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For years, the real estate industry had lacked the data necessary to drive informed business decisions. Data is often fragmented, incomplete, or nonexistent, making it difficult for landlords and real estate professionals to analyze trends, forecast market shifts, and optimize their operations. Our research at RentRedi showed us that 90% of our landlords previously used pen and paper or spreadsheets to manage their rental properties before adopting our software, giving them little access to helpful data.
With the adoption of centralized platforms like ours and other real estate technologies, data collection is skyrocketing. Investors, real estate agents, and property managers are adopting technologies that streamline operations, and in the process, those platforms are generating vast amounts of data that can be used to provide deep insights into market behaviors that benefit the landlords providing it. This data revolution presents an unprecedented opportunity for real estate businesses to make smarter, data-driven decisions, reduce risk, and drive growth.
By understanding where real estate data comes from, overcoming data overload, and strategically harnessing information, real estate agents and investors can significantly improve operations and drive business growth.
How to harness data and use it to your advantage
Whether you sell, buy, or manage real estate, data plays a crucial role in providing opportunities for you to make more informed decisions. Effectively utilizing real estate data can lead to improved business operations and increased profitability.
Rental property owners, for instance, can leverage data insights to increase on-time rent collection, get better tenants, minimize evictions, reduce vacancies, and streamline property maintenance. Insights can also help establish better operating procedures, such as utilizing 5-pronged tenant screening processes (comprehensive background checks, credit reports, criminal reports, eviction reports, and income and asset verification) to identify high-risk tenants or adjusting lease terms to encourage on-time payments.
Running surveys to gather customer feedback can help owners improve understanding of renters needs and what matters most to them. Real estate agents can use the feedback to enhance their communication skills, property showing process, and negotiation strategies, leading to an upgraded overall client experience, more referrals, and repeat business. Likewise, gathering tenant feedback helps property owners understand what matters most to their customers, allowing them to enhance tenant satisfaction and retention.
Finally, using a property management system that consolidates, categorizes, and analyzes data will streamline processes, and ensure easy access to critical information, so focus can remain on the most relevant metrics and trends.
Specific applications of real estate data
Rental property investors can leverage property management software to implement innovative solutions that benefit themselves and their tenants. For example, we analyze data to identify trends, providing it back in usable formats to improve real estate businesses.
Turning data from insight into actionable guidance is key. If data reveals that renters using autopay pay rent on time 99% of the timeas opposed to an 88% on-time payment rate for those who dontyou know to offer your tenants (and advise them to set up) automatic payments to avoid missed or late payments and resulting late fees and penalties.
Likewise, data may show that landlords are likely to see a 13% jump in on-time rent payments when using a credit boost feature to report on-time payments to credit bureaus, which also helps renters establish credit and raise their existing credit scores. With this information, landlords can consider offering that service to tenants. These actionable insights strengthen the landlord-tenant relationship.
Where to find data sources
To leverage data to improve your real estate business, you need to know where to find it. Real estate data comes from a wide variety of sources: from public records and market reports to proprietary databases and tenant interactions.
To effectively mine real estate data, professionals should start by identifying key data sources relevant to their operations. For example, public records, MLS listings, and property tax assessments provide valuable market insights, while customer surveys and online reviews reveal tenant and investor sentiment.
Property listings and market transactions provide data on property sales prices, listing durations, vacancy rates, and location-based demand, as well as demographic data such as neighborhood trends, population growth, and urban development. This type of data provides valuable insights into property valuation and investment opportunities.
In the rental industry, tenant applications and tenant screening provide data on income, employment history, credit scores, and rental behavior, which aids in risk assessment. Meanwhile, tracking rent payments reveals payment patterns that help landlords and property managers optimize rent collection strategies.
Building performance and maintenance logs also provide helpful data, especially IoT sensors and smart building technologies that track energy usage, maintenance needs, and occupancy trends, allowing for sustainability and cost reduction planning.
The challenges of too much data
Simply having access to this data isnt enoughits crucial to know how to extract meaningful insights from it. Data can be a powerful tool, but the sheer volume of information available can be overwhelming, particularly while simultaneously managing properties and/or growing your portfolios.
Too much data can slow decision making. Organizing, interpreting, and applying the data in beneficial ways for your businesses takes time, is difficult, and can lead to analysis paralysis if done manually. Besides, raw data is not always actionable. Thats why its important to utilize analytical tools and dashboards to translate complex datasets into visual reports that make patterns and trends easily digestible and understandable.
Final words
The growing availability of real estate data presents both challenges and opportunities. Collecting and analyzing data from diverse sources provides professionals across the real estate industryfrom landlords to large-scale developerswith the ability to make better decisions regarding investment, property improvements, and customer satisfaction.
