, you really can buy physical gold and, uh, you know, put it in a safe in your house. That's, uh, the, the obviously most direct way to own it.Uh, the purest form of gold, it's, uh, you know, the con is you, you have to store it, um, but there's no, you know, management fees for your gold bars. Um, a second, uh, way to buy it is, uh, buy stocks in gold mining companies. So these are just, you know, stocks you buy on an exchange like any other. They're, they're fairly liquid, um, but one thing to note is that stock shares have often been.Um, lower than the spot price of gold, historically.Uh, finally, gold ETFs, so these are, uh, exchange traded funds that invest in physical gold and gold mining companies, and then you buy shares in those, uh, funds. And so this is kind of a low maintenance way of investing in

gold. Is there anything else people need to consider, especially as they're identifying what their entry point might be given the trade that has really run to new all-time highs over the course of this year, even though we're seeing a bit of a pullback today,

right, but it's important because of the heightened.Interest is that like, I mean, in general, you're gonna buy gold and hold on to it. So just know that when you, uh, you know, just decide to buy physical bars or invest in an ETF, this is not something you're gonna trade frequently. This is something to buy and hold on to again to have diversification in your portfolio and a little bit of insurance against volatility. All right,

so I will keep my Costco gold bar tab open then on my laptop. I appreciate that. Good call. Molly, thanks so much.Another potential alternative investments to add to your portfolio municipal bonds. Here to break down what they are and just how they work, we've got Doug Huber. He is the deputy chief investment officer at Wealth Enhancement Group. Doug, good to have you here in studio with us. Thanks for having me. Alright, so let's just start there. How do municipal bonds work? Why are they attractive potentially in a market like this? Yeah,

sure, I, I think you know at at their core they're just debt issued by state and local governments to fund.You know, projects, right, bridges, schools, highways, the big benefit is that they have tax advantage benefits, right? The yield is typically tax exempt from federal or state taxes. And so for clients that are in high tax jurisdictions like in California or New York, they can be really interesting from a from a fixed income investment.

Do you have to live in the jurisdiction in order to participate in municipal bonds?

No,absolutely not. You know, anybody can buy them. I think it's it's just more advantageous if you.Buy if you live in California and you pay California taxes if you own California municipal bonds, those that income stream is not subject tothat tax.

What's a good rule of thumb in terms of the returns that you should be looking for from municipal bonds? Yeah,

I think there's a couple ways to look at kind of are they valuable today, right? You know, one we frequently look at is just we call it the tax equivalent yield, right? So what would a taxable bond, one that you would pay taxes on, need to yield to meet the same.Yield that you're getting from uni bonds today and so interestingly I think you know the municipal bond index is probably yielding around 4.1%, give or take right now. The tax equivalent yield for for a similar security is almost 7%. So that means you got to probably get, you know, high yield type exposure to get that yield. So it is attractive from that perspective. Uh, another way we can look at it is what we call the uni treasury ratio, right? And oftentimes I think for the 30 year average.have been roughly 84% of the yield of US Treasuries today they're 92%, and so you're getting that pick up. They, they generally trade below that kind of parity because there is that tax exempt benefit, but I think any time it gets, you know, into that 90s to 100 range, that's when people generally are gonna say, hey, this, this is a, you know, looking like an opportunity today.

What is the issuance process for municipal bonds?

Like I said, they're issued.By state and local governments, you know, the, I think the bigger issue is that, um, it isn't a liquid market, right? It's, it's typically, you know, individual investors, um, there's obviously, you know, managers that invest in these, so typically done in separately managed accounts, mutual funds, ETFs, but you know, as a, as a holistic asset class, it is less liquid than you might see in uh investment grade corporate bonds, US Treasuries, even the high yield market, it's just not as big.

Who is the type of investor then with that liquidity profile in mind.Who is the type of investor that would be apt to layer this into their portfolio and at what juncture in their perhaps portfolio build out process? Yeah,

absolutely. I think this is, this is an alternative to traditional taxable fixed income, and I think the, the typical investor you would see in this is a higher ultra high net worth individual that is usually towards that top top tax bracket and usually in states that have high, you know, marginal tax rates.This is less of an issue for a Florida resident, right? It, it, it is a big, there's a big issue it's in New York, Massachusetts, Minnesota, California, those high tax states because it's attractive, right? Um, and so it's, it's usually high or high net worth individuals, and they take some piece of that fixed income pool, whatever that allocation may be, and put it into muni bonds to, to complement their taxable fixedincome.

