Apple Inc. executives have held internal discussions about potentially bidding for artificial intelligence startup Perplexity AI, seeking to address the need for more AI talent and technology.

Adrian Perica, the company’s head of mergers and acquisitions, has weighed the idea with services chief Eddy Cue and top AI decision-makers, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The discussions are at an early stage and may not lead to an offer, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the matter is private. 

Such a deal would help Apple develop an AI-based search engine, part of efforts to cope with the potential loss of a longstanding arrangement with Google. That partnership, which involves making Google the default browser on devices, generates roughly $20 billion a year for Apple — and is now under threat from US antitrust enforcers.

To date, Apple executives haven’t discussed a bid with Perplexity management. Bloomberg News reported earlier Friday that Meta Platforms Inc. tried to buy Perplexity earlier this year. 

“We have no knowledge of any current or future M&A discussions involving Perplexity,” the AI startup said in a statement. Apple declined to comment. 

Read More: Meta Discussed Buying Perplexity Before Investing in Scale AI

The Perplexity service provides real-time answers to questions using the latest information from the web. If Apple were to engage in talks to buy the startup, such a move likely wouldn’t happen until a decision is made in the Google antitrust trial. That’s when Apple would know whether its lucrative Google agreement may have to be unwound.

Google shares reversed gains and fell nearly 1% in late trading after Bloomberg reported on Apple’s Perplexity discussions.

Perplexity recently completed an investment round that valued it at $14 billion. A deal anywhere near that level would be the largest acquisition in Apple’s history. The company’s biggest transaction until now remains the $3 billion takeover of Beats in 2014 — though Apple made more recent billion-dollar deals for Intel Corp.’s modem unit and a stake in Chinese ride-sharing company DiDi.

After Meta failed to reach an agreement with Perplexity, it bought a 49% slice of Scale AI for $14.3 billion. That deal is part of Meta’s attempts to create a so-called superintelligence AI team, which will now include Scale co-founder Alexandr Wang.

Apple and Meta have been waging a broader fight for talent. Meta recently engaged in discussions to hire Daniel Gross, the co-founder of AI company Safe Superintelligence Inc. While the discussions between Meta and Gross are advanced, Apple has attempted to persuade him to join it instead.

In 2013, Gross sold a startup named Cue to Apple. That purchase helped form the basis of some early AI features in iOS, the operating system for the iPhone. And one of Gross’ Cue co-founders, Robby Walker, oversaw the Siri voice assistant until this year. Walker is now leading an Apple project dubbed Knowledge with the goal of creating a rival to OpenAI’s ChatGPT that can use data from the open web.

Gross didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Perica and Eddy Cue, who both report to Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook, are leading the AI acquisition and recruiting efforts.

The hunt for talent is part of a bid to catch up in generative AI. The company was slow to deliver its Apple Intelligence platform and still lags rivals in key features. A revamped Siri was delayed indefinitely this year, with the company now aiming to have it ready by next spring.

Read More: Apple Targets Spring 2026 for Release of Delayed Siri AI Upgrade

Apple unveiled a relatively meager slate of new AI enhancements at its Worldwide Developers Conference earlier this month. The latest features include live translation capabilities and a deeper partnership with OpenAI on ChatGPT-based image generation.

Buying Perplexity would give Apple an infusion of AI talent, a known brand in the AI space and a consumer product. A deal could also potentially assist with future recruiting efforts.

Apple has also discussed an alternative plan: teaming up with Perplexity instead of buying it. A partnership would involve adding Perplexity as an AI search engine option in Apple’s Safari web browser and integrating it into Siri.

Apple has met multiple times in recent months with Perplexity, and its AI team has been actively evaluating the technology — a sign that it’s at least considering a close relationship with the company.

One major snag in the process could be an in-the-works deal between Perplexity and Samsung Electronics Co., which plans to announce a deep partnership with the startup. Samsung is Apple’s biggest competitor in smartphones, and AI features have become a critical new arena for the two rivals.

In its statement, Perplexity said it shouldn’t be surprising that top manufacturers want to offer the “best search and more accurate AI for their users.”

“That’s Perplexity,” the startup said.

Read More: Samsung Nears Wide-Ranging Deal With Perplexity for AI Features

Cue, whose department includes Apple’s streaming services and iCloud, previously expressed an interest in Perplexity. While testifying at the Google antitrust trial in May, he told jurors that the industry is shifting away from standard internet searches to AI tools. He outlined a scenario in which AI search engines could quickly supersede Google’s current offering.

“We’ve been pretty impressed with what Perplexity has done, so we’ve started some discussions with them about what they’re doing,” he said.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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After the air space across large swaths of the Middle East turned into a no-fly zone, the skies over Afghanistan have become increasingly crowded as airlines seek alternative flight paths to connect Asia with Europe and the US.

Flights over Taliban-controlled Afghanistan have surged by 500% over the past week, averaging 280 a day since Israel began its attack on Iran on June 13, according to data from Flightradar24. That compares with 50 flights on average traversing the country each day last month, the flight-tracking site said.

The conflict, as well as the risk of escalation as the US considers joining Israel in its bombardment of Iran, has made flying through Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran difficult, all but cutting off an important artery in one of the busiest zones for commercial aviation. Some carriers, including American Airlines Inc. and Air France-KLM, have cut back services to the region as the regional conflict enters a second week with little sign of abating. 

Read More: Airline Disruptions Reach Dubai, Qatar as US Mulls Iran Strike

Restrictions on flying over Afghanistan were eased in 2023, two years after the Taliban took control over the country and the US withdrew its troops, but many airlines have still largely avoided the airspace. Since late in 2023, more carriers started using the skies over Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, with daily flights over the Gulf nation — which lies just south of the closed-off air space — doubling this week to 1,400. 

The surge in overflights stands to bring a financial windfall to the cash-strapped Taliban, which charge a fee of $700 for each flight, collected via third-party intermediaries. That would translate in an inflow of more than $1 million over a week as a result of the increase in traverses.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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B-2 stealth bombers have taken off from the US and are headed over the Pacific, multiple news outlets reported, as President Donald Trump weighs American involvement in the war between Israel and Iran.

