U.S. home sales sank sharply in January as high prices, limited supply and weakening consumer confidence kept buyers on the sidelines, prompting the National Association of Realtors to warn of “a new housing crisis.” Sales of previously owned homes fell 8.4% from December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.91 million, the slowest pace since December 2023 and the largest monthly drop since February 2022. Transactions were 4.4% below January 2025, even as the average 30‑year fixed mortgage rate hovered and then eased slightly to 6.1% in January, according to Mortgage News Daily. NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun said affordability has improved to its best level since March 2022 as wage gains outpace price growth and mortgage rates sit below year‑ago levels, but he stressed that buyers are “still struggling” and that renters are “not participating in housing wealth,” leaving “Americans… stuck.”

Underlying market dynamics continue to favor existing homeowners, with tight inventory and record January prices underscoring the imbalance between supply and demand. The number of homes for sale slipped from December but remained 3.4% higher than a year earlier at 1.22 million, equal to a 3.7‑month supply, well short of the six months considered a balanced market. The median existing home price rose 0.9% year over year to $396,800, the highest level ever recorded for January, and Yun estimated that a typical homeowner has gained $130,500 in housing wealth since January 2020. Homes are taking longer to sell, averaging 46 days on the market versus 41 a year earlier, while first‑time buyers made up 31% of sales and demand was strongest for properties priced above $1 million, with the steepest declines in homes below $250,000 and in the South and West.

Leading researchers and employees at major AI labs, including OpenAI and Anthropic, are publicly warning that rapidly advancing AI systems pose growing risks, even as many of them exit their roles over ethical concerns. An Anthropic researcher announced he was leaving the company, partly to write poetry about “the place we find ourselves,” while an OpenAI researcher also departed, citing ethical issues. Another OpenAI employee, Hieu Pham, wrote that he now “finally feel[s] the existential threat that AI is posing,” highlighting rising unease among insiders. Tech investor Jason Calacanis noted he has “never seen so many technologists state their concerns so strongly,” and entrepreneur Matt Shumer’s viral post likening this moment to the eve of the pandemic drew roughly 40 million views by warning AI could fundamentally reshape jobs and daily life.

Even as many inside these companies remain optimistic they can deploy AI without causing widespread harm or mass job loss, their own research and structural decisions underscore the technology’s potential dangers. Anthropic’s recently published “sabotage report” found that, while the probability is low, AI could be misused to facilitate serious crimes, including the creation of chemical weapons, if left unchecked. At the same time, OpenAI dismantled its mission alignment team, which had been tasked with ensuring artificial general intelligence would benefit humanity, raising further questions about governance. New evidence that models can build and iteratively improve complex products on their own — such as OpenAI’s latest system helping to train itself and Anthropic’s Cowork tool effectively “building itself” — has intensified fears that disruption across sectors like software and legal services is arriving faster and more broadly than policymakers in Washington appear to recognize.

The Congressional Budget Office projected that the U.S. budget deficit will stay elevated and then widen over the next decade as interest payments on the national debt consume a growing share of federal spending. The deficit is forecast at 1.85 trillion dollars, or 5.8% of gross domestic product, in the current fiscal year ending Sept. 30, with the government spending about 1.33 dollars for every dollar it collects in taxes and tariffs. Debt held by the public is expected to exceed 100% of GDP this year and surpass the post–World War II record by 2030, while annual deficits are projected to top 3 trillion dollars, or 6.7% of GDP, by 2036. CBO Director Phillip Swagel said the projections show the fiscal trajectory is “not sustainable,” warning that high and rising debt could crowd out private investment, send more money to foreign debtholders and make the economy more vulnerable to higher interest rates.

The report highlights how policy choices under President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans are shaping the outlook, including a recently enacted tax-cut law that the CBO says will add 4.7 trillion dollars to deficits through 2035 compared with allowing earlier tax cuts to expire. The analysis also notes that Trump’s higher tariffs will reduce deficits by 3 trillion dollars over the decade, while tighter immigration policies will add 500 billion dollars to deficits because lost tax revenue outweighs savings on benefits. Entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid remain the largest long-term drivers of federal spending, with recent Medicaid limits and work requirements factored into the forecast. Republicans including House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington argue the CBO underestimates growth from “pro-growth policies,” while Democrats such as Sen. Jeff Merkley criticize the tax law as foisting an “overwhelming amount of debt” on future generations.