Doug, thanks so much for taking the time here with us in studio. Absolutely, thanks for having me.Coming up, a record number of starter homes are coming with a $1 million price tag. What that means for potential home buyers. That's next on.We're excited to partner with Synchrony Bank, our premier sponsor for Wealth. Synchrony Bank is working with Yahoo Finance and Wealth to bring you the insights for your personal finance playbook and help you make your money work for you. Let's get a check in on the markets as we're taking a look at the major averages in this trading session. 2 hours into the activity here, we're seeing the Dow actually slipping fractionally lower by about 60% here on the day. You've got to look at the Nasdaq composite as well.Here and I'm also gonna put this on an intraday view just so you can see what's kind of transpired and we're off of the session lows but still down by about 1.4% for the tech heavy average. The S&P 500, you're seeing that lower right now by about 90% again, same case there, we're actually in that ballpark of some of the session highs though still down on the day fractionally as it may be. We are improving. Let's take a look at some of the sector moves that we're also tracking over the course of today's.Activity we've been watching more laggards than leaders right now though we do have staples in positive territory that's higher by about 30%, but being in the caboose portion of the train, you've got energy right now that's down by about 2.3% here. You also have consumer discretionary down a little more than 2% as of this juncture. And then just lastly, we'll ride out with a look at the NASDAQ 100. A lot of red there we got.A few more of the tech companies reporting over the course of this week. In totality, we have 4 of the 7 Mag 7 companies reporting during this trading week, a big week for the S&P 500s as well. And so just taking a quick look at the Nasdaq 100 as we're taking a look at the Mega cap tech stocks, you've got all of the Mag 7 in the red as of right now. We'll continue to track that as we go on throughout the rest of today's trading session.The US pending home sales jumped 6.1% month over month in March. That's according and compared to the 1% growth that was expected. I want to bring in Orfe Devani, who is the Zillow Group's senior economist. Orfe, great to speak with you again. I wanna know what you make of the latest data.

Look, uh, you know, we, we expected it, right? Uh, the, the big theme here is price cuts sell homes. Uh, when you're looking at where the, where the, the home sales actually exceeded expectations, they're in the South. They're in places where you saw, uh, higher, a big increase in inventory, and we're seeing.And where we're seeing more price cuts. According to Zillow data, uh, potential buyers have 19% more options to choose from when compared to a year ago. And, uh, basically we're seeing a record number of price cuts. Uh, roughly 24% of listings had a price cut in March.

And so with this in mind, while the average starter home in the US costs just under $200,000 Zillow found that in 33 cities across 25 states, starter homes now come with a price tag of $1 million or more. That doesn't sound like it's helping out what we've covered and what many economists have been tracking with the affordability crisis in homes. So how did you define a starter home for the data?

Yeah, of course, a starter home, uh, is basically a home at the bottom of our home value distribution. It basically homes in the lowest third of home values, and, uh, and it, the reality is, look, we expect price growth to continue to moderate as we see more and more homes come of return on the, on the for sale market. Uh, but essentially the rapid increase in home prices over the past few years really means that a starter home has gotten very expensive.Uh, you're seeing these homes throughout the country. It's not a California issue alone anymore, right? It's not just California. Uh, half of US states have at least one city with a million dollars or more or higher uh starter home.

So as you think back to the pandemic and how things dramatically changed for home prices during that period, how has that almost kind of reset the thought process for people who are in homes who otherwise would be listing their existing home, adding supply back into the market, and how long we anticipate some of those ramifications to continue to play out.

Yeah, look, we're seeing sellers return and so that I think that's the good news, and they're coming back because essentially mortgage rates are lower than they were a year ago. Uh, that's, that, that's one reason. But also people need to carry on with their lives. We know from our data that the number one reason peopleMove is life events. So if you've delayed the decision to move for a couple of years because of a ton of uncertainty in the headlines, you know, now it's probably the right time. There are more options on the market. Buyers have a little bit more bargaining power than they've had in a long time.

So how is this impacting the rental market?

Yeah, look, we're seeing the, the rental market has, has cooled, right? We had a big increase in, uh, apartment building deliveries in the past couple years, a record increase, in fact, the highest in almost 50 years. And so you had a big increase in supply in the rental market that has helped to cool down rent growth, uh, and now we're starting to.See, right, rent rent prices are growing at a lower pace than than wages, and we're starting to see affordability also improving uh in the in rental markets across the country. And so that's going to help stimulate uh rental uh market activity, right? renters are going to be able to start moving again.Uh, at a more normal pace.

Now I want some good news to share with potential buyers right now. Are, are there any silver linings that silver linings that you're seeing show up within the data right now, Orfe?

Yes, we're seeing a price moderation. Our forecast shows that price growth could continue to ease and maybe even decline in 2025, uh, but essentially we expect existing home sales to increase, right? Again, price cuts sell homes. Sellers who are making the, the price adjustments.Right to help buyers uh are the ones that are selling their homes faster. You're seeing it with builders.Builders are cutting prices, providing incentives for home buyers, and, and of course you're seeing new home sales continue to exceed expectations month after month.

