If youre interested in understanding the current state of the U.S. economy and corporate America, and what the rest of the year might look like (and who isnt?), this was the week for youwith five days packed full of earnings reports, policy announcements, and economic data.
And although the picture that emerged from all that information was arguably more fuzzy than sharp, a couple of things do seem clear: The economy is limping, not booming, and the impact of tariffs is finally being felt.
The most important data point of the week came on Friday morning, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the U.S. economy created just 73,000 jobs in July.
More importantly, the BLS also said that the jobs numbers for May and June had been revised dramatically downward: The May number went from an estimated 144,000 jobs created to just 19,000 jobs, while the estimate of jobs created in June fell from 147,000 jobs to just 14,000.
Even assuming that the July number is correct (and that it wont eventually be revised downward as well), that means that the U.S. economy created just 35,000 jobs a month, on average, over the past three months, compared with 168,000 jobs a month last year.
Employers pump the brakes on hiring
The current jobs numbers are not quite as terrible as that comparison suggests, since a drop in immigration and the continued aging of the population mean that the economy needs to create fewer jobs in order to stay at full employment. (Unemployment in Fridays report was still just 4.2%.)
But the jobs number does suggest that, at the very least, businesses are being far more cautious about adding jobs. And thats only confirmed when you look at the details of the jobs report: The U.S. lost manufacturing jobs in each of the past three months, while essentially all of the private-sector job growth since May has come in healthcare and social services.
Not all the news this week was bad: On Wednesday, gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the second quarter came in at a solid 3%. That was a big jump from the negative number we got in the first quarter, even if it still means GDP grew in the first half of the year at a below-average 1.2%.
Average hourly earnings are up 3.9% year over year. And earnings reports gave us blowout earnings numbers from Microsoft and Meta, good numbers from Apple and Amazon and, perhaps most interestingly, excellent numbers from Mastercard, which suggests consumers are continuing to spend.
Still, there were reasons for concern, particularly with that 3% GDP number.
Private purchaseswhich are generally thought of as a good measure of domestic demandwere up just 1.2% year over year. Consumption rose 1.4%, which is respectable but not impressive. Business investmentparticularly investment in everything other than computer equipmentactually fell. And spending on imports tumbled sharply.
The AI boom is fueling massive investment in technology and computer equipment, which is boosting overall GDP. But while Big Tech is roaring, much of the rest of the economy seems to be drifting in the doldrums.
Normally, that would have made a strong case for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates at its meeting this week (it didn’t), just as President Donald Trump has been berating Fed chair Jerome Powell to do. The problem for the Fed is that even as the economy seems to be stalling, or at least slowing down, inflation has shown no sign of going away and, in fact, it may be picking up.
In addition to all the other data this week, we heard news about the personal consumption expenditures price indexthe Fed’s preferred measure of inflationwhich jumped 0.3% in July and is now up 2.6% year over year, well ahead of the Feds 2% inflation target.
So the Fed is looking at a weak job market and stubbornly high inflation: not a great place to be in.
The elephant in the room
The big complicating factor in all this, of course, is the tariffs that Trump has imposed, paused, rolled back, and now is preparing to impose again.
To begin with, the tariffsand how businesses have responded to themhave a lot to do with those big swings in GDP growth we saw in the first half of the year. Imports spiked in the first quarter as businesses loaded up on inventory before the tariffs hit, helping shrink the GDP. Then they plummeted in the second quarter as businesses worked through that inventory, giving GDP an artificial boost.
The tariffs are also eating into company profits. This week, Black & Decker, Ford, and Procter & Gamble all said that tariffs had hurt their earnings. And theyre starting to feed into inflation: Adidas said this week that it may hike prices to deal with higher costs, and P&G said it would be raising prices on 25% of its products.
The impact of tariffs could also be seen in this weeks economic reports: Goods prices (the prices that tariffs would have the most direct impact on) were up 3% year over year.
The uncertainty surrounding Trumps tariff policyand where rates are going to end uphas also made it difficult for companies to plan and to invest. And theyve made consumersalready unhappy with inflationmore cautious, which you can see in consumer sentiment numbers.
The current University of Michigan consumer sentiment index, which was released on Friday, shows that consumer sentiment, while better than it was in April, is still broadly negative, down 7% from a year ago. And consumer expectations of the future are even worse, down 16% year over year.
All of this arguably helps explain why so many businesses seem to have been in a holding pattern: Caution is a logical response to uncertainty.
Trump removed some of that uncertainty Thursday night when he issued a new executive order imposing new tariff rates on almost every country in the worldrates that are scheduled to go into effect on August 7.
The rates are in most cases 15%, and often higher. (A few countries got a 10% rate.) Thats better than the original tariff rates that Trump had imposed on what he called Liberation Day back in April. But they still represent a massive hike in import costs from last year.
To be sure, nothing we saw this week says that the economy is headed for disaster. But, at the very least, this weeks numbers make it very hard to be bullish (except, of course, about Big Tech). The U.S. is stuck in neutral, and neither the Trump administration nor the Federal Reserve is doing much to get it back in gear.
