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Expedia Group said Friday that reduced travel demand in the United States led to its weaker-than-expected revenue in the first quarter.

Expedia, which owns the lodging reservation platforms Hotels.com and VRBO as well as an eponymous online travel agency, was the latest American company to report slowing business with both international visitors and domestic travelers.

Airbnb and Hilton noted the same trends last week in their quarterly earnings reports. Most major U.S. airlines pulled their full-year financial guidance in April and said they planned to reduce scheduled flights, citing an ebb in economy passengers booking leisure trips.

The U.S. Travel Association has said that economic uncertainty and anxiety over President Donald Trump’s tariffs may explain the pullback. In April, Americans’ confidence in the economy slumped for a fifth straight month to the lowest level since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Abroad, anger about the tariffs as well as concern about tourist detentions at the U.S. border have made citizens of some other countries less interested in traveling to the U.S., tourism industry experts say.

The U.S. government said last month that 7.1 million visitors entered the U.S. from overseas this year as of the end of March, 3.3% fewer than during the first three months of 2024.

The numbers did not include land crossings from Mexico or travel from Canada, where citizens have expressed indignation over Trump’s remarks about making their country the 51st state. Both U.S. and Canadian government data have shown steep declines in border crossings from Canada.

Expedia Chief Financial Officer Scott Schenkel said the net value of the travel technology company’s bookings into the U.S. fell 7% in the January-March period, but bookings to the U.S. from Canada were down nearly 30%.

In a conference call with investors Friday, Expedia CEO Ariane Gorin said U.S. demand was even softer in April than March.

“We’re still continuing to see pressure on travel into the U.S., but we’ve also seen some rebalancing,” Gorin said. “Europeans are traveling less to the U.S., but more to Latin America.”

Seattle-based Expedia said its revenue rose 3% to $2.99 billion for the quarter. That was lower than the $3 billion Wall Street was expecting, according to analysts polled by FactSet.

Expedia shares were down than 7% in mid-day trading Friday.

Airbnb said last week that foreign travel to the U.S. makes up only 2% to 3% of its business. But within that category, it’s seeing declining interest in the U.S. as a destination.

“I think Canada is the most obvious example, where we see Canadians are traveling at a much lower rate to the U.S. but they’re traveling more domestically, they are traveling to Mexico, they are going to Brazil, they’re going to France, they’re going to Japan,” Airbnb Chief Financial Officer Ellie Mertz said in a conference call with investors.

Meanwhile, Hilton lowered its full-year forecast for revenue per available room, a key industry metric. The company said in late April that it now expects growth of 0% to 2% for the year, down from 2% to 3%.

Hilton President and CEO Christopher Nassetta told stock analysts the company saw international travel to its U.S. hotels fall throughout the first quarter, particularly from Canada and Mexico.

But Nassetta said he remained optimistic for the second half of this year.

“My own belief is you will see some of — if not a lot of — that uncertainty wane over the next couple of quarters, and that will allow the underlying strength of the economy to shine through again,” he said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats have blocked legislation to regulate stablecoins, a form of cryptocurrency, after arguing that the bill needed stronger protections and airing concerns that it could help President Donald Trump enrich himself.

The bill, which would regulate how stablecoin issuers operate in the U.S., had previously won some Democratic support. But it failed 49-48 on a procedural vote Thursday after Democrats said that they needed to see more changes to the legislation before they could back it.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said that Republicans would work with Democrats if they allowed the bill to move forward, but they refused. All Democrats voted not to bring it up.

The vote is a blow to one of Trump’s top legislative priorities and a setback for the cryptocurrency industry, which spent heavily in last year’s election and has been emboldened to cement its influence in politics and the mainstream financial system. The legislation would aim to create a federal framework to regulate the stablecoin industry, which is currently governed by a patchwork of existing federal and state laws.