If that were the case and that were to play out, which, which on headline it sounds great, you you want more buyers to have the opportunity, you want more sellers to feel like they are confident in listing their homes, but if you look on the whole of what would need to take place within the economy for that to actually be the reality.Coming off of a print like we saw this morning in GDP and the first contraction in 3 years, what would that spell out for the housing market if we were to continue to see even more of that contraction in order for us to actually get to some of the levels that you're talking about?

Yeah, totally. I mean, the GDP print, I did take a look, uh, it came from imports, right? So if you have a big surge in imports ahead of the tariffs.We, we imports actually increased and so if you have a big increase in imports, you get basically, uh, you know, imports get subtracted mechanically from the GDP number and that's why it was negative. Actually domestic spending has been very robust, increasing roughly 3% in the latest in the latest print. So, so I wouldn't be too concerned about the first quarter GDP numbers. Uh, I think what you need to look at is.The jobs report that's coming out later this week, as long as people have jobs and the unemployment rate remains very low, that combined with lower mortgage rates this year compared to last year ought to be positive, a major tailwind for the home shopping season this year.

We're absolutely going to be watching the employment situation data as that comes out on Friday. We've got an entire special tied to it. Orfe, thanks so much for taking the time. Great to see you.Coming up, we're checking in on Main Street for a look at the challenges facing women owned small businesses. That's next on wealth.Women are one of the fastest growing groups of new small business owners, but they still face big challenges, especially when it comes to funding. Nearly 90% of women reported relying on personal finances and credit cards to fund their own businesses, according to data from H&R Block. And with high interest rates and tariff fueled inflation in play.It can be tough out there. Joining me now, we've got Jamil Khan, H&R Block, chief strategy and small business officer. Jamilel, good to take some time here with you to discuss this very important. Talk to me about the hurdles that you're hearing female founders are facing when looking to run and operate small businesses.

Hi Brad, good, good to see you again.Yeah, there's there's many hurdles and also some positives. So we've seen, you know, I'll start with some of the positives. We've seen that women owned small businesses are growing at twice the rate of male owned small businesses, so that's a a good positive there. And 40% of them expect to see growth over the next 5 years. But on the other side of the equation, you know, our research has shown that 42% of women owned small businesses who applied for a bank loan are being denied that.And related to that, around 90% of them are funding the business with their uh personal finances and their personal credit cards. So just making it harder to run their run their business there. Um, and that's why we've launched this Fund her Future program to help address some of that imbalance.

And so based on what you're seeing, how would you characterize the overall sentiment of small business owners right now?

Yeah, it's, it's an interesting one. So, you know, I've spoken to our tax pros who have recently engaged with um small businesses across the United States and I think there's some anxiety out there about the state of the economy.And what we're seeing in particularly with product-based businesses, you know, makers and sellers, there's uncertainty around supply costs, delays in inventory, access to supply, and what that's doing is just creating a bit of stress. They already have very thin, tight margins, and that lack of certainty is really playing on them. You know, a couple of themes we've heard is that, you know, typically, you know.Businesses across the US keep a few weeks of money for a rainy day. They're trying to build up that, that, that capability there. And I can share 11 additional statistic that I came across recently, you know, um, only 16%, excuse me, only 21% of small business owners are expecting economic conditions to improve, and that is down 16% from February. It's one ofThe biggest decreases since the pandemic so there's definitely some anxiety out there due to a lack of clarity on on how the economy willlook

and so within that and of course it's the T word that it comes back to drilling down into tariffs. How, if at all are you hearing small business owners being impacted at this juncture and how are they trying to best perhaps you know mitigate some of their vulnerability at this juncture?

Yeah, I don't have specifics on tariffs per se, but I think that's related as part of the overall economic anxiety that we're seeing and particularly on supply chains. So I just think there's that general, you know, lack of uh of, of confidence there. The other theme I've heard is a concern about pricing, you know, we've been through many years of inflation and a concern about increasing pricing.Um, if your if your costs go up, should I be increasing pricing, but they know that there's only so much that customers will bear, so it's, it's definitely on people's minds. And

so going forward, small businesses and their outlooks, what are you hearing kind of on aggregate about how they're looking through the next few months?

Yeah, I mean in the next few months, I think it's, it's caution. I think they're gonna be um uh very cautious about how they spend their money. Um, they wanna keep their customers happy, but I think there's there there's some unknowns there forsure.

And so as you're thinking about making sure that, uh, and this is where we began the conversation that women owned small businesses and operated small businesses are having the access.To the funding that is necessary as well, what are some of the constraints that you've heard about and where we should see the system actually doing more work to make sure that these businesses are insulated from shocks but also well positioned going into the future on a capital basis?