The moves, picked up by flight tracking services on Saturday, indicate that the administration is getting the Air Force bombers in position if needed for a strike on Iran, the Wall Street Journal reported. The planes, accompanied by refueling tankers, may be on their way to a base in Guam, according to the report.

Speculation about a potential US strike aimed at Iran’s nuclear program has focused on the B-2s, which would be needed to drop 30,000-pound bombs — so-called bunker busters — if Trump decided to target Iran’s heavily fortified uranium enrichment site at Fordow. Israel, which is seeking to destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities, does not have such weapons.

Read more: Bunker-Buster Bomb Draws Focus as Trump Weighs Iran Options

Multiple B-2s appeared to be airborne and heading across the Pacific from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, the New York Times reported. The Times cited flight trackers’ posts on social media and air traffic control communications.

The Pentagon did not immediately return a message seeking comment. 

Trump’s is scheduled to return to the White House Saturday and meet with his national security team.

Read More: Israel-Iran Trade Fresh Blows as B-2 Bombers Head Over Pacific

The US president has sent mixed signals, discounting European efforts to secure a diplomatic solution between Israel and Iran while keeping possible US involvement in the conflict on the table.

“I’m giving them a period of time,” Trump told reporters Friday. “I would say two weeks would be the maximum.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President Mary Daly said an interest-rate cut this fall looks more appropriate than moving when policymakers gather in July.

“For me, I look more to the fall,” Daly said Friday in an interview on CNBC. “By then, we’ll have quite a bit more information, and businesses are telling me that’s what they’re going to look to for some resolution.”

Daly called recent inflation data — which has come in unexpectedly tame for three straight months — “really good news,” but cautioned against moving too quickly.

“I wouldn’t be preemptive. I really look to balance the two goals we have,” she said, referring to the Fed’s employment and inflation mandates.

Earlier on Friday, Fed Governor Christopher Waller said he thinks the central bank can lower rates as early as July. The Fed’s next meeting is scheduled for July 29-30.

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Ukraine has accumulated $43 billion for its defence industry so far this year between local funding and aid from allies, using it to ramp up the production and purchase of drones, artillery and other weaponry, said President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.  

Kyiv has also launched a “Build with Ukraine” program and announced new agreements to be signed this summer, including opening production lines in European countries. 

“We will provide the relevant technologies and will produce weapons in their countries for us and for them,” including drones, missiles and possibly artillery, Zelenskiy told reporters in Kyiv late Friday, adding that steps would be taken to prevent any of the technology ending up in Russian hands. 

Ukraine is looking to develop its domestic military capabilities as it attempts to repel Russia’s invasion, well into its fourth year, and wean off dependence on military aid from allies, especially the US. 

“It is our priority to maintain America’s support,” Zelenskiy said, adding that while some European counties have indicated they’ll stick with Ukraine at all costs, “the most difficult situation is without America’s participation.”  

Zelenskiy is expected to attend the NATO summit at The Hague that starts on Tuesday. He’s denied that Ukraine faces the destruction of many of the Patriot air defense systems supplied by the US and other allies since 2022, or lacks weaponry to successfully operate them.  

Read more: Russia Says It Struck Kremenchuk Oil Refinery in Ukraine 

Ukraine’s air defenses have also been shored up by the heavy use of interceptor UAVs, which can shoot down Shahed-type drones used by Russia, he said.  

Kremlin forces continue massive air bombardments across Ukraine. Moscow launched 272 drones and eight missiles overnight, according the regular update from Ukraine’s General Staff. Kremenchuk in the Poltava region, site of a key oil refinery, was again a target after sustaining new damage a week ago.  

Russia also continues to use glide bombs and other weaponry across the front line in Ukraine’s east, as well as in northeastern Sumy and Kharkiv, close to the nations’ border, and in Dnipropetrovsk and other regions. 

Read more: EU Abandons Proposal to Lower Price Cap on Russian Oil to $45

Zelenskiy repeated a call for energy restrictions like lower oil price caps on Russian oil — a plan shelved by the European Union this week — as well as sanctions against companies working directly and indirectly with Russia’s defense industry. 

Some 39 defense companies are involved in the production of Russia’s experimental Oreshnik ballistic missile, of which 21 aren’t currently sanctioned, he said. 

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Millions more Americans should be taking weight-loss drugs to prevent heart disease, according to the American College of Cardiology. 

Exercise and a clean diet aren’t always enough for heart health, the nation’s top cardiology organization said in new recommendations released on Friday. Weight-loss drugs should be used earlier, making them part of the first line of defense for obese patients, the group said.

Novo Nordisk A/S’s Wegovy and Eli Lilly & Co.’s Zepbound should be considered when choosing primary treatments to avert heart disease, the leading cause of death in the US, according to the new guidelines. The popular drugs are more effective than lifestyle changes and have fewer risks than surgery, the nonprofit medical association said.

“We have heard about the myriad of positive influences the drugs possess and to get this sort of props from the ACC is a big win,” Mizuho Securities’ Jared Holz wrote in a note to clients. 

Novo’s US-listed shares briefly spiked on Friday after the new guidelines were released, then dropped 1.1% as of 11:22 a.m. in New York. Lilly pared an earlier decline to fall 2.8%.

The ACC’s recommendation is a departure from its previous recommendation that advocated for lifestyle modifications before obesity medications. Patients shouldn’t have to “try and fail” before they are able to get the powerful medicines that have revolutionized weight loss and proven their ability to improve heart health, said Olivia Gilbert, a cardiologist at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center who led the work on the new guidelines. 

She was forthright in saying the change was intended to influence insurance companies and federal programs that decide which prescription drugs to cover. The support of cardiologists could lead more patients to embrace the medicines and signal broader insurance coverage for the drugs from Novo and Lilly, the two main companies vying for control of a market that Morgan Stanley analysts say is hurtling toward $150 billion in peak sales within a decade.

