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Swedish fashion retailer H&M reported slightly stronger second-quarter profit on Thursday, an encouraging sign as CEO Daniel Erver tries to attract more shoppers with trendier clothes. H&M shares were up 4% by 1000 GMT as investors focused on the profit rather than second-quarter sales, which fell slightly more than predicted. Erver has said his focus is on profitability rather than solely sales growth. The world’s second-largest listed fashion retailer also said it expected sales in June, measured in local currencies, to rise 3%, an improvement after a 6% fall in the same period a year ago. “Our collections are more current, they are more on trend, more fashionable, and the customer reception has been strong throughout this quarter,” Erver said in a press conference. Erver said gingham and check patterned dresses, blouses and skirts have been especially popular this season, with the trend continuing into the autumn. Accessories sales have picked up, with social media also driving a craze for mini-accessories on bags, sneakers, and cellphones, he said. In the U.S., where H&M has around 500 stores, Erver said consumer sentiment has dropped significantly due to the “turbulent” tariffs situation since President Donald Trump hiked duties on imports, and competitors have started raising prices as a result. H&M, which sources its products primarily from China and Bangladesh, is focused on keeping prices competitive, Erver said, as consumers are particularly price-sensitive given uncertainty around the economy in the U.S. and globally. H&M’s sales were 56.7 billion Swedish crowns ($5.99 billion) in the March to May quarter, down from 59.6 billion a year ago. Analysts polled by LSEG had forecast revenue of 57.0 billion crowns. Zara owner Inditex earlier this month also reported disappointing sales, in a sign consumers are pulling back from spending on clothes as U.S. tariffs create risks for global economic growth. H&M’s second-quarter operating profit was 5.91 billion crowns, beating analysts’ forecast of 5.88 billion, and the operating profit margin was 10.4%, down from 11.9% a year ago but still better than analysts had feared. “The slightly better than expected margin delivery sends a positive signal to the market,” said Alphavalue analyst Jie Zhang. “The brand upgrading strategy has started to pay off.” H&M said its higher-priced brand COS had done especially well and shoppers are opting for more medium- and high-priced items across the board, helping to boost profitability. But Erver flagged more discounting in the June to August quarter as he said summer markdowns across the market were highly competitive. Even as it reduces store numbers globally, H&M is also searching for growth in new markets with a growing middle class, with plans to open its first stores in Brazil in the second half, as well as in El Salvador and Venezuela, and to launch in Paraguay next year. ($1 = 9.4635 Swedish crowns) Greta Rosen Fondahn and Helen Reid, Reuters
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On Tuesday, New Yorkers lined up to cast their vote in the city’s Democratic primaries, hoping to elect its next mayoral candidate nominee. But while some turned to the polls, others took to election bettingand made thousands along the way. In the weeks before the election, the race seemed to be between two candidates: former governor Andrew Cuomo, who left office following sexual harassment allegations in 2021, and state assemblyman and democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani. As votes started to kick in on Tuesday for the first round of the ranked-choice election, the race seemed uncertain. Early polling showed Cuomo leading the way by at least a 12-point lead weeks before. Yet tides quickly shifted, with a recent Emerson poll showing a statistical tie between the candidates. As the votes were counted, Mamdani surged as the likely nominee with Cuomo conceding later in the night. But before that happened, the internet had already crowned its winner on the prediction market trading platform Kalshi, where U.S. users can bet on current events like yesterday’s elections. “Zohran had one of the most impressive runs we’ve ever seen on Kalshi,” Jack Such, business and media development lead at Kalshi, told Fast Company. “He was at 7% to win this earlier, less than a month ago.” What is election betting? Election betting is like betting on any other current events, positing the probability of one event happening over another. Still, it is a somewhat recent phenomenon. Kalshi operates like a stock market, with two parties on each side, some buying or selling sharesor bets in this case. Each “yes” or “no” contract is capped at $1 dollar, usually going between zero and 99 cents, with the price reflecting the probability of an event happening according the bets. Election betting gained notoriety during last year’s presidential election, bringing in upwards of $3.6 billion to Polymarket, another betting platform that supposedly does not allow U.S. users. While criticism surrounds the ethics of the practice, as some argue that it may commodify decision-making and it does not promote responsible participation, it seems as if it is poised to grow. Just a day after the New York election, Kalshi hit a $2 billion valuation following a recent funding round. Additionally, the live aspect of the projection is attracting the attention of users yearning for faster results. Kalshi’s projection showed Mamdani surpassing Cuomo as soon as 9 a.m. that morning. While the projection fluctuated during the day, the platform called the election in favor of Mamdani at 9:43 p.m. on social media, before Cuomo conceded. “People who just want to know who wins love the markets because they just work faster than anything else,” Such says. Kalshi calls a victory once one of the sides reaches 99 cents for at least 10 minutes. “It’s basically like a 99% confidence interval,” Such says. “It indicates that this market is going to resolve a certain way.” High returns For those who jumped on the election market and bet on Mamdani early, returns will prove financially beneficial should Mamdani become the Democratic nominee for mayor as expected. The best single trade for the market will see a payout of $85,650, as the trader bet $3,426 in favor of Mamdani when his probability to win was just 4%. Another user commented on the market saying, “I want to thank all the unimaginative centrists out there,” following his $41,099 payout. During the election, the market had a live voting count powered by Decision Desk HQ, showcasing voting results in real time for users to follow. However, not all bets are made solely based on polls and electoral results, Such explained. For instance, Kalshi reported that 71% of pro-Mamdani bets were placed by women users, echoing the popular “hot girls for Zohran” grassroots movement. “What makes prediction markets efficient is this ability to aggregate all the information that’s available,” Such says. “like polling data, but also everything else: sentiment, what your neighbors think, what your family thinks.”