Adopting data-driven solutions can lead to greater efficiency, improved business relationships, and increased profitability. By centralizing information, leveraging analytics, and implementing smart policies, real estate investors can harness the power of data to transform their businesses in an increasingly digital world.
Ryan Barone is cofounder and CEO of RentRedi.
The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more.
The famous computer scientist Bill Joy once said, No matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else. If you want to build something on the bleeding edge, you must have an open ecosystem that can pull in as many ideas as possible, skills and talents that exist beyond the four walls of your office building. This is the ethos of open source, the idea that the world is open for collaboration and that diverse people working together can create something beyond themselves.
Sadly, weve lost much of this ethos over the past 30 to 40 years. Even though the digital world is built upon open source, almost none of it is open for collaboration today.
Recently, open-source providers have come under fire for charging for certain open-source features. Accusations have ranged from spoiling the spirit of open source to offering loss leaders (free solutions that lock customers into APIs or networking effects that are essentially bait for higher-cost features).
To explain why this is false, I must explain how weve strayed from the original open-source ethos and why charging large enterprises for certain features is imperative to creating a sustainable path forward.
How we lost the open-source ethos
Before open source, the term free software was used. It had a sort of anti-capitalist, anti-economic bent. In the 90s, a contingent of people came in and rebranded that as open source, forming an institute called the Open Source Initiative, opening the doors to the masses.
When the internet began connecting people of all stripes and backgrounds, the open-source movement exploded. The fundamentals were simple: Anyone, anywhere could take source code, tweak it, and contribute back to the community.
Today, the notion that the computational infrastructure for the world should be open for collaborative remixing and the idea that people, whether they’re startup founders or garage coders looking to tinker and customize, can work together has been largely lost.
To prove it, simply try customizing your email or web browser. Even though these solutions are largely built using open-source code and operating systems, the second you make any change, all the DRM encryption protocols break down, rendering you unable to listen to music on Spotify or watch videos on YouTube.
The spirit of collaboration is gone
How did we lose this spirit of collaboration? Part of this shift is simply the evolving nature of software. It used to be you either uploaded or downloaded a program to your computer, and you could inspect the source code. Now, software is hosted and rendered via web browsers and user interfaces, meaning major cloud service providers can use all kinds of open-source code, but they never have to reveal it or share it with the community if they dont want to.
This isnt to finger wag. Many cloud providers contribute amazing things to the open-source community. Indeed, their solutions are open in the sense that theyre free to the public. Theyre not open in that they dont accept community contributions, and they certainly wouldnt tolerate someone taking their source code and remixing it, aka forking.
Finally, theres an existential clash between enterprises and maintainers, the volunteers responsible for overseeing open-source projects. When enterprise IT departments need something fixed, they call their vendor and work through the kinks.
You cant do that with an open-source community. Demanding work from volunteers doesnt go over well. And besides, community maintainers dont understand enterprise needsnot in the intimate way businesses need. Thats because the open-source community wasnt born in a corporate office. It was a grassroots movement of coders wanting to create powerful, novel things.
Maintaining the open-source movement requires understanding the needs of this community and the enterprises that now rely on these solutions. The solution providers that can understand both sides and thread the needle between their different needs and motivations will be the foundations of a sustainable path forward.
Protect the innovation commons
The term commons originates from economicsa kind of open resource thats shared and managed by the community. You can think of it as an Alpine pasture or a vibrant lake sustaining a village. Its precious but vulnerable.
The innovation commons is the open-source community. If someone overfishes, overgrazes, or pollutes the commons, it harms everyone else. So, its in everyones interest to protect the commons.
Open source has become increasingly expensive to sustain. For any provider, the path of least resistance is to close down the commons and sell anything valuable as a proprietary artifact. But its much more abundant to keep the commons open to as many people as possible, allowing them to benefit and contribute.
As stewards of the innovation commons, rather than trying to sell every single tree, its much better if we pick some fruit and bring it to a storefronta stand at the side of the community garden. If enterprises roll up with two-ton trucks and want to take their fill of fruit and vegetables, we can absolutely give it to them and charge money to invest back into the commons to nurse a sick tree or restore fallow ground.
From the outside, charging enterprises for certain open-source features may look like the same thing as selling loss leaders. However, there are a million unsexy but fundamental things required to maintain an open-source ecosystem. Bridging the gap between what the volunteer community can provide and what enterprises desperately need fuels these essential components of future innovations.
Asking enterprises to pay for much-needed benefits like security, optimization, and real-time notifications is not equivalent to selling them open-source solutions with bells and whistles. Its a mutually beneficial relationship that grows the innovation commons while providing targeted solutions to companies core needs.
For example, many enterprises work with older versions of Python. Tech enablers can use our expertise to apply bug fixes and security patches to these older versions, capabilities that wouldnt be possible otherwise. In turn, using those enterprise resources, we can continue shipping thousands of pieces of open source to people for free, maintaining the original spirit of open source and protecting the innovation commons.