The new guidelines may have sweeping public health and policy implications that could reduce damage from heart disease, “and that’s incredibly exciting,” Gilbert said. 

Even so, people should “absolutely not” cancel their gym memberships, according to Gilbert. The drugs will help with weight loss and “if anything that should increase physical activity,” she said. “They’re meant to work in tandem.” 

More than 40% of adults in the US are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Uncertainty about insurance coverage is a significant barrier to treatment, the ACC said, noting there is “ongoing need to improve access to these therapies.”

Doctors can determine who is eligible for treatment to ward off heart complications based on body mass index, a calculation involving weight and height, or other risk factors, according to the new guidelines.

The link between obesity and heart health isn’t new, but patients need to lose 10% of their body weight to reduce their cardiovascular risk and 15% to slash related deaths, Gilbert said. Drug therapy may be the best and most accessible way to get there, she said. 

Many insurers don’t cover the medicines, which cost around $1,000 for a month’s supply without insurance but are also available at lower prices for consumers who buy them directly with cash. The new ACC guidance could influence negotiations with private insurance companies and Medicare and Medicaid, the US government insurance programs for the elderly and the poor, according to Gilbert. While most Medicare and Medicaid plans pay for weight loss drugs for diabetics, they aren’t currently covered for obesity.

In March last year, the Food and Drug Administration approved Novo’s Wegovy for reducing the risk of cardiovascular death, heart attacks and strokes in patients who are overweight and have heart disease, making it the first of the weight-loss drugs approved for preventing potentially fatal heart issues. While the agency hasn’t yet cleared Lilly’s Zepbound for treating cardiovascular disease, it did cut deaths from heart failure in a late-stage study last year.

Lilly welcomed the change, saying it reinforces the importance of treating obesity early and effectively. Novo applauded the ACC’s move as reflecting “today’s treatment landscape.”  

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Meta Platforms Inc. is going up-market with its surprise hit smart glasses, rolling out new models with Oakley that are aimed at athletes and include improved video recording. 

The company on Friday launched new models based on Oakley’s HSTN design, marking the company’s first expansion away from Ray-Ban for its display-free glasses. Like the original models, the Oakley versions can make and take phone calls, play music, take pictures and video and use Meta’s artificial intelligence to answer questions about the surrounding environment. 

The new versions, which start at $399 and go up to $499 for a limited edition model with gold-colored accents, include about double the battery life, video-recording at 3K resolution and water resistance.

“We are increasingly seeing performance use cases with the Ray-Bans like people wearing them on roller coasters, cycling and being around water, so we’re trying to lean into that,” says Alex Himmel, the company’s vice president in charge of wearables, in an interview. 

Arriving at its second glasses brand was far from a sure thing. Meta’s first glasses, the Ray-Ban Stories, flopped in 2021. But its follow-up version in 2023 was a massive success, giving the social networking giant a real potential hardware stronghold in the artificial intelligence race. 

“It was crazy. Popularity caught us by surprise a bit,” Himmel said. The Ray-Bans were “going to be the last display-less pair of glasses. We said we’ll take two swings at it, and if it doesn’t work we’ll go all-in on augmented reality.” 

Instead, beyond the latest Oakley model, the company has a multi-year road map for the display-less category and is planning a follow-up pair of Oakley glasses based on the Sphera design for later this year, according to people with knowledge of the matter. That pair will be aimed at cyclists and have a centered camera. Friday’s model has a camera positioned in the upper corner like the Ray-Ban version.

The display-free glasses are one component of the overall Meta AI hardware strategy. The company is planning to introduce higher-end glasses with a display to view notifications and the camera view finder later this year, Bloomberg News has reported. In 2027, it aims to roll out its first true augmented reality glasses, which will blend digital apps with the real world. 

Meta’s form-factor has caught on, with several other technology companies working on competitors. Apple Inc. is planning to introduce its first glasses product at the end of 2026, Bloomberg News has reported. That device will operate similarly to the Meta product but better synchronize with the rest of the Apple ecosystem. Amazon.com Inc. also sells glasses, but their current models lack cameras.

Himmel, who said Meta has sold millions of glasses and has a “nice, increasing multiple” of purchases on a year-over-year basis each week, attributed the increased popularity to the Ray-Bans improving across a large number of “small things.” He said the audio quality and microphones started to surpass standalone earbuds, while the camera and AI quality also improved. 

Still, Himmel said battery life remains the “number one complaint” about the Ray-Ban versions. The new Oakley models can run for 8 hours on a single charge, with the charging case holding 48 hours of juice. “You should expect a 40% bump with these” he says, attributing the improvement to new battery chemistry and software optimizations — not larger battery packs. 

Like Ray-Ban, Oakley is owned by EssilorLuxottica SA, which calls Oakley its second most popular brand after Ray-Ban. Himmel said Meta will roll out new brands under the EssilorLuxottica portfolio “as fast as we can. “We’re going to have to move very quickly because in the world of fashion, stuff moves very quickly,” he says. “The stuff that is a hit right now might not be a year from now. We need to be fast to hit all the brands that we’d like to.”

The first Oakley model, becoming available for pre-order on July 11, will be the $499 limited edition pair. The $399 versions — which come in grey, black, brown and clear colors — will be released in the coming months. There will be versions with clear, transition and polarized lenses. Like with the Ray-Bans, users can swap the lenses for prescription optics.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Meta

Thousands of private government consultants laid off during the Trump administration’s cost-cutting crusade are increasingly flooding a shrinking labor market. 

Job postings among seven of the 10 consulting companies singled out by the General Services Administration for contract cuts are down about 27% since 2023, and about 11% from a year ago, according to data scraped from job boards by labor market analytics firm Lightcast.

Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp. and Deloitte LLP had almost 1,200 and 8,200 fewer openings than last year, respectively, Lightcast data showed. Both announced job cuts this quarter.