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While completing a master’s degree in data analysis, Palwasha Zahid moved from Dallas to a town near Silicon Valley. The location made it easy to visit the campuses of tech stalwarts such as Google, Apple, and Nvidia.Zahid, 25, completed her studies in December, but so far she hasn’t found a job in the industry that surrounds her.“It stings a little bit,” she said. “I never imagined it would be this difficult just to get a foot in the door.”Young people graduating from college this spring and summer are facing one of the toughest job markets in more than a decade. The unemployment rate for degree holders ages 22 to 27 has reached its highest level in a dozen years, excluding the coronavirus pandemic. Joblessness among that group is now higher than the overall unemployment rate, and the gap is larger than it has been in more than three decades.The rise in unemployment has worried many economists as well as officials at the Federal Reserve because it could be an early sign of trouble for the economy. It suggests businesses are holding off on hiring new workers because of rampant uncertainty stemming from the Trump administration’s tariff increases, which could slow growth.“Young people are bearing the brunt of a lot of economic uncertainty,” Brad Hersbein, senior economist at the Upjohn Institute, a labor-focused think tank, said. “The people that you often are most hesitant in hiring when economic conditions are uncertain are entry-level positions.”The growth of artifical intelligence may be playing an additional role by eating away at positions for beginners in white-collar professions such as information technology, finance, and law.Higher unemployment for younger graduates has also renewed concerns about the value of a college degree. More workers than ever have a four-year degree, which makes it less of a distinguishing factor in job applications. Murat Tasci, an economist at JPMorgan, calculates that 45% of workers have a four-year degree, up from 26% in 1992.While the difficulty of finding work has demoralized young people like Zahid, most economists argue that holding a college degree still offers clear lifetime benefits. Graduates earn higher pay and experience much less unemployment over their lifetimes.The overall U.S. unemployment rate is a still-low 4.2%, and the government’s monthly jobs reports show the economy is generating modest job gains. But the additional jobs are concentrated in health care, government, and restaurants and hotels. Job gains in professions with more college grads, such as information technology, legal services, and accounting have languished in the past 12 months.The unemployment rate has stayed low mostly because layoffs are still relatively rare. The actual hiring ratenew hires as a percentage of all jobshas fallen to 2014 levels, when the unemployment rate was much higher, at 6.2%. Economists call it a no-hire, no-fire economy.For college graduates 22 to 27 years old, the unemployment rate was 5.8% in Marchthe highest, excluding the pandemic, since 2012, and far above the nationwide rate.Lexie Lindo, 23, saw how reluctant companies were to hire while applying for more than 100 jobs last summer and fall after graduating from Clark Atlanta University with a business degree and 3.8 GPA. She had several summer internships in fields such as logistics and real estate while getting her degree, but no offer came.“Nobody was taking interviews or responding back to any applications that I filled out,” Lindo, who is from Auburn, Georgia, said. “My résumé is full, there’s no gaps or anything. Every summer I’m doing something. It’s just, ‘OK, so what else are you looking for?'”She has returned to Clark for a master’s program in supply chain studies and has an internship this summer at a Fortune 500 company in Austin, Texas. She’s hopeful it will lead to a job next year.Artificial intelligence could be a culprit, particularly in IT. Matthew Martin, senior U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, has calculated that employment for college graduates 28 and above in computer science and mathematical occupations has increased a slight 0.8% since 2022. For those ages 22 to 27, it has fallen 8%, according to Martin.Company announcements have further fueled concerns. Tobi Lutke, CEO of online commerce software company Shopify, said in an April memo that before requesting new hires, “teams must demonstrate why they cannot get what they want done using AI.”Last week, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said AI would likely reduce the company’s corporate work force over the next few years.“We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs,” Jassy said in a message to employees. “We expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company.”Zahid worries that AI is hurting her chances. She remembers seeing big billboard ads for AI at the San Francisco airport that asked, “Why hire a human when you could use AI?”Still, many economists argue that blaming AI is premature. Most companies are in the early stages of adopting the technology.Professional networking platform LinkedIn categorized occupations based on their exposure to AI and did not see big hiring differences between professions where AI was more prevalent and where it wasn’t, said Kory Kantenga, the firm’s head of economics for the Americas.“We don’t see any broad-based evidence that AI is having a disproportionate impact in the labor market or even a disproportionate impact on younger workers versus older workers,” Kantenga said.He added that the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes have also slowed hiring in tech. Many IT firms expanded when the Fed pinned its short-term rate at nearly zero after the pandemic. In 2022, the Fed began cranking up rates to combat inflation, which made it harder to borrow and grow.In fact, IT’s hiring spree when rates were lowfueled by millions of Americans ramping up their online shopping and video conferencingleft many firms with too many workers, economists say.Cory Stahle, an economist at the job-listings website Indeed, says postings for software development jobs, for example, have fallen 40% compared with four years ago. It’s a sharp shift for students who began studying computer science when hiring was near its peak.Zahid, who lives in Dublin, California, has experienced this whiplash firsthand. When she entered college in 2019, her father, who is a network engineer, encouraged her to study IT and said it would be easy for her to get a job in the field.She initially studied psychology but decided she wanted something more hands-on and gravitated to data analysis. Her husband, 33, has a software development job, and friends of hers in IT received immediate job offers upon graduation a few years ago. Such rapid hiring seems to have disappeared now, she said.She has her college diploma, but hasn’t hung it up yet.“ will put it up when I actually get a job, confirming that it was worth it all,” she said. AP Writer Matt Sedensky in New York contributed to this report. Christopher Rugaber, AP Economics Writer
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