Stablecoins are a fast-growing corner of the cryptocurrency industry that have produced enormous profits for some of the major players involved. They offer a buffer from cryptocurrency’s notorious volatility because they are pegged to real-world assets, like U.S. dollars or gold. Typically, that means a single stablecoin is worth $1, making them a much more reliable digital asset to make commercial transactions than other forms of crypto.

While some Democrats agree that regulation is needed, and several voted to move the bill out of committee, Trump’s involvement in the crypto industry has complicated the legislation’s path. Trump launched a meme coin earlier this year that has generated more than $320 million in fees for its creators, according to the blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis. And earlier this week, Trump promoted a dinner he’s set to attend on May 22 that’s open to almost anyone who buys enough of the coins.

Another Trump-family linked crypto venture called World Liberty Financial recently announced that it was issuing its own stablecoin, called USD1. The stablecoin got a huge boost when World Liberty Financial announced last week that an investment fund in the United Arab Emirates would be using $2 billion worth of USD1 to purchase a stake in Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.

Among other proposed changes, Democrats said that elected officials and their families should be barred from owning, controlling or promoting stablecoin business ventures.

“The Senate should not pass a bill that facilitates Trump’s breathtaking corruption and lines his pockets and welcomes other elected officials to do the same,” said Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

A former skeptic turned zealous promotor, Trump has promised to usher in a golden age for the cryptocurrency industry. His administration has already taken many early actions without Congress to boost crypto, including establishing a strategic bitcoin reserve and undoing previously enforcement actions. But Trump needs Congress to get some of his and the deep-pocketed industry’s top priorities passed, including enacting the stablecoin legislation.

The legislation could still move forward if the two parties can come to a deal. Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat who has been helping negotiate the legislation, said in a statement after the vote that he would continue to work on it.

“I remain fully committed to getting this right,” Warner said.

A group of nine Democrats, including Warner, said in a release over the weekend that they could not support the legislation until it included stronger provisions on money laundering, foreign issuers and accountability for those who violate it, among other concerns. They did not mention Trump.

“We recognize that the absence of regulation leaves consumers unprotected and vulnerable to predatory practices,” the Democrats said.

Thune, the Republican leader, questioned Democrats’ motives, speculating that they just wanted to deny Trump a bipartisan win.

“It makes you wonder if this is about the bill at all,” he said of their opposition.

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CVS has itself covered coming and going: It’s not just a retail pharmacy where generics cost twice what they sell for at independent drug stores—it’s also a health insurer, a general retailer and, most lucrative of all, a pharmacy benefits manager. Tie all those together, and you have a healthcare conglomerate whose shares are up more than 50% so far this year.

Good news, right? Well, kinda. Under CEO David Joyner, a 30-year company veteran who took over in October, the company has moved to cut unprofitable business lines, including shutting underperforming stores and getting out of the Obamacare marketplace.

But as Vince Stanzione, an investor who’s taken a deep look at CVS notes, this year’s surge may just be a reversion to the mean. “CVS Health has been a dog of a stock, making no headway over the last decade,” said Stanzione. Over the last 10 years, CVS Health delivered a cumulative total return of -9.06% (-0.95% annualized), significantly underperforming the SPDR S&P 500 ETF, which returned ~223.5% to 247.8% (12.47% to 13.3% annualized).

One big drag on CVS has been its 2018 acquisition of insurer Aetna, for $78 billion including debt. The plan was to build out a network of primary care centers, including Oak Street Health, for seniors on Medicare, and MinuteClinic, in-store healthcare centers at CVS retail locations. But CVS’s market cap today is just over $86 billion, suggesting it overpaid significantly for Aetna.

That’s where Joyner’s restructuring plan comes in. The stock has shot up under his leadership, and while it’s early days, investors clearly see him as a rider to bet on, even if the horse is a little wobbly. Among his recent successes: a deal with Novo Nordisk to make Wegovy the preferred prescription weight-loss drug for its customers. The deal knocks the monthly cost of Wegovy down to $499 for Aetna clients shopping at CVS, a huge drop from the average uninsured price of about $1,350 a month. Some of the stock’s momentum may be coming from expectations of similar deals to come. Particularly with diabetes care.