“The job market is certainly not great for these people,” said Ron Hetrick, Lightcast’s principal economist. “If they lay off people, they’re probably not going to backfill them.”

Federal government employment shrank by 22,000 in May, bringing jobs lost since January to 59,000, according to the latest jobs report. That excludes those on paid leave or receiving ongoing severance pay. About 75,000 workers took an initial federal buyout deal that will pay them until September, with thousands more in another round of offers.

Recruitment company Beacon Hill has seen “a noticeable increase” in job seekers from the federal space in the first two quarters of the year because of job cuts and internal reorganizations, said Kim Ayers, a regional director who oversees the group’s government services business.

In response to queries about job cuts, Booz Allen referred to comments made during a recent earnings call, where Chief Operating Officer Kristine Martin Anderson said the company expects to “add significant headcount in the second half of the year.” Deloitte said it had nothing more to add to the statement it made in April, when it said it was “taking modest personnel actions based on moderating growth in certain areas, our government clients’ evolving needs, and low levels of voluntary attrition.”

Government contractors support public workers in a wide range of tasks, from producing content and developing software to helping draft regulations and handling administrative tasks. There were about 4.6 million contract workers at the start of this year, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta estimates, compared with 2.4 million directly employed by the federal government, excluding active duty military personnel, postal employees and temporary census workers. 

Job postings in Washington, DC, which has the largest concentration of federal workers, were down 17% in April versus Jan. 20, job portal site Indeed found. The biggest declines were in administrative assistance, human resources and accounting positions, typical functions in public agencies.  

Specifically, management consulting job postings in the Washington metro area fell 28% between February and May, Lightcast data showed.

While hiring is down, “it’s not non-existent,” Hetrick said in an interview. Companies are looking for individuals with skills to help them effectively use artificial intelligence. This may explain the 171,000 increase in job openings in professional and business services from March to April, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, even with 82,000 job cuts during the same period, he said. 

Some targets of federal contract cuts, including Accenture Plc and International Business Machines Corp., are hiring more than they did last year, Lightcast data showed.

Outside of federal services, demand remains strong for talent in areas such as health care, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and machine learning, said Emma Long Garber, a vice president overseeing sales and delivery in the Mid-Atlantic for employment company Insight Global. 

Hiring could pick up if the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates, boosting business activity, according to Hetrick. 

“It would be very difficult to sell your shareholders on why you would be hiring right now,” he said. “But it could improve. Policies change.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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OpenAI is phasing out the work it does with data-labeling startup Scale AI, cutting ties with the company days after Meta Platforms Inc. invested billions of dollars in it and hired its founder. 

Scale accounted for a small fraction of OpenAI’s overall data needs, according to an OpenAI spokesperson who confirmed the firm’s decision to phase out work with the company. The ChatGPT maker was already in the process of winding down its reliance on Scale before Meta, an OpenAI competitor, took a 49% stake in the firm, the spokesperson said, adding that OpenAI had been seeking other providers for more specialized data needed to support increasingly advanced artificial intelligence models. 

OpenAI’s plans inject new uncertainty into Scale’s business in the wake of Meta’s unusual deal. Meta is investing $14.3 billion in Scale and has poached the startup’s chief executive officer, Alexandr Wang, for a new so-called “superintelligence” unit, focused on building a more powerful, and hypothetical, form of AI software. Other Scale employees are expected to follow Wang to Meta to work on AI.

A Scale AI spokesperson declined to comment.

Founded in 2016, Scale signed up prominent customers, including Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Meta and OpenAI, providing them with the data needed to build AI models. However, Meta’s deal with Scale raised concerns that the social-media company may gain new visibility into its rivals’ AI development efforts. Google plans to cut ties with Scale, Reuters reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter.

Right after the Meta deal was announced, OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar had signaled that the company intended to keep working with Scale. “We don’t want to ice the ecosystem because acquisitions are going to happen,” Friar said at the VivaTech conference in Paris last week.

Over the past six to 12 months, however, OpenAI had determined that Scale was not the best fit for it because the AI developer needed more data expertise than Scale could provide, the OpenAI spokesperson said. OpenAI has shifted to building more advanced AI models that can mimic the process of human reasoning, as well as agent-like models that can carry out tasks with limited input from users. Forbes previously reported OpenAI had been winding down its Scale work for months.

Scale initially focused on working with an army of contractors to do the grunt work of labeling text and images for earlier AI systems. Scale has gradually enlisted better-paid contractors with doctorates, nursing and other advanced degrees to help develop more sophisticated models.

Despite those efforts, OpenAI has increasingly relied on other data providers, including newer entrants like Mercor, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the information is private. Mercor was previously known for using AI for recruiting tech employees, but now focuses on finding experts to help AI companies develop more advanced models. 

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Nike Inc.’s new brand with entrepreneur and reality TV star Kim Kardashian’s Skims label has pushed back its launch after initially planning to release its first collection this spring.

NikeSkims is dealing with production delays as it prepares to debut the brand this year, according to people familiar with the matter. Shoppers have been awaiting the line’s initial products in recent months, ahead of a global rollout planned for 2026. 

Despite the delays, Nike still expects to release NikeSkims products sometime this year, one of the people with knowledge of the matter said. It’s unclear exactly when the first NikeSkims goods will be available for purchase, what products will be included in the line and if consumers will get a preview before the initial release. 

Both Nike and Skims have bet heavily on the partnership. Nike is counting on Kardashian to help boost its women’s business and add cultural relevance as it looks to spark a turnaround. Skims, meanwhile, has an opportunity to solidify its presence in the activewear market by teaming up with the world’s largest sportswear company.

Nike Chief Executive Officer Elliott Hill, who came out of retirement to take the role last year, told investors in March he expected the first “comprehensive collection” would be available during the quarter that ended in May.

Nike shares fell as much as 0.5% on Wednesday, erasing an earlier gain. The stock is down more than 20% this year, compared with a 2% increase in the S&P 500. Investors will be looking for updates when the company reports its fourth-quarter earnings results on June 26. 