Instagram chief executive Adam Mosseri testified in a closely watched California trial that social media use is not “clinically addictive,” pushing back on claims that Meta designed Instagram to hook young users at the expense of their mental health. Mosseri, 43, told the jury that Instagram is a steward of strong safety protocols for teenagers, saying the company carefully tests youth-focused features before releasing them and strives to “be as safe as possible and censor as little as possible.” He acknowledged that people can become engrossed in social media much like with a good television show but argued that does not meet the threshold of clinical addiction. The case, brought by a 20-year-old California woman identified as K.G.M. (Kaley), is the first major “tech addiction” lawsuit to reach trial and could open the door to significant damages and design changes for Instagram, YouTube and other platforms if she prevails.

K.G.M. sued YouTube, TikTok, Snap and Meta in 2023, alleging the companies engineered features such as infinite scroll and beauty filters to create compulsive use that contributed to her body dysmorphia, anxiety and depression. Her lawyer, Mark Lanier, compared the apps to “digital casinos” and highlighted internal documents likening the platforms to gambling and Big Tobacco, while also grilling Mosseri over his stock compensation and Meta’s shift from “Move fast and break things” to a new mantra, “Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.” Lanier presented 2019 internal messages in which Meta executive Nick Clegg warned Mosseri that lifting a ban on plastic-surgery-style beauty filters would lead to accusations the company was putting “growth over responsibility”; Mosseri and Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg ultimately reversed the ban. Meta’s lawyers countered that K.G.M.’s mental health struggles stemmed from family abuse and turmoil rather than social media, and Mosseri pointed to newer safeguards such as restricting adult-rated content for teens and muting nighttime notifications, as a packed courtroom of parents, child-safety advocates and policy groups watched the opening days of a trial that could reshape the industry’s legal exposure.

The U.S. economy added 130,000 jobs in January, far exceeding economists’ expectations of 70,000 and offering a tentative sign of stabilization after a year of weak labor-market gains. The unemployment rate edged down to 4.3% from 4.4%, while job growth was concentrated in health care, social assistance and construction, and federal government and financial activities shed jobs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said health care was the largest driver of January gains, adding 82,000 positions and remaining a key source of hiring over the past year. Manufacturing, a sector targeted for expansion by President Donald Trump, showed “little change” overall but added 5,000 factory jobs, its first monthly increase since January 2024 and a positive surprise compared with expectations for a decline.

Revised federal data painted a far weaker picture for 2025, showing the economy added just 181,000 jobs for the entire year, down sharply from the previously reported 584,000 and far below the 1.46 million jobs created in 2024. The BLS also subtracted 862,000 jobs from March 2024 through March 2025 as part of its annual benchmark revisions, making 2025 the worst year for hiring since 2020, or since 2003 outside a recession. The revisions revealed that employment actually contracted in four months of 2025—January, June, August and October—underscoring how much the labor market has cooled, a trend Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell had flagged by suggesting earlier figures overstated job growth by about 60,000 a month. The report complicates the economic message for Trump and Republicans ahead of the 2026 midterms, as consumer sentiment remains weak and investors interpret the mixed signals as evidence of a cooling but still-adjusting labor market, with futures markets now seeing little chance of an interest-rate cut before July.​

Financial Trends: Annual guidance points to fiscal 2026 revenue of about $10.5 billion and EPS around the high‑$3 range, reinforcing a double‑digit growth profile but with modest estimate revisions that heighten sensitivity to any guidance change.

Strategic Initiatives: Investors should watch execution on the platformization strategy, including consolidation onto Cortex/XSIAM and Prisma‑branded cloud and SASE offerings, as management pushes larger platform deals over point products.

Key Metrics: Focus on total revenue and next‑gen security ARR, billings growth, RPO, and operating margin, along with updated full‑year revenue and EPS guidance versus the current $10.5 billion and $3.80–$3.90 targets.

Progress: Recent quarters have shown solid double‑digit revenue and EPS growth with improving profitability and traction in AI‑driven security operations, suggesting measurable progress toward multi‑year scaling goals.