Today, less than 1% of the world’s population can write any kind of code, but AI will bring the rest of the world along. Can you imagine the potential when the other 99% can collaborate in an open envirnment by simply using natural language or modular tools? I can. And, Im infinitely excited for what the future holds.
Peter Wang is the chief AI and innovation officer and cofounder of Anaconda.
The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more.
The way we produce and consume food is changing. Not only is the current food system a threat to our health, its also a threat to our planet. As a food producer, the challenge is clear: How do we transition toward more nutrient-dense, environmentally responsible food choices without compromising taste or accessibility?
Modern food production has often emphasized convenience, leading to highly processed products that lack substance and sustenance. However, traditional diets, such as the Mediterranean diet, offer a time-tested solution. Rooted in whole, plant-based ingredients, these diets highlight a variety of grains, legumes, and plant-based proteins that provide essential nutrients while reducing the environmental footprint of food production. By returning to these principles, we can create a more sustainable and nutritious future.
Learn from traditional diets
For centuries, Mediterranean communities have thrived on ingredients that not only support long-term health but also align with sustainable farming practices. Unlike modern industrial agriculture, which prioritizes monoculture crops and mass production, traditional food systems accentuate biodiversity and soil regeneration.
Ancient grains like buckwheat are regaining popularity for their rich nutrient profiles and minimal environmental impact. Legumes, such as chickpeas and lentils, are packed with plant-based protein, fiber, and essential minerals while also playing a crucial role in the rise of sustainable practices in modern agriculture. We need to take inspiration from these traditional approaches and champion minimally processed ingredients for the sake of human health and ecological stability.
Interestingly, many Americans report that while traveling in Italy, they experience fewer food intolerances and improved digestiondespite indulging more during their vacations. This may be attributed to Italian cuisines deep-rooted tradition and propensity toward whole, minimally processed foods and traditional dishes made with simple, high-quality ingredients.
Innovation to address modern challenges
Traditional food systems are not the sole answer to todays complex issues of food security, climate change, and health. We must also leverage technology, research, innovation, and a little bit of creativity.
The use of spirulina is the perfect example of how innovation can build on traditional principles to create more sustainable and nutrient-dense food options. Called the food of the future by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, spirulina is a blue-green algae with superfood benefits which has been consumed for centuries, providing a rich source of protein, vitamins, and minerals. What makes it especially promising for the future of food is its minimal environmental footprintit requires very little water, land, and energy to produce. It also contributes to the reduction of greenhouse gasesproduction can be carbon neutral or even carbon negative, as the growing cells sequester CO2.
Many brands are now incorporating ingredients like spirulina into their product offerings, from snacks to beverages and even in more unexpected areas like pasta. For example, at Felicia we source Italian Apulia Kundi spirulina directly from our spirulina park at the Italian headquarters, a facility dedicated to growing these precious microalgae by using the water resulting from the pasta-making process. The water is purified and reused to make the pasta, fostering a virtuous circular economy.
This type of sustainable production is a crucial step in our shared journey toward a healthier planet and population. But for innovation like this to really make an impact, it needs to happen at every stage, from food production to product design and consumer education. Creating variety in ones diet doesnt have to be complicatedit can be as simple as incorporating diverse grains, legumes, and vegetables into daily meals and building a colorful plate to delight the senses, without compromising on taste. As brands, we hold a responsibility to our consumers to create the products that make this possible.
By embracing both traditional wisdom and modern innovation, with renewed passion, creativity and care, we can reach a thriving future.
Carlo Stocco is managing director, North America at Felicia and Andriani.
President Donald Trump has abruptly fired the director of the National Security Agency, according to U.S. officials and members of Congress, but the White House and the Pentagon have provided no reasons for the move.
Senior military leaders were informed Thursday of the firing of Air Force Gen. Tim Haugh, who also oversaw the Pentagons Cyber Command, the officials said. They received no advance notice about the decision to remove a four-star general with a 33-year career in intelligence and cyber operations, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel decisions.
The move has triggered sharp criticism from members of Congress and demands for an immediate explanation. And it marks the latest dismissal of national security officials by Trump at a time when his Republican administration faces criticism over his failure to take any action against other key leaders’ use of an unclassified Signal messaging chat that included The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to discuss plans for a military strike.
It’s unclear who now is in charge of the NSA and the Cyber Command.
Also fired was Haugh’s civilian deputy at the NSA, Wendy Noble.
The NSA notified congressional leadership and top lawmakers of the national security committees of the firing late Wednesday but did not give reasons, according to a person familiar with the situation who insisted on anonymity to discuss the matter. The person said Noble has been reassigned to the office of the defense undersecretary for intelligence.
The White House did not respond to messages seeking comment. The NSA referred questions about Haugh to the Defense Department, which had no comment Friday.