Nike has been putting together a dedicated team for the project, which had been kept secret for more than a year until an announcement in February. The division, which is made up of employees from Nike, Skims and new hires, is still recruiting designers. It’s expected to create and sell a selection of training footwear, apparel and accessories.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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London is seeking to attract more Chinese firms to list on its stock exchange as the city struggles with a shrinking equity market and a deal drought across Europe. 

“We need to get more IPOs happening in London,” Chris Hayward, policy chairman of the City of London Corp., said in an interview from Shanghai. “We don’t want to lose business across the Atlantic.” 

The authority for London’s Square Mile financial district can provide opportunities for Chinese firms to secure customers and funding in the UK and drive them to list in the city via its connect scheme with Shanghai, Hayward said. The city can also encourage UK firms to raise capital and list on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, he said.   

China introduced its stock connect program with the UK in 2019, allowing listed companies to issue depository receipts on each other’s exchanges. It later expanded the program to include Switzerland and Germany. Six years later, only a handful of Chinese firms, including Huatai Securities Co., have listed in London, raising a total $6.6 billion, and trading has been muted.

Beijing and London vowed early this year to deepen economic and financial ties, promising efforts to boost the China-UK stock connect.

“You’ve got to proactively go out there and encourage listings on your exchange,” said Hayward, drawing lessons from Hong Kong’s success in igniting a boom in initial public offerings in the first half of this year. Hayward, who was in Shanghai this week for China’s annual financial Lujiazui forum, is traveling to Hong Kong later in the week for IPO discussions.

Hong Kong’s share-sale bonanza this year saw new listings and additional offerings fetch more than $27 billion as of early June. That eclipsed annual totals in the last three years, and is the most since records were reached in 2021, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The London bourse, on the other hand, has had just four pending or trading IPOs this year, as its valuation discount to the rest of the world discourages firms. 

London, as a key offshore yuan center, has also worked with China’s central bank to help promote the internationalization of its currency. 

London established a working group with the People’s Bank of China in 2018 to monitor the yuan market in the UK capital. The authority has been pushing global asset managers in the city to issue new products in yuan to facilitate greater use of the currency, said Hayward. 

He downplayed the potential impact that UK’s recent tax for wealthy non-domiciled residents and its immigration crackdown could have on London’s appeal as a global financial center, while urging efforts to resolve the non-dom issue.

“I would encourage the government to continue to review this matter,” he said. “It’s important to us to try and keep wealth creators in this country.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Starbucks Corp. Chief Executive Officer Brian Niccol vowed to further align the company’s menu with the administration’s health goals. 

The two men met Tuesday, Kennedy said in a post on X. Niccol “shared the company’s plans to further MAHA its menu,” the secretary wrote, using the acronym for the “Make America Healthy Again” campaign to lower sugar and remove artificial ingredients from the US food supply, among other changes.

Kennedy didn’t provide details in his post, but Niccol has said that the chain wants to expand in health and wellness as customers look to lower their sugar intake and get more from their beverages than just a caffeine hit. 

In a statement, Starbucks reiterated its commitment to offerings that cater to healthy lifestyles. 

“Our diverse menu of high-quality foods and beverages empowers customers to make informed nutritional decisions, with transparency on ingredients, calories and more,” a Starbucks spokesperson said.

The company said last week that it’s testing drinks such as a sugar-free vanilla latte topped with protein banana cold foam. The new drinks will have at least 15 grams of protein that will come from a powder. Diners will be able to add the protein, which is unsweetened, to any cold foam flavor. 

Competitors such as fast-growing Dutch Bros Inc. have had success with coffee drinks with protein-infused milk, which particularly appeal to younger consumers.

Other recent moves include removing sugar from the company’s matcha powder, which lifted matcha sales 40% from the prior year, Niccol said on the company’s April 29 earnings call. Starbucks is undertaking a broader overhaul of its menu as part of Niccol’s plan to jolt sales after five straight quarters of declines. The Seattle-based chain also removed the upcharge for nondairy milk. 

Kennedy said he was “pleased to learn that Starbucks’ food and beverages already avoid artificial dyes, artificial flavors, high-fructose corn syrup, artificial sweeteners and other additives.” 

The company’s summer menu includes beverages such as a berry iced drink called Summer Skies, which has 26 grams of sugar in a 16-ounce serving. The American Heart Association recommends that men consume less than 36 grams of added sugar a day and women less than 25 grams.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Swiss watch exports dropped by almost 10% in May led by a slump in shipments to the US, reversing the previous month’s surge when manufacturers were trying to get ahead of a looming trade war.

Total shipments fell 9.5% to 2.1 billion Swiss francs ($2.6 billion), the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry said in a statement Thursday. Exports to the US, the single-biggest market, were down just over 25%.

The latest data underscore the impact President Donald Trump’s trade policies are having on the watch sector. The US imposed a 10% levy on imports from Switzerland in early April, and has threatened as much as 31% if a new trade deal isn’t reached. The watch industry would be hit hard by any increase.

Shares of Swatch Group AG and Compagnie Financiere Richemont SA fell as much as 2.3% and 2.5% respectively in early trading in Zurich.

Asia continued to suffer, with shipments to China, Japan and Hong Kong all registering double-digit declines in the latest data.

“The rise of ‘luxury fatigue,’ a declining ‘feel-good factor’ from luxury purchases, and worsening consumer sentiment all contribute to a less optimistic outlook,” Vontobel analyst Jean-Philippe Bertschy said in a note.

The Swiss watch industry’s weakness matches a wider trend for the export-dependent country, as overall monthly foreign sales declined 42%, narrowing Switzerland’s trade surplus the most in almost five years.

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A pioneering group of Indonesian nickel smelters with the world’s lowest production costs has been hit by a jump in the price of a key raw material, crimping their profitability just as the market is saddled with a glut.

The price of sulfur, a chemical used to produce acid, has more than tripled in price over the past year, driven by increased demand. That’s a headache for producers in Indonesia that use high-pressure acid leaching, known as HPAL. The breakthrough technique enables the smelters to extract metal from low-grade ore with chemicals, avoiding the need for blast furnaces.