Focus Areas: Expect questions on large deal velocity, consolidation win‑rates, AI security monetization, and how demand trends in enterprise and cloud spending are shaping the updated fiscal 2026 outlook.

Risks Potential: Slower IT security budgets, elongated deal cycles, or intensified platform competition from other large vendors could pressure billings and force more conservative guidance.

Concerns: Any sign of decelerating billings, weaker next‑gen ARR, or a guidance reset versus the current $10.5 billion revenue and high‑$3 EPS framework could revive worries about saturation and pricing pressure.

Market Trends: Enterprise security buying is tilting toward integrated platforms and AI‑enhanced threat detection, so sentiment will hinge on how convincingly Palo Alto shows it can capture consolidation and AI‑driven spend.

Financial Trends: Street models imply robust multi‑year revenue growth from roughly $10.7 billion in 2024 toward the mid‑teens billions by 2026 with sharply rising profitability, so any shift in the long‑term growth or margin glide path will be pivotal.

Strategic Initiatives: Investors should track progress in international expansion (including Wolt and Deliveroo), grocery and convenience, and product/AI enhancements that deepen the marketplace and expand DoorDash’s role in local commerce.

Key Metrics: Watch Gross Order Value, revenue, EBITDA, and EPS versus consensus (about $3.99 billion revenue and high‑50‑cent EPS for Q4), as well as trends in DashPass subscribers and order frequency.

Progress: The company has been delivering strong double‑digit revenue growth with rapidly scaling EBITDA and net income, demonstrating operating leverage as newer verticals and international markets mature.

Focus Areas: Expect heavy focus on unit economics by cohort, contribution margin in newer geographies and categories, and whether management signals any moderation in growth investments to support margin expansion.

Risks Potential: Macro pressure on consumer spending, intensifying competition in food delivery and retail logistics, and regulatory or labor changes around gig‑worker classification could all weigh on volume or raise costs.

Concerns: With the stock reacting sharply to growth scares, any miss on GOV or revenue, slower subscription growth, or cautious 2026 profitability commentary could reinforce fears that growth is normalizing faster than expected.

Market Trends: Broader e‑commerce and on‑demand delivery remain on a structural uptrend, but investors are rotating toward profitable growth, making sustainable margins and cash generation crucial for sentiment.

Financial Trends: Management has been guiding to roughly 5% net sales growth and similar mid‑single‑digit adjusted operating income growth for fiscal 2026, with EPS expectations in the low‑to‑mid‑$2.60s anchoring a steady compounder profile.

Strategic Initiatives: Investors should monitor execution in e‑commerce, marketplace expansion, advertising (Walmart Connect and Vizio), and automation/AI across supply chain and stores as key levers for margin and traffic.

Key Metrics: Focus on total and e‑commerce sales growth, traffic and ticket, operating margin, advertising revenue growth, and updated full‑year guidance relative to the current 4.8%–5.1% net sales and 4.8%–5.5% operating income outlook.

Progress: Recent quarters have shown accelerating e‑commerce (high‑20% growth) and strong advertising gains, supporting incremental margin improvement and repeated raises to the annual outlook.

Focus Areas: Expect debate on mix between higher‑income and value‑oriented customers, pricing and promo strategies in a disinflationary environment, and the pace of marketplace and advertising scaling.

Risks Potential: A weaker consumer, food and general merchandise deflation, or competitive pricing pressure could compress margins and limit upside to current sales and profit targets.

Concerns: Any slowdown in e‑commerce or advertising growth, or signs that automation and tech investments are not yet driving expected productivity, could renew skepticism about longer‑term margin expansion.

Market Trends: As retail shifts toward omnichannel, marketplace models, and retail media, Walmart’s ability to convert its scale and traffic into higher‑margin digital and ad dollars will heavily influence how the stock trades on results.

From a young age, Evan was fascinated by the stock market. At just 11 years old, he received a Wall Street Journal subscription for his birthday, sparking a lifelong passion for investing. Evan spent his formative years studying the strategies and philosophies of legendary investors like Paul Tudor Jones, Stanley Druckenmiller, and George Soros, absorbing their wisdom and developing his own unique approach to the markets.

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