Far-right activist and commentator Laura Loomer appeared to take credit Friday in a post on X, saying she raised concerns to Trump about Haughs ties to Gen. Mark Milley and the Biden administration and questioned the NSA chief’s loyalty to the president. Milley served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during Trumps first term but has since become an outspoken critic.
Given the fact that the NSA is arguably the most powerful intel agency in the world, we cannot allow for a Biden nominee to hold that position, Loomer wrote. Thank you, President Trump for being receptive to the vetting materials provided to you and thank you for firing these Biden holdovers.
Loomer, who has claimed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were an inside job, had discussed staff loyalty with Trump in an Oval Office meeting Wednesday, according to several people familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive personnel manner. A day later, Trump said he fired some White House National Security Council officials.
Rep. Jim Himes, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, sent a letter to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth demanding to know why Haugh and Noble were fired.
Public reporting suggests that your removal of these officials was driven by a fringe social media personality, which represents a deeply troubling breach of the norms that safeguard our national security apparatus from political pressure and conspiracy theories, Himes, D-Conn., wrote.
Sen. Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island, said Friday that he has long warned about the dangers of firing military officers as a political loyalty test.
“In addition to the other military leaders and national security officials Trump has fired, he is sending a chilling message throughout the ranks: dont give your best military advice, or you may face consequences, Reed said in a statement.
He added that Trump has given a priceless gift to China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea by purging competence from our national security leadership.
Another Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the U.S. was facing unprecedented cyber threats and asked how firing Haugh, who has served in the military for more than 30 years, makes America safer.
Haugh’s firing sets off a 60-day process. Unless he is moved to another three- or four-star job in 60 days he would automatically revert to a two-star.
Any new high-level job would be unlikely since that would require a nomination from Trump, who just fired him. As a result, Haugh, who was confirmed for the NSA job in a unanimous Senate vote in December 2023, would likely retire.
Trump hasn’t commented on Haugh or Noble, but on Thursday he dismissed the National Security Council firings as normal.
Always were letting go of people, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he made his way to Miami on Thursday afternoon. People that we dont like or people that we dont think can do the job or people that may have loyalties to somebody else.
The firings come as Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, fights calls for his ouster after using the publicly available encrypted Signal app to discuss planning for a sensitive March 15 military operation targeting Houthi militants in Yemen.
Warner called it astonishing that Trump “would fire the nonpartisan, experienced leader of the National Security Agency while still failing to hold any member of his team accountable for leaking classified information on a commercial messaging app even as he apparently takes staffing direction on national security from a discredited conspiracy theorist in the Oval Office.
Haugh met last month with Elon Musk, whose Department of Government Efficiency has roiled the federal government by slashing personnel and budgets at dozens of agencies. In a statement, the NSA said the meeting was intended to ensure both organizations are aligned with the new administrations priorities.
Haugh had led both the NSA and Cyber Command since 2023. Both departments play leading roles in the nations cybersecurity. The NSA also supports the military and other national security agencies by collecting and analyzing a vast amount of data and information globally.
Cyber Command is known as Americas first line of defense in cyberspace and also plans offensive cyberoperations for potential use against adversaries.
Lolita C. Baldor and Lisa Mascaro, Associated Press
Associated Press writers Matthew Lee, Aamer Madhani, Zeke Miller, David Klepper, and Lou Kesten contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump announced extensive tariffs on April 2, with the possibility to dramatically change costs of essential everyday items for American consumers. He has unveiled tariffs for 60 countries including Cambodia, Vietnam, China, and the European Union, which he deemed the “worst offenders” when it comes to trade imbalances.
Here are five types of items that may see price increases over the next few months as a result.
Gas
The U.S.s primary source of natural gas imports is Canada, and though Trump announced a lower tariff of 10% for Canadian energy imports, consumers are likely to still feel the effects. In 2022, 99% of the U.S.s total natural gas imports were from Canada.
These tariffs may lead to increased heating costs and gas pump prices. Scott Lincicome, vice president of general economics and trade at the Cato Institute, predicted that consumers will see an increase of 10 to 20 cents per gallon with the 10% tariff on Canadian crude oil, according to NPR.
Electronics
It might not be the best time to invest in that new smartphone. In 2024, China, Taiwan, and Vietnam were the top three exporters of laptops and tablets to the U.S. Now, they’re some of the countries most taxed by the new tariff. Almost all consumer electronics are likely to see price hikes as a result.
These impacted products also include lithium-ion batteries and video game consoles. A Nintendo representative told CNBC that pre-orders for the widely-anticipated Nintendo Switch 2 would be delayed to an indeterminate date due to tariff concerns.