Indonesia is home to the world’s largest nickel industry, with Chinese-led investment and a focus on cost-cutting innovation leading to a boom in production in recent years. The upsurge in supply of nickel metal—a commodity vital for auto batteries—has prompted a slump in prices, with benchmark refined futures in London hitting the lowest since 2020 earlier this year.

That slump has intensified competition among producers, posing a challenge for the industry, as well as for local governments, which have promoting mineral development as a way of boosting the Southeast Asia’s largest economy. Due to low emissions and costs, HPAL factories had been enjoying policy preferences, although the central government said this week it planned to punish producers at a key industrial park for alleged environment breaches.

“We may see a point later this year or early next year when HPAL factories see very thin margins,” said Luigi Fan, an analyst at SMM Information & Technology Co. Still, more HPAL producers are still likely to come online, partly because of strong prices for cobalt, a byproduct, according to Fan.

Existing producers include PT Trimegah Bangun Persada, known as Harita Nickel, and China’s Lygend Resources & Technology Co. on Obi Island. Projects due to start soon include Nickel Industries Ltd., which is backed by Chinese giant Tsingshan Holding Group Co., and a venture from PT Harum Energy in Weda Bay.

None of the companies approached for comment for this story opted to reply.

The expansion of HPAL operations pushed Indonesia to become a global major importer of sulfur, which is traditionally used to make fertilizer. Middle Eastern countries and Canada are among the main producers, with global oil majors such as Saudi Arabian Oil Co., or Aramco, recovering sulfur from natural gas and oil processing.

It takes about 12 tons of sulfur to make 1 ton of mixed-hydroxide precipitate, or MHP, a form of nickel aimed at automakers. Given the surge in sulfur costs, HPAL factories need to pay over $2,500 more than last year for each ton of MHP, pressuring margins in an industry that is still growing, said Fan. At present, the average cost of producing 1 ton of MHP stands at about $11,000.

Production is expected to go on rising in Indonesia. Output of MHP nickel is set to surge to 619,000 tons in 2026, up more than a third from this year, according to Angela Durrant, principal analyst of base metals at CRU Group. 

“Despite these cost pressures coming from the rise in sulfur prices since mid-2024, Indonesian HPAL assets will remain in the first quartile of the cost curve,” Durrant said, referring to a measure of how cheaply plants can produce. “We do not expect higher sulfur prices to slow the pace of capacity additions.”

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Bitcoin options show traders are hedging against a price pullback to the $100,000 price level with geopolitical and economic uncertainty rising across global financial markets. 

The put-to-call volume ratio on the crypto derivatives exchange Deribit surged to 2.17 over the past 24 hours, reflecting a strong tilt toward protective bets. Put options, which offer downside insurance by giving the holder of the contract the right to sell at a certain price, saw outsized demand, particularly in short-dated contracts. For options expiring June 20, open interest in puts struck at $100,000 now tops the board, with a put-to-call ratio of 1.16, underscoring concern about a near-term price fall.

Bitcoin reached an all-time high of $111,980 on May 22, and is up more than 50% since a now crypto-friendly Donald Trump was elected president of the U.S. for a second time in November. The largest cryptocurrency was little changed at about $104,377 on Wednesday. 

The caution comes as Federal Reserve policymakers navigate a highly uncertain environment as geopolitical tension in the Middle East and volatile energy prices add to inflation and labor market risks tied to the Trump administration’s tariff policies. With U.S. officials widely expected to hold policy steady for a fourth straight meeting later Wednesday, markets will focus on the Fed’s latest projections for growth, unemployment and interest rates.

“A hawkish signal from the Federal Reserve could strengthen the US dollar and trigger a test of the psychological $100,000 mark,” Javier Rodriguez-Alarcón, chief investment officer of XBTO, wrote in a note.  “Simultaneously, the geopolitical situation remains a wildcard; any credible de-escalation in the Middle East could serve as a significant risk-on catalyst, while a further deterioration would likely trigger another move down across risk assets.” 

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Italy lacks women in position of leadership and that’s a cultural issue that the business community needs to fix, the head of Milan’s stock exchange said.

“Last year we probably reached the lowest level of female CEOs leading listed companies at Milan’s Stock Exchange,” said Claudia Parzani, chairman of Euronext NV’s Borsa Italiana SpA, at the Bloomberg New Voices event on Tuesday. 

She warned the country needs to attract new talent, including qualified women. Italy needs to focus on the “human factor” in the age of AI, she added.

Parzani is also a senior adviser at Linklaters LLP law firm and a non-executive director at carmaker Stellantis NV.

Speaking about capital markets in Italy, Parzani highlighted the importance of making the market more attractive to smaller and medium enterprises. “We are working on something that is important, that is the liquidity of the market, especially for smaller companies, and enlarging as much as possible the category of institutional domestic investors.” 

Still, she said the market windows for initial public offerings aren’t always available and placed Italy as lagging behing competing markets such as France and Germany.

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For years, Bayer AG was one of Germany’s worst stocks. Now, it’s turning out to be among the best.

The pharma and chemical conglomerate soared some 40% in 2025, ranking among the top stocks in the DAX. It has risen so rapidly that the price is on the cusp of surpassing the average 12-month analyst target.

Traders are betting on a possible breakthrough in Bayer’s long-running legal battle over Roundup weedkiller and that its experimental Asundexian drug might be a blockbuster treatment for preventing strokes. Some analysts have said the worst-case scenario is already priced in and there have been no sell ratings on the stock since September, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“The entire situation for Bayer is definitely better than last year,” said Markus Manns, a portfolio manager at Union Investment in Frankfurt. “The first successes of the turnaround are visible.”

Chief Executive Officer Bill Anderson has sought to streamline the sprawling organization and step up legal and lobbying efforts in the US since taking over in 2023. 