Yeah, Ithink what they're seeing is, you know, as I said before, it's loans they go to banks and they're being denied like 40% of them.In terms of solution, I think there's some wider things, but what I've talked to you about is that's what we're trying to do, we're trying to help them understand their business more. I think one of the things that, you know, women own small businesses and, and, you know, and all small businesses suffer with is.Just understanding, you know, the admin and complexity side of running their business. You know, a quote I've used a few times with my team is, you know, uh, you know, someone who just started a new bakery didn't open that bakery so he could spend Sunday afternoons doing bookkeeping.And I think, you know, understanding their business will really help them, so you know, bookkeeping, payroll and tax, you know, as, as we do that for our customers, they can start seeing their P&L for the first time, they don't understand how their money comes in, what their outgoings are and how that.Translate into translates into a P&L and understand those facts will then help them get loans and help them to go and understand the flow of the cash for their business. I think some of that um just financial education will help them as well.

Jamil, thanks so much for taking the time here with us, really appreciate it.

I appreciate it. Good to see you again. Thank you.

Coming up, another tech company just threw its hat into the AI app ring. We'll tell you whether it's worth a download next.President Trump is participating in a cabinet meeting at the White House right now addressing tariffs and the latest economic data.The president blaming today's weak GDP numbers on the Biden administration, also saying that tariffs haven't kicked in yet. Trump also saying he knows China is doing poorly right now and is saddened to hear China is getting absolutely hammered. Trump saying he hopes a trade deal with China will be made. We will continue to monitor anything from the meeting coming forth. We know that there are going to be several CEOs that are also present.At the White House as there is more of an Invest in America event taking place as well.It is time for tech support, our weekly look into all things technology, and the tech giant is jumping into the AI game. Meta launching a brand new free AI app available on both desktop and mobile that can answer written questions or generate images. Joining me now with his take is Yahoo Finance tech editor Dan Halley. So far, what exactly can this do?

Uh, well.I have it right here. Uh, I downloaded the app itself. Uh, I don't know if we can, uh, get a, get a look at, oh, there we go. Yeah. So, uh, you can kind of see it's, it's similar to what you might have with, uh, an open AI or, or Google's Gemini. Basically, it's just, you know, uh, you get an interface and then you can do things like ask it questions and ask it follow-on questions. Uh, it offers you, so you sign in with your, your, uh, Facebook or Instagram account, uh, andAsk you things like, OK, so where should I start? Let's get to know each other. It's supposed to be personalized over time so that as you use it more often, it'll give you better answers to what you have. You can also do things like play 20 questions or restyle, uh, photos. Uh, there's also a discover page where you can see things, uh, like what, what's going on. This is the papal conclave reimagined as whimsical fairy tale scene. So a lot of this so far is kind of AI slop, uh, you know, you're just kind of going through this and.I mean, I think I, I, uh, we have some pictures. One was, uh, an image of, uh, Jesus washing away the sins of Vegas. This is what it would look like if people dressed, uh, as with croissants for, uh, uh, fashion show. Uh, you know, uh, Zuckerberg obviously is seemingly some kind of Caesar-like figure, uh, a bed made out of mashed potatoes. Yeah. So this is all the, the stuff that's like flooding that Discover feed right now. Not great, not a great look out of the gate.Uh, but the idea is that this would be a, uh, uh, an AI app onto itself. So Meta talks a lot about how, you know, uh, we have a billion+ people using meta AI. It's built into Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp. So when you go to the top of the screen and you tap that search bar, I guess technically you're talking to Meta AI, but if I'm looking, you know, for someone in, uh, in, in Instagram or on Facebook, that doesn't mean I'm trying to use it as an AI. I'm just trying to use it to search for people. So this would give, I think people a better.Idea investors a better idea of what, who's using meta AI and why, um, you know, I think that the idea is that uh this has to absolutely catch on as it's, its own entity. Uh, it's, you know, it's competing with, uh, open AI. It's competing with perplexity. uh, it's competing with Google competing with Google's Gemini, uh, I guess Siri to a degree if you want to include that, but you know, this has, uh, a huge base of people all.Already built in as far as uh Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp users, they just have to make sure that this app itself does well if they really want to play in this space. The Discover feature not great obviously as I showed, uh, but you know, the, the answering questions, things like that, that is, uh, pretty impressive so far. Um, and you know, obviously you can do things like, uh, get notifications. You can go back and check your history for things that you may have been searching for or or using it for. So, you know, it's, it's, it's certainly.A means for meta to push itself further into the AI game.

I didn't have croissant fits at Fashion Week in my bingo. Yeah, neither did I, but, um, we will see all of the multiple use cases that people will find for this app here. Dan, thanks so much for breaking this down and some of the early advancements or uses here with the app. That's it for wealth, everyone. I'm Brad Smith. Thank you so much for watching. You can stay tuned for Market domination with Julie Hyman and Josh Lipton that comes up at 3 p.m. Eastern time. They we'll count you down 2.