Toys
The increase in costs are not limited to smartphones and tablets. Ed Brzytwa, vice president for international trade at the Consumer Technology Association, estimates that toys made in China will likely cost consumers at least 30% more than their current price, according to CNN. These toys account for close to 77% of all toys sold in the U.S., and they are all about to face the upcoming 54% tariff.
Cars
A 25% tariff on finished cars took effect on April 3, and a 25% tariff on car parts is set to take effect by May 3 latest. Mexico is the seventh-largest passenger vehicle manufacturer in the world, and close to 76% of its exports go to the U.S.
In a 21-page analysis obtained by AP, economist Art Laffer estimates that fully implemented tariffs could increase per-vehicle costs by close to $4,711.
A 25% tariff would not only shrink, or possibly eliminate, profit margins for U.S. manufacturers but also weaken their ability to compete with international rivals, Laffer writes in the analysis.
Apparel
China and Vietnam, two of the most impacted by the tariffs, are also two of the top sources of foreign-made clothes for U.S. consumers, shipping close to $14 billion worth of clothing to the U.S. in 2024.
Even customers of fast fashion and internet-famous online retailers like Shein, Temu, and AliExpress will take a hit. Beginning on May 2, the 54% tariff will apply to packages worth less than $800 coming from China and Hong Kong, which will include packages from these online retailers.
These five categories make up only a portion of imported goods. Tariffs will continue to take effect over the next few months, possibly triggering an economic slowdown and increasing prices for American consumers as a whole.
Wall Streets worst crisis since COVID slammed into a higher gear Friday.
The S&P 500 lost 6% after China matched President Donald Trumps big raise in tariffs announced earlier this week. The move increased the stakes in a trade war that could end with a recession that hurts everyone. Not even a better-than-expected report on the U.S. job market, which is usually the economic highlight of each month, was enough to stop the slide.
The drop closed the worst week for the S&P 500 since March 2020, when the pandemic ripped through the global economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 2,231 points, or 5.5% Friday, and the Nasdaq composite tumbled 5.8% to pull more than 20% below its record set in December.
So far, there have been few, if any, winners in financial markets from the trade war. Stocks for all but 14 of the 500 companies within the S&P 500 index fell Friday. The price of crude oil tumbled to its lowest level since 2021. Other basic building blocks for economic growth, such as copper, also saw prices slide on worries the trade war will weaken the global economy.
Chinas response to U.S. tariffs caused an immediate acceleration of losses in markets worldwide. The Commerce Ministry in Beijing said it would respond to the 34% tariffs imposed by the U.S. on imports from China with its own 34% tariff on imports of all U.S. products beginning April 10. The United States and China are the worlds two largest economies.
Markets briefly recovered some of their losses after the release of Friday mornings U.S. jobs report, which said employers accelerated their hiring by more last month than economists expected. Its the latest signal that the U.S. job market has remained relatively solid through the start of 2025, and its been a linchpin keeping the U.S. economy out of a recession.
But that jobs data was backward looking, and the fear hitting financial markets is about whats to come.
The world has changed, and the economic conditions have changed, said Rick Rieder, chief investment officer of global fixed income at BlackRock.
The central question looking ahead is: Will the trade war cause a global recession? If it does, stock prices may need to come down even more than they have already. The S&P 500 is down 17.4% from its record set in February.
Trump seemed unfazed. From Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Florida, he headed to his golf course a few miles away after writing on social media that THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO GET RICH.
The Federal Reserve could cushion the blow of tariffs on the economy by cutting interest rates, which can encourage companies and households to borrow and spend. But the Fed may have less freedom to move than it would like.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell said Friday that tariffs could drive up expectations for inflation. That could prove more damaging than high inflation itself, because it can drive a vicious cycle of behavior that only worsens inflation. U.S. households have already said theyre bracing for sharp increases to their bills.
Our obligation is to keep longer-term inflation expectations well anchored and to make certain that a one-time increase in the price level does not become an ongoing inflation problem, Powell said.
That could indicate a hesitance to cut rates because lower rates can give inflation more fuel.
Much will depend on how long Trumps tariffs stick and what kind of retaliations other countries deliver. Some of Wall Street is holding onto hope that Trump will lower the tariffs after prying wins from other countries following negotiations.
Trump has given mixed signals on that. On Friday, he said Vietnam wants to cut their Tariffs down to ZERO if they are able to make an agreement with the U.S. Trump also criticized Chinas retaliation, saying on his Truth Social platform that CHINA PLAYED IT WRONG, THEY PANICKED – THE ONE THING THEY CANNOT AFFORD TO DO!
Trump has said Americans may feel some pain because of tariffs, but he has also said the long-term goals, including getting more manufacturing jobs back to the United States, are worth it. On Thursday, he likened the situation to a medical operation, where the U.S. economy is the patient.
For investors looking at their portfolios, it could have felt like an operation performed without anesthesia, said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management.