Still even after this year’s recovery, Bayer shares are a fraction of what they once were. The company already paid out about $10 billion of the $16 billion set aside to handle Roundup claims, and its acquisition of Monsanto in 2018 is now seen as a textbook case of an ill-fated blockbuster deal. Last year, the stock plunged some 42%, a bigger loss than any other company in the DAX. 

More investors are seeing the beginnings of a turnaround, especially as the US Supreme Court could review Bayer’s litigation as soon as June and ultimately decide in favor of the company.

There’s probably a 40% chance that the Supreme Court will carry out the review of the Roundup litigation, and should that happen, there’s a 75% probability it will ultimately side with Bayer, according to Tom Claps, a litigation analyst at Gordon Haskett. 

Bayer spokesperson said the company shares the view that there could be a Supreme Court review by the end of June, adding that the firm is looking at all available options to deal with the litigation. 

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analyst James Quigley says if the high court reviews Bayer’s case, it may trigger a 10% to 25% jump in the stock price. Earlier this month, he upgraded the stock to a buy recommendation, one of three analysts to do so. 

Of course, if the Supreme Court rejects Bayer’s appeal, the company will have to rely on other approaches, for example separating its glyphosate business. The firm could have to shell out another $8 billion to get beyond the 67,000 or so outstanding claims, according to Holly Froum, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst.

A Bayer spokesperson declined to comment on estimates of the amount of the settlement of outstanding claims.

Bayer also has a high debt burden, and prominent German investor, Deka Investment’s Ingo Speich has voiced exasperation over the company’s ongoing struggles. Besides, the firm is facing increased competition for blockbuster eye medicine Eylea and blood-thinner Xarelto.

The stock is still cheap relative to peers and some investors are optimistic that there could be positive results from a trial testing an experimental stroke medicine. Bayer trades at around six times forward earnings, compared with average multiple of 15 for companies in the Stoxx 600. 

The firm’s pharma unit could get a boost if the stroke drug Asundexian produces good late-stage trial data later this year, according to Union Investment’s Manns. He estimates the treatment may generate as much as €2 billion ($2.3 billion) in annual sales.

“Once the litigation overhang is cleared, the company may be better able to present a strategy to shareholders to de-gear the balance sheet, which could enable it to invest in its pharma pipeline,” Rajesh Kumar, an analyst at HSBC Holdings Plc, wrote in a note. 

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In a year that’s all about Europe, there’s one key market missing out on all the investor love: France.

The aftermath of President Emmanuel Macron’s surprise decision last June to hold elections is still being felt in French assets. For stocks, the picture is made worse by anemic demand for French luxury goods from previously high-spending Chinese shoppers. 

The CAC 40 in Paris is up 4.1% this year. Meanwhile, Germany’s DAX has rallied 18% and is set for its best first-half since 2007. Historic fiscal stimulus is revitalizing Europe’s growth engine, spurring frenetic rallies in defense and infrastructure stocks in Frankfurt. 

Bank of America Corp.’s survey of European fund managers this week showed that these investors are turning more bullish on the region’s stocks. Europe’s Stoxx 600 benchmark is up 7% so far in 2025. But, among countries, Germany is the most liked and France “the most unloved.”

The snap vote last June left France with a hung parliament and political instability that hobbled efforts to reduce the budget deficit to European Union limits. In the government bond market, France has sharply underperformed Germany as investors demand higher compensation to account for the risks. 

For Florian Allain, a fund manager at Mandarine Gestion in Paris, the concerns about France that trouble investors continue to grow. 

“In the past year, none of France’s biggest problems have been tackled. The state of public finances is dire, economic growth is weak and there’s no political visibility,” he said. “I have no problem understanding why a foreign investor wanting to buy Europe would rather chose Germany.” 

Not only have French large-cap stocks underperformed sharply since Macron called the snap election, they have also lost the valuation premium to their German peers they enjoyed for about a decade. The CAC 40 forward price-to-earnings ratio now shows an 8% discount to the DAX, compared with an average 6% premium during the 10 years prior to the election. 

And analysts are increasingly cautious about the outlook for the country’s most valuable companies. Since the start of 2024, CAC 40 earnings estimates have fallen by more than 10%, a sharp contrast with the 5% surge for the DAX and 2% increase for the broader Stoxx Europe 600. 

For a time, betting on France had proved a successful trade as Macron built a reputation among foreign investors as a pro-business reformer and well-heeled shoppers’ desire for French luxury goods grew year after year. Total returns for the CAC 40 between mid-2017, when Macron took office, and June 2024 totaled 83% against 68% for the pan-European Stoxx 600.  

Since Macron dissolved the French National Assembly, the CAC 40 index has slipped 4%. The DAX in Frankfurt is up 26%. Europe’s Stoxx 600 benchmark has gained 3.6%. 

The spectacular slump in French luxury stocks has left deep scars on the Paris stock market. Luxury giant LVMH has slumped 36% since last summer’s political turmoil erupted. That chopped more than 300 points off the CAC 40, almost three times more than car-maker Stellantis NV, the next biggest drag.

French stocks now lag far behind those in Spain, with the IBEX up 22% over the same period. In Italy, Milan’s FTSE MIB Index has climbed 14%. 

France’s bonds have underperformed those of neighboring Germany too. Since Macron called the election, yields on French 30-year bonds have surged by nearly half a percentage point while the equivalent rate on German bunds is little changed. At the 10-year point, French yields are 18 basis points higher, compared to six basis points lower in the case of Germany. 

“There’s no real going back for France, in terms of getting back to the spreads it used to trade at before,” said John Taylor, head of European fixed income and director of global multi-sector at AllianceBernstein, which manages assets of $785 billion. But the longer it lacks a clear governing majority, the harder it will be for country’s debt trajectory and fiscal dynamics to improve, he said. 

The divergence in performance is all the more remarkable given the newly elected government in Berlin’s announcement of a vast fiscal package in March to turbocharge long-term investment in defense and infrastructure. German bonds initially plunged on the prospect of much higher bond issuance in the coming years, though yields have since retreated from the peaks. 