But the other big cash spinner, CVS’s pharmacy benefit manager business, is not doing so well. Its share of U.S. prescriptions filled dropped to 27% last year from 34% in 2023, largely due to increased competition.

Ultimately, CVS’s success may come from two forces at work right now. The first is the crumbling consumer confidence under Trump. Consumers are pulling back from other spending, and conserving their cash for core expenses, like healthcare, so while the rest of the market is down, consumers are still paying to stay alive. The other may simply be momentum, rather than strong fundamentals in its business model, said Scott Y. Stuart, CEO of the Turnaround Management Association. “The story of optimism in a corporate turnaround is rooted in taking decisive, thoughtful action rather than reactive measures—and that’s exactly what CVS appears to be doing,” Stuart said by email.

• Google’s AI hit: The bad news, unusually, came from Apple. Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior VP of services, was testifying in a federal antitrust lawsuit against Google when he mentioned that AI is taking a huge bite out of usage of Apple’s Safari browser, and searches shrank for the first time ever in April. (Cue was testifying because Apple gets $20 billion a year from Google for making its search engine the default choice on Apple devices.) But the news, intended to make the case that Google’s search engine was not a monopoly, had an unintended effect: Shares in Google dropped 9% Wednesday, though they’d recovered a few points by Thursday morning. Cue said he believes AI search providers, including OpenAI, Perplexity, and Anthropic will soon replace standard search engines like Google. And Google’s revenue comes largely from the ads sold against those searches.
• Castles in the sand: Disneyland is expanding to the Middle East. The House of Mouse said it’s reached agreement with the Abu Dhabi government to open a new Disneyland on the Persian Gulf. An Abu Dhabi government firm will build the park, which could cost $5 billion and have a castle as well as rides tailored to the Gulf state. “You have to build it right. And quality means not just scale but quality and ambition. We are planning to be very ambitious with this,” Disney CEO Bob Iger told The New York Times. Disney will get paid to design the park, and receive royalties. That should help Disney offset falling revenues from cable TV and movies in the U.S. Sea World and the Louvre museum already have outposts in Abu Dhabi.
• The sun’s not Sheining on Google: The double whammy of 145% tariffs on Chinese goods and the end of the so-called “de minimus” exemption, which let packages worth up to $800 pass duty-free into the U.S., appears to have killed the fast fashion business in the U.S. That instantly dried up billions of dollars worth of advertising for sites like Google Shopping and Instagram. Research by marketing firm Tinuiti showed that on April 5, Temu accounted for 19 percent of all U.S. ads displayed on Google Shopping. That figure dropped to zero a week later. Shein went from around 20 percent in early April to zero by April 16, the New York Times reported.
• Oil’s down again: Oil fell below $56 a barrel this week, great for consumers, who have seen gasoline prices dip slightly, but bad news for the oil companies that want to drill more, and which count on a $60 price to make a profit. But it’s even worse news for countries like Saudi Arabia that depend on a price of $90 or more to finance their economies. That rush for cash has pushed the Saudis and some OPEC+ states to pump more oil, betting that even if they drive the price down a bit more, they’ll make up on volume what they lose on price. But that may not work this time. The current world oil glut is largely due to a lack of demand as countries from the U.S. to China are struggling with a tariff-induced economic slowdown.
• Uber up: The ubiquitous ride-hailing app reported a Q1 profit, its first in a while, along with a rise in revenue and profit margins. Uber reported a profit of $1.78 billion, or 83 cents a share, from a loss of $654 million, or 32 cents a share, a year earlier, as the number of trips rose 15% to 3 billion in Q1. That was powered by some 8.5 million drivers, each earning an average of $2,188 in the first quarter. Revenue missed expectations by less than 1%, which may be what drove the stock down slightly. But under CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber is turning around, and expects more growth to come from robotaxis.