Millions of student loan borrowers are about to see a jump in their monthly payments. That’s because an interest-free pause under the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan has ended as of Aug. 1.
SAVE, rolled out in 2023 under Biden, brought many borrowers’ payments down to $0 a month, ensured borrowers’ balance wouldn’t grow as long as they made timely payments, and massively cut undergraduate loan balances. 7.7 million federal student borrowers enrolled in the plan. But now, the end to a pause in interest under Trumps “Big, Beautiful Bill” means, interest will begin accruing once again on loans.
In a press release earlier this month, announcing the upcoming end to the pause, U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon called the SAVE program “unlawful.” McMahon asserted, “Congress designed these programs to ensure that borrowers repay their loans, yet the Biden Administration tried to illegally force taxpayers to foot the bill instead.”
McMahon continued, “Since day one of the Trump Administration, weve focused on strengthening the student loan portfolio and simplifying repayment to better serve borrowers. As part of this effort, the Department urges all borrowers in the SAVE Plan to quickly transition to a legally compliant repayment plan such as the Income-Based Repayment Plan (IBR).”
What should SAVE enrollees expect?
Starting Friday, SAVE participants will see interest charges, even if they arent making payments. The added interest means monthly bills will be higher, but how much higher depends on income.
However, if they switch plans to the IBR plan McMahon referenced, borrowers may see their monthly bills rise drastically. While SAVE calculated monthly payments based on 5% of a borrower’s income, the IBR plan takes 10%. For older loans, it ticks up to 15%. (Student loan forgiveness for those with IBR plans was also recently paused under Trump).
Some experts believe the transition will pose a massive challenge for borrowers, as they switch to other repayment plans. Nancy Nierman, assistant director of the Education Debt Consumer Assistance Program in New York City, said, per CNBC, In severe cases, it could result in people being forced to move, or they will just resign themselves to default and involuntary collections.”
Are there any new plans in place?
In addition to IBR plans, borrowers will have access to a new republican-led plan, Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP), but not until next July. Under the new plan, payments will range from 1% to 10% of a borrower’s earnings, with bills rising the more they earn. Unlike IBR plans, RAP does not shield a portion of the borrower’s income, and is based on total earnings before taxes.
According to the National Consumer Law Center, the RAP plan is “significantly more expensive for borrowers than the SAVE plan, but will also be more expensive than the other existing IBR plans for low-income borrowers”
What should SAVE enrollees do?
The Department of Education said earlier this month that it will begin contacting SAVE enrollees about next steps and that participants should begin determining which plan best suits their needs.
“To compare available repayment plans, the Department encourages borrowers with loans in the SAVE Plan to use the Loan Simulator to estimate monthly payments under available repayment plans, determine repayment eligibility, and learn which option best meets their repayment goals,” it said.
The department also noted that in May, it resumed collections on delinquent loans, saying it has “emailed more than 23 million borrowers reminding them of their legal obligation to repay their loans as well as the benefits of making regular progress toward repayment.”SAVE participants also have the option to stay in forbearance, however, the interest they accrue could be significant. Some experts say, in that case, making interest-only payments can help stave off mounting balances down the road.
If you know its going to really financially hurt you to start making payments, then just stay in the forbearance, Megan Walter, senior policy analyst at the National Association of Financial Aid Administrators, said per CNBC. If you can at least pay the interest, I would do that.
Borrowers who can’t afford their monthly payments, can also apply for forbearance or deferment.
SAVE will officially shutter in July 2028.
Coinbase, the largest U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange, reported second quarter earnings on Thursday. Why is the stock tumbling? Here’s what to know.
What happened?
Shares of Coinbase Global (NASDAQ: COIN) were down 15% in morning and midday trading on Friday, the lowest price the stock has hit in more than a month, after it reported lower-than-expected second quarter adjusted profit due to a slowdown in trading, according to Reuters.
Coinbase earnings
Revenue came in at $1.5 billion, which missed analyst expectations of $1.6 billion, while revenue tied to transactions came in at $764 million, missing StreetAccount estimates of $787 million, according to CNBC.
However, other earnings numbers came in strong.
In the three months ending June 30, Coinbase net income rose to $1.43 billion, to deliver earnings per share (EPS) of $5.14.
A further look at Coinbase’s EPS shows the company beat analyst expectations $1.51 by $3.65.
Subscriptions and services offerings which include stablecoins, staking, interest income, and custody grew 9% from the same period a year ago to $655.8 million, short of analysts projection of $705.9 million.
Analysts told Reuters that Coinbase could see trading volume improve, according to the company’s revenue estimates.
The earnings follow a surge in crypto spurrred on by the Genius Act‘s signing into law.
Coinbase on S&P 500
Coinbase joined the S&P 500 stock market index in May, replacing Discover; it is the first time a crypto company has been included on the index. The S&P 500 is one of the worlds best-known stock market indexes.
The International Court of Justice issued a landmark advisory opinion in July 2025 declaring that all countries have a legal obligation to protect and prevent harm to the climate.
The court, created as part of the United Nations in 1945, affirmed that countries must uphold existing international laws related to climate change and, if they fail to act, could be held responsible for damage to communities and the environment.
The opinion opens a door for future claims by countries seeking reparations for climate-related harm.