But Jacobsen also said the next surprise for investors could be how quickly tariffs get negotiated down. The speed of recovery will depend on how, and how quickly, officials negotiate, he said.
On Wall Street, stocks of companies that do lots of business in China fell to some of the sharpest losses.
DuPont dropped 12.7% after China said its regulators are launching an anti-trust investigation into DuPont China group, a subsidiary of the chemical giant. Its one of several measures targeting American companies and in retaliation for the U.S. tariffs.
GE Healthcare got 12% of its revenue last year from the China region, and it fell 16%.
All told, the S&P 500 fell 322.44 points to 5,074.08. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 2,231.07 to 38,314.86, and the Nasdaq composite fell 962.82 to 15,587.79.
In stock markets abroad, Germanys DAX lost 5%, Frances CAC 40 dropped 4.3% and Japans Nikkei 225 fell 2.8%.
In the bond market, Treasury yields fell, but they pared their drops following Powells cautious statements about inflation. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.01% from 4.06% late Thursday and from roughly 4.80% early this year. It had gone below 3.90% in the morning.
Stan Choe, Associated Press business writer
AP Writers Jiang Junzhe, Huizhong Wu, and Matt Ott contributed.
Over the past few years, the job market has remained relatively strong despite rising inflation and other economic headwinds. Even amid ongoing cuts to the federal workforce, the jobs report released today offered a more optimistic outlook than many economists had anticipated: In March, employers added about 228,000 jobs, far exceeding the monthly average of 158,000 jobs over the last year. The number of hours worked each week also remained steady last month, as did hourly wage growth.
President Trump was quick to take credit for the job growth captured by the report. But the celebratory mood has been dampened as the administration’s long-awaited (and unprecedentedly high) global tariffs take effectand financial markets are already feeling the impact. Many experts have already noted that the latest jobs numbers may have little bearing on how the market will actually fare in the coming monthsand what the effect could be on employers and workers. As one economist told the New York Times: What we are really seeing is the calm before the storm.”
The impact of tariffs already
The fallout from Trumps tariffs is already well underway. Global markets have taken a significant hit, dropping to levels that havent been seen since the height of the pandemic in 2020. Economists have warned that the tariffs are more extreme than those imposed by the famed 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which is believed to have exacerbated the Great Depression.
“Today was the worst stock market experience in five years,” renowned economist and former treasury secretary Lawrence Summers wrote on Thursday, as part of a series of posts on X. “Usually when you have a terrible stock market experience, it’s because a bank fails, a pandemic, a hurricane, or because some other country does something. We don’t have these kinds of stock market responses in response to policies that the president of the United States is proud of. That is something that is entirely without precedent. It is extremely dangerous.”
How higher prices might affect hiring
While tariffs are usually intended to be a source of revenue for the federal government, research shows that the effects are typically shouldered by consumers and businesses. As the tariffs lead to higher prices for both parties, experts say companies will likely pull back on hiring and eventually resort to layoffs to cut costs.
The Trump administration has argued that while tariffs may drive up prices, they will also help fuel job creation stateside, particularly across manufacturing. While that could be true to some extent, those gains could be outweighed by other job lossesor the increased use of automation to mitigate costs for companies.
When analyzing the impact of tariffs levied during Trump’s first term, some economists found that manufacturing employment remained more or less unchanged; in other industries like agriculture, however, tariffs catalyzed job losses. Others have argued that manufacturing employment actually dropped overall, despite modest gains in job creation across the steel industry.
How business leaders are preparing
Still, economists of all stripes seem concerned about the potential repercussions of the sweeping new tariffs introduced by the Trump administration. There’s already evidence that companies are being more cautious: In March, a survey of chief financial officers found that one in four companies were cutting back on hiring and making changes to their capital spending plans for 2025, in anticipation of Trump’s tariffs.
Nearly a third of the 400 companies who were surveyed had cited trade policy and tariffsas well as the uncertainty around themas a source of anxiety. The tariffs were also the number-one business concern among chief financial officers in the first quarter of 2025.
Even industries that are not directly impacted by the tariffs could take a financial hit if consumers are spending less overall, which in turn could trickle down to workers. The uncertainty associated with tariffs could lead more companies to pause hiring.
While the labor market has largely been stable, it has still cooled over the past few yearsmaking it less resilient to unpredictable forces like the tariffs. Employers have, for the most part, wrested control from workers in the aftermath of the pandemic, especially as they have imposed strict return to work mandates and tightened their budgets.
Layoffs might have plateaued to some extent, but companies have also not been adding as many jobs. Many workers have reported finding it more difficult to land a new job. In January, data from the Labor Department indicated that it was taking longer for people who were unemployed or laid off to find new work. As Trump’s tariffs continue to send shock waves across the business world, workers likely need to brace themselves for yet another period of upheaval in the job market.