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• Tariffs have forced Ford to raise sticker prices on its Maverick, Bronco Sport, and Mach-E models by between $600 and $2,000 per vehicle, according to a memo seen by the Wall Street Journal. On Monday, Ford withdrew its 2025 financial outlook, saying it couldn’t be sure how tariffs would hit its business. The change will apply only to cars built after May 2. Ford said that all in, tariffs will cost it $1.5 billion this year. (GM said last week tariffs could cost it between $4 and $5 billion this year).
• Rivian says tariffs are making it slam the brakes on profit guidance. The California-based EV maker says deliveries could drop to 40,000–46,000 from 46,000–51,000 this year. Rivian narrowed its Q1 loss to $545 million from $1.45 billion last year.
• GM said it will cut 700 jobs by eliminating an entire shift at a Canadian plant that makes Chevy Silverado pickups for North America.
• Toyota’s made good: Its new bZ3X electric car starts at $15,000—but only in China. A similar model, the bZ4X sells in the U.S. at $37,070. Back home, EV sales are shrinking, down 5% in April even as car sales overall were up 10% from March.

• Movie mania: Trump’s tariffs hit a new target: Movies. Trump said he wants to slap 100% tariffs on foreign-made films to help Hollywood, which has been losing business as a film locale as other states and foreign countries offer lower costs and tax breaks. Trump called foreign films a “National Security threat.” But Hollywood was left puzzled. What exactly did he want to tax, and why now? After all, many Hollywood studios shoot films abroad for the locales or just to save money, and post-production work can be done anywhere in the digital age. It soon emerged that 86-year-old actor Jon Voight, a MAGA diehard, had just returned from Hollywood on a mission from Trump. Voight says overseas production is leaving Hollywood’s legions of actors, makeup artists, and camera crews without jobs, and threatening its role as the heart of American culture. “We can’t let it go down the drain like Detroit,” Voight told Variety. California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, says he’ll work with Trump to get federal tax breaks to bring films back to Hollywood. But will it bring back U.S. production? For independent movies, one veteran producer told The Hollywood Reporter, a 100% tariff “means most of those films just won’t get made.” Maybe they can film the next Lord of the Rings remake in the Poconos?
• Crypto logic: All those crypto deals are raising new calls from Congress for scrutiny of the Trump family crypto empire, and threaten to disrupt what was emerging as a very crypto-friendly regulatory environment. At a closed-door meeting last week, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, a long-time friend of big finance, say that they should take back their support for the GENIUS Act, a deregulation bill backed by the crypto industry. The New York Times reported, with a deserved pat on its own back, that its exposé of the Trump family crypto business has put a chill on crypto rule rollbacks. A top concern among lawmakers: A deal by Trump-linked World Liberty Financial to sell $2 billion of a stable coin to a fund backed by the government of Abu Dhabi. Trump’s crypto scheme is a blueprint for fraud,” Senator Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, wrote on X. “By pushing digital assets tied to his name, he’s selling access to the highest bidder.”

Trump’s crypto scheme is a blueprint for fraud. By pushing digital assets tied to his name, he’s selling access to the highest bidder. It’s a neon sign for foreign influence and a national security threat. My End Crypto Corruption Act would immediately ban this digital bribery.

• No “Made in America for me,” say Euro shoppers. Trump tariffs are pushing European consumers away from U.S. goods, and those shoppers may be lost to U.S. products for good, even if tariffs eventually drop, according to a survey by the European Central Bank. “Consumers’ reactions may not just be a temporary response to tariff increases, but instead signal a possible long-term structural shift in consumer preferences away from US products and brands,” a group of five economists wrote on the bank’s blog.
• Status quo at the Fed: Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell and his fellow governors did not make a cut at Wednesday’s meeting of the federal Open Markets Committee. Instead, Powell warned against Trump’s economic policy: “If the large increases in tariffs that have been announced are sustained, they’re likely to generate a rise in inflation, a slowdown in economic growth, and an increase in unemployment,” Powell said at a news conference. And the Fed is in no hurry to change its mind, he said. “We don’t feel like we need to be in a hurry. We feel like it’s appropriate to be patient,” Powell said Wednesday. Speaking earlier in the week, Trump again said he wants a rate cut, which he thinks could create a short-term boost to offset the effects of his tariffs.