It’s drawn a line under the years when French government debt was considered a good, high-quality alternative to German debt, the region’s haven asset due to Berlin’s historic fiscal austerity. The notes have also underperformed bonds issued by Italy, Spain and Portugal, once at the heart of the region’s sovereign debt crisis in 2011.

While France’s budget deficit had been deteriorating for years, the snap elections led to a highly fragmented parliament that laid bare the high barriers to curb public spending. Prime Minister Francois Bayrou is planning to present his government’s 2026 budget plans next month, which entail about €40 billion ($46 billion) of savings. 

“If Bayrou pulls off the 2026 budget, then I’d go bullish on France,” said Arnaud Girod, head of economics and cross-asset strategy at Kepler Cheuvreux in Paris. Still, he said that this move would be a tactical one as political risk would make a comeback sooner rather than later.

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Amazon.com Inc. Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy says he expects the company’s workforce to decline in the next few years as the retail and cloud-computing giant uses artificial intelligence to handle more tasks. 

Generative AI and AI-powered software agents “should change the way our work is done,” Jassy said in an email to employees on Tuesday that laid out his thinking about how the emerging technology will transform the workplace. 

“We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs,” Jassy wrote. “It’s hard to know exactly where this nets out over time, but in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company.”

From the start of the AI boom, people inside and outside the industry have raised concerns about the potential for artificial intelligence to replace workers. Those concerns have only grown as tech companies introduce more sophisticated AI systems that can write code and field online tasks on a user’s behalf.

Shopify Inc. told employees that requests for new headcount will require an explanation as to why AI can’t do the job. Duolingo Inc. said it would “gradually stop” using contractors to do work that artificial intelligence can handle. And Microsoft Corp. recently announced a round of layoffs that hit software developers hardest.

Dario Amodei, CEO of OpenAI rival Anthropic, recently warned that AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs and cause unemployment to spike to as high as 20% over the next five years.

Amazon, which has prioritized automation in logistics and headquarters roles for years, is investing heavily in AI. Jassy, in his letter, rattled off some of those initiatives, including the Alexa+ voice software, a shopping assistant, and tools for developers and businesses sold by the Amazon Web Services cloud unit. 

Inside the company, Amazon has used AI tools for inventory placement, customer service and product listings. Jassy encouraged employees to “experiment with AI whenever you can.” 

“It’s hard to know exactly where this nets out over time, but in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company,” he said.

Amazon is the largest private U.S. employer after Walmart Inc., with 1.56 million employees as of the end of March. Most work in warehouses packing and shipping items, but about 350,000 of them have corporate jobs. 

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Cathie Wood’s flagship ETF has staged a powerful comeback from the depths of the trade war panic, rallying more than 50% since early April. But rather than restoring investor faith, the rebound has only been met with skepticism. 

Outflows are persistent. Short sellers are circling in record numbers, driven by bearish conviction and tactical hedging. And a booming class of retail-friendly products — leveraged exchange-traded funds — are competing with Wood’s strategy of making high-conviction bets on famous tech names.

The result: the ARK Innovation ETF, which helped define the disruptive tech story during the pandemic, is delivering performance without inspiring confidence. 

According to data from financial analytics firm S3 Partners, short interest in ARKK has climbed to a record of roughly 37% of free float — surpassing even pandemic-era peaks. In June alone, bearish traders would have incurred over $300 million in mark-to-market losses. Monday’s 4.4% surge in theory added another roughly $93 million to the tab.

Wood’s “funds have gone on great runs, but I wonder if investors who piled in during 2020 and 2021 are still feeling the effects of that rush and decline,” said Todd Sohn, senior ETF strategist at Strategas. 

“Perhaps they’ve moved on to other areas like crypto or levered single stock funds too,” Sohn added.

The short-selling also reflects firms offsetting long bets in large-cap technology names, a strategy that can endure even as those positions rack up mark-to-market losses, according to Ihor Dusaniwsky of S3 Partners.

ARKK’s speculative tech holdings like Tesla Inc., Roblox Corp., and Coinbase Global Inc. have rebounded from tariff-volatility induced lows alongside the broader stock market as President Donald Trump has walked back some of his most extreme trade proposals and corporate earnings have been resilient. 

While bets on Elon Musk’s electric-vehicle company have proved volatile, the company, which is ARKK’s top holding, has outperformed the S&P 500 Index by about 21 percentage points from early April. 

Still, the doubters haven’t budged. On Thursday, ARKK recorded its largest single-day outflow since 2022, contributing to over $840 million in outflows so far this year. It has seen net redemptions for five consecutive weeks. A spokesperson for ARKK did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

To Bloomberg Intelligence’s Athanasios Psarofagis, it’s not just the fund’s poor performance that has investors shunning the ETF, it’s that they can now build arguably better-performing portfolios with single-stock ETFs.

While Wood rose to fame because she offered retail investors access to her high-conviction stock picks — many of which initially fared extremely well — new ETFs on the market are making it easier than ever for investors to place their own concentrated bets on stocks, without relying on managers, he writes in a note. 

Take single-stock ETFs, which offer amped up exposure to a single company like Nvidia Corp. or Tesla. Such funds have grown to command nearly $21 billion in assets since regulators green lit the structure in 2022. 

“With leveraged and inverse ETFs available or in the pipeline for almost all of ARKK’s top holdings, investors can replicate or enhance the strategy sans active management,” Psarofagis writes. “As these products proliferate, flagship thematic ETFs like ARKK risk becoming obsolete, as investors go straight to the source.” 

Underscoring how investors are hungry for double or triple the total return of newly traded stocks, ETF issuers have raced to file plans for funds that would provide leveraged exposure to newly public company Circle Internet Group Inc. 

Aside from more competition, poor longer-term performance also helps explain why short sellers have been so steadfast in betting against Wood. While the fund has rallied over the last few months, it has returned essentially zero over the last five years, compared to the S&P 500’s more than 100% total return. 

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