After Trump administration job cuts, nearly half of National Weather Service forecast offices have 20% vacancy rates twice that of just a decade ago as severe weather chugs across the nation’s heartland, according to data obtained by The Associated Press.
Detailed vacancy data for all 122 weather field offices show eight offices are missing more than 35% of their staff including those in Arkansas and Kentucky where tornadoes and torrential rain hit this week according to statistics crowd-sourced by more than a dozen National Weather Service employees. Experts said vacancy rates of 20% or higher amount to critical understaffing, and 55 of the 122 sites reach that level.
The weather offices issue routine daily forecasts, but also urgent up-to-the-minute warnings during dangerous storm outbreaks such as the tornadoes that killed seven people this week and catastrophic flooding that’s continuing through the weekend. The weather service this week has logged at least 75 tornado and 1,277 severe weather preliminary reports.
Because of staffing shortages and continued severe weather, meteorologists at the Louisville office were unable to survey tornado damage Thursday, which is traditionally done immediately to help improve future forecasts and warnings, the local weather office told local media in Kentucky. Meteorologists there had to chose between gathering information that will help in the future and warning about immediate danger.
It’s a crisis situation, said Brad Coleman, a past president of the American Meteorological Society who used to be the meteorologist in charge of the weather service’s Seattle office and is now a private meteorologist. I am deeply concerned that we will inevitably lose lives as a result of the added risk due to this short-staffing.
Former National Weather Service chief Louis Uccellini said if the numbers are right, it’s trouble.
No one can predict when any office gets stretched so thin that it will break, but these numbers would indicate that several of them are there or getting close, especially when you factor that large segments of the country are facing oncoming threats of severe weather, flooding rains while others are facing ominous significant fire risks, Uccellini said in an email.
The vacancy numbers were compiled in an informal but comprehensive effort by weather service workers after the cuts spearheaded by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. They checked on individual office staffing levels and looked at how they compared to the past. Staffing levels, including vacancies, are detailed and cross-referenced by offices, regions, positions and past trends, with special notes on whether efforts are being made to fill them.
The AP, after obtaining the list from a source outside the weather service, sought to verify the numbers by calling individual weather offices, checking online staff lists and interviewing other employees not involved in the data-gathering effort. The workers’ data sometimes varied slightly from data shown on weather service websites, though employees said those could be out of date.
Rep. Eric Sorensen, an Illinois Democrat and the only meteorologist in Congress, said his office independently obtained the data and he verified parts of it with weather professionals he knows in Midwestern weather service offices, which are called WFOs. The Davenport-Quad Cities office near his home has a 37.5% vacancy rate.
Theyre doing heroic effort. Just with what happened the other day with the tornado outbreak, the killer tornado outbreak, I saw incredible work being done by the WFOs down around Memphis and up to Louisville. Incredible work that saved peoples lives, Sorensen told the AP on Friday. Going forward with these types of cuts, we cant guarantee that people are going to be as safe as they were.
I’m incredibly concerned because this affects everyone in every part of the country, Sorensen said, noting the potential for severe storms Friday in House Speaker Mike Johnson’s home district near Shreveport, Louisiana, where the data shows a 13% vacancy rate, well below the average for the south and the rest of the country.
The employees’ data, which goes back to 2015, showed that in March 2015 the overall vacancy rate was 9.3%. Ten years later, as of March 21, it was 19%.
The weather service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Some northern and central stations such as Rapid City, South Dakota, with a 41.7% vacancy rate, Albany, New York, at 25%, Portland, Maine, at 26.1% and Omaha, Nebraska at 34.8% have been so short-staffed that they’ve curtailed weather balloon launches that said provide vital observations for accurate forecasts.
The vacancies go beyond meteorologists who do forecasts. Twenty-three offices are without the meteorologist-in-charge who oversees the office. Sixteen have vacancies in the crucial warning coordination meteorologist job which makes sure emergency officials and the public prepare for oncoming weather disasters. The Houston office, with a 30% vacancy rate, is missing both those top positions, according to the data and the office’s own website.
Houston has so much damage from flooding, hurricanes and even a derecho that their (damage) numbers are through the roof, said Bernadette Woods Placky, chief meteorologist for Climate Central and a former television meteorologist.
The National Weather Service employees are still going to do everything they can to keep people safe and prepared. Its just that much harder and it puts lives at risk, Placky said. This time of the year and in this situation, this is when severe weather season peaks and were heading into the season of the biggest extremes with wildfires, with hurricanes, with extreme heat, which is our deadliest of all of extreme weathers.
One weather service field office chief, who asked not to be identified because of fears of job loss, said the lack of technicians to fix radar and other needed equipment could be critically dangerous.
People are bending over backwards to cope with the lack of staffing, the chief meteorologist said. The burden is going to kill us.”
Northern Illinois atmospheric sciences professor Victor Gensini and others compared being stretched thin to cracks in aviation safety.