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• Good fences make good neighbors: Musk has lost his bid to keep a 16-foot-high chain link fence around his home in West Lake Hills, Texas, and got slammed again by town officials who said his work in Washington didn’t mean they had to block the public from a hearing on his fence. The fence was put up without a permit, and neighbors complained to the local authorities. The 6,900-square-foot, six-bedroom home is one of three homes Musk bought recently for his children and their mothers.
• SpaceX has a brand new town: Boca Chica, the Texas area where SpaceX has its launch pad on the U.S.-Mexico border, will become the city of Starbase, after 218 of the 238 eligible local residents voted to incorporate the town. Only 6 people voted against it.
• NY says nix on X: Musk’s effort to build a payment network for X, like the one he once ran at PayPal, has hit a wall in New York, and that could keep him offline nationwide. Legislators in the Empire State say they don’t trust Musk and his companies with access to reams of consumer data, and are among eight states still refusing to allow an X-pay system to run in their states. That’s bad news for Musk, who is hoping that a payment system will allow him to turn the money-losing social media platform into a lucrative shopping channel.

• Let’s go, Barbie: Barbie maker Mattel said it will raise prices on its marquee doll brand and other toys to offset the cost of the 145% tariff on imports from China, where most of America’s toys are made. The tariffs are meant to bring manufacturing back to America, but Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz sneezed at the idea; “We don’t see that happening,” he said on CNBC Tuesday, less than a day after the company withdrew annual financial targets. Shares have fallen as much as 26% since Trump announced the tariffs on April 2, but have since recovered a bit.
• Who needs profits? OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman said Monday he won’t convert the AI pioneer into a for-profit corporation. Instead, the nonprofit part of OpenAI will control a public-benefit corporation that’s intended to be the money-spinning arm of the whole project. That may mollify Elon Musk, who helped fund OpenAI and claims OpenAI’s effort to chase profits is illegal. (It also competes with Musk’s own, less successful, xAI venture.) The change will still allow OpenAI to access a promised $30 billion investment from Softbank. How will this saga end? Ask Grok.
• Is DoorDash going global? No, you can’t order fish and chips from a pub in London, but delivery app DoorDash is expanding overseas. This week, it agreed to pay $3.9 billion for Deliveroo, a UK-based food delivery app that’s active in Europe and the Middle East. (It also paid $1.2 billion this week for SevenRooms, a U.S.-based hotel and restaurant reservation management system.)

America’s favorite investor, Warren Buffett, followed through this week on his decade-old promise to step down as the head of the world’s most successful major investment firm, Berkshire Hathaway. At 94, Buffett has spent 60 years steering Berkshire Hathaway, his investment vehicle and holding company that has owned shares in everything from Coca-Cola and Apple to the Buffalo Evening News, the BNSF railroad, and Geico. Ever since Donald Trump appeared likely to win the presidency in 2024, Buffett moved much of Berkshire’s holdings to cash, and is now sitting on nearly $350 billion.

Berkshire Hathaway’s shares have risen 5,502,284% between the time Buffett took over a failing textile company in 1965 and the end of 2024, according to the company’s most recent annual report. The S&P 500 rose 39,054% during that period, with dividends. Buffett was a value investor, following the principles of Benjamin Graham by basing his investments on the long-term prospects of the companies, and often taking a role in managing them.

“The billionaire always comes across as a gentleman, and in an age of distrust he became someone people could trust,” the New York Times wrote of Buffett. At Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting last weekend in Omaha, Buffett announced his departure with some strong words for Trump: “Trade should not be a weapon,” he told a crowd of some 40,000 people. “I do think that the more prosperous the rest of the world becomes, it won’t be at our expense, the more prosperous we’ll become, and the safer we’ll feel, and your children will feel someday.”