“The question becomes, what falls through the cracks because theyre busy doing other things or theyre short-staffed,” Gensini said. Maybe they cant answer the phone to take a critical weather report thats coming in. Maybe theres so many storms in the counties that theyre responsible for that they cant physically issue warnings for every single storm because they dont have enough people working on the radar.
These are all theoretical concerns, but its sort of like when you read about aircraft disasters and how they occur, Gensini said. Its the cascading of risk, right? Its the compounding, like the pilot was tired. The pilot missed the cue.
Seth Borenstein, AP science writer
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March is kind of a wild month its got a little bit of everything. At first glance, Womens History Month and March Madness might feel like an odd pairing, but lately, they actually go hand in hand. Thanks to the Caitlin Clark effect (you know the one), womens college basketball has been booming. In fact, in 2024, the womens NCAA championship game drew more viewers than the mens for the first time ever. Will that momentum keep going this year? Were about to find out. The Final Four is here, and UCLA, South Carolina, Texas, and UConn are all ready to bring it. Heres what you need to know and how to catch every minute of the action.
When and where is the Womens Final Four?
The action is taking place at the Amalie Arena in Tampa, Florida. Friday, April 4 is game day. First, the South Carolina Gamecocks and Texas Longhorns will battle it out at 7 p.m. ET. Then the UCLA Bruin will face the UConn Huskies for the remaining spot in the championship game at 9:30 p.m. ET.
Players and coaches to watch
As the defending champion, South Carolina, wants back-to-back titles. Head coach Dawn Staleys roster is a mix of developmental talent and experienced players which may prove to be a deadly weapon. Joyce Edwards, Chloe Kitts and MiLaysia Fulwiley are eager to prove themselves on the national stage. Sometimes you dont need a household-name superstar to win it all.Madison Booker and the Texas Longhorns want to stop this crew. The team hasnt seen the Final Four since 2003. The organization only has a single championship under its belt.Lauren Betts started her college basketball career at Stanford but left to become a Bruin after freshman year. Shes an imposing figure to guard at six feet seven inches. Led by coach Cori Close, this is the first time UCLA has been in the Final Four since 1979 which was before the NCAA sponsored women’s basketball. The team is hopeful the party doesnt stop here but not if Paige Bueckers has anything to say about it.One could argue Bueckers has filled the void left by Clark at the collegiate level. If shes successful in the Final Four she will have the opportunity to surpass her predecessor by winning a national championship. This UConn Guard wants to help her team go all the way especially since the organization has not accomplished this feat since 2016.
How to tune in
Traditional cable subscribers can tune into ESPN to watch all the free throws and three-pointers. Those who cut the cord can turn to a live television streaming service that carries ESPN such as Hulu + Live TV, Sling TV, Fubo, YouTube TV, or DirecTV Stream.
Both Final Four games are evenly matched with no clear front-runners so the competition is sure to be fierce.
An overlooked executive order, crowded out by the administrations new tariff schedule, could have big implications for relatively small imports. On Wednesday, Trump signed an executive order that ended de minimis treatment for small or low-value Chinese imports.
That’s as Trumps team is pushing ahead to close the trade loophole that has allowed certain goods from China to dodge tariffs. Trump had previously suspended the loophole in February and tasked the Commerce Department with putting together a more comprehensive plan. Now that the loophole is closed, there could be many implications for Chinese retailers that specialize in selling inexpensive goods to American consumerscompanies like Temu or Shein.
Here’s what to know.
What is de minimis?
Under previous standards, imports with values of less than $800 were granted de minimis exemptions from tariffs. Effectively, that meant that companies specializing in selling cheap goods to American consumers could avoid existing tariffs and added duties.
The phrase de minimis is Latin, and loosely translates to minimal things. As it relates to tariffs, it basically boils down to a translation of, tariffs dont apply to relatively small imports.
The de minimis rule had existed under U.S. tax law, but small shipments and imports utilizing the loophole have increased significantly in recent years, which caught the attention of regulatorsand Trump. In fact, the number of shipments has more than doubled since 2018.
Trumps executive order claims that the loopholes closure has to do with imports of drugs or drug-producing compounds. President Trump is targeting deceptive shipping practices by Chinese-based shippers, many of whom hide illicit substances, including synthetic opioids, in low-value packages to exploit the de minimis exemption, the White House said.
What does it mean for consumers?
Closing the loophole likely means higher prices for American consumers, and a potential knockout blow to Chinese retailers who have exploited the loophole in recent years.
That could potentially make American retailers more competitive. Forever 21, which recently filed for bankruptcy protection and announced that it was closing all of its U.S. stores, blamed part of its faltering on Chinese rivals like Shein and Temu.
So the trade-off appears to be that American retailers may be more competitive, but that consumers will likely pay higher prices.