But while the ruling is a big global story, its legal effect on the U.S. is less clear. We study climate policies, law and solutions. Heres what you need to know about the ruling and its implications.
Why island nations called for a formal opinion
The ruling resulted from years of grassroots and youth-led organizing by Pacific Islanders. Supporters have called it a turning point for frontline communities everywhere.
Small island states like Vanuatu, Tuvalu, Barbados and others across the Pacific and Caribbean are among the most vulnerable to climate change, yet they have contributed little to global emissions.
For many of them, sea-level rise poses an existential threat. Some Pacific atolls sit just 1 to 2 meters above sea level and are slowly disappearing as waters rise. Saltwater intrusion threatens drinking water supplies and crops.
Their economies depend on tourism, agriculture and fishing, all sectors easily disrupted by climate change. For example, coral reefs are bleaching more often and dying due to ocean warming and acidification, undermining fisheries, marine biodiversity and economic sectors such as tourism.
When disasters hit, the cost of recovery often forces these countries to take on debt. Climate change also undermines their credit ratings and investor confidence, making it harder to get the money to finance adaptive measures.
The Maldives, shown in a satellite image from 2020, has an average elevation of less than 5 feet (1.5 meters) above sea level. With limited land where people can live, the country has tried to build up new areas of its islands for housing. [Image: NASA Earth Observatory]
Tuvalu and Kiribati have discussed digital nationhood and leasing land from other countries so their people can relocate while still retaining citizenship. Some projections suggest nations like the Maldives or Marshall Islands could become largely uninhabitable within decades.
For these countries, sea-level rise is taking more than their land theyre losing their history and identity in the process. The idea of becoming climate refugees and separating people from their homelands can be culturally destructive, emotionally painful and politically fraught as they move to new countries.
More than a nonbinding opinion
The International Court of Justice, commonly referred to as the ICJ or World Court, can help settle disputes between states when requested, or it can issue advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by authorized U.N. bodies such as the General Assembly or Security Council. The advisory opinion process allows its 15 judges to weigh in on abstract legal issues such as nuclear weapons or the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories without a formal dispute between states.
While the courts advisory opinions are nonbinding, they can still have a powerful impact, both legally and politically.
The rulings are considered authoritative statements regarding questions of international law. They often clarify or otherwise confirm existing legal obligations that are binding.
What the court decided
The ICJ was asked to weigh in on two questions in this case:
What are the obligations of States under international law to ensure the protection of the climate system from anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases?
What are the legal consequences under these obligations for States where they, by their acts and omissions, have caused significant harm to the climate system?
In its 140-page opinion, the court cited international treaties and relevant scientific background to affirm that obligations to protect the environment are indeed a matter of international environmental law, international human rights law and general principles of state responsibility.
The decision means that in the authoritative opinion of the international legal community, all countries are under an obligation to contribute to the efforts to reduce global greenhouse emissions.
To the second question, the court found that in the event of a breach of any such obligation, three additional obligations arise:
The country in breach of its obligations must stop its polluting activity, which would mean excess greenhouse gas emissions in this case.
It must ensure that such activities do not occur in the future.
It must make reparations to affected states in terms of cleanup, monetary payment and pologies.
The court affirmed that all countries have a legal duty under customary international law, which refers to universal rules that arise from common practices among states, to prevent harm to the climate. It also clarified that individual countries can be held accountable, even in a crisis caused by many countries and other entities. And it emphasized that countries that have contributed the most to climate change may bear greater responsibility for repairing the damage under an international law doctrine called common but differentiated responsibility, which is commonly found in international treaties concerning the environment.
While the ICJs opinion doesnt assign blame to specific countries or trigger direct reparations, it may provide support for future legal action in both international and national courts.
What does the ICJ opinion mean for the US?
In the U.S., this advisory opinion is unlikely to have much legal impact, despite a long-standing constitutional principle that international law is part of U.S. law.
U.S. courts rarely treat international law that has not been incorporated into domestic law as binding. And the U.S. has not consented to ICJ jurisdiction in previous climate cases.
Contentious cases before international tribunals can be brought by one country against another, but they require the consent of all the countries involved. So there is little chance that the United States responsibility for climate harms will be adjudicated by the World Court anytime soon.
Still, the courts opinion sends a clear message: All countries are legally obligated to prevent climate harm and cannot escape responsibility simply because they arent the only nation to blame.
The unanimous ruling is particularly remarkable given the current hostile political climate in the United States and other industrial nations around climate change and responses to it. It represents a particularly forceful statement by the international community that the responsibility to ensure the health of the global environment is a legal duty held by the entire world.
The takeaway
The ICJs advisory opinion marks a turning point in the global effort to hold countries responsible for climate change.
Vulnerable countries now have a more concrete, legally grounded base to claim rights and press for accountability against historical and ongoing climate harm including financial claims.
How it will be used in the coming years remains unclear, but the opinion gives small island states in particular a powerful narrative and a legal tool set.
Lauren Gifford is a faculty of ecosystem science & sustainability, and a director at the Soil Carbon Solutions Center at Colorado State University.
Daimeon Shanks-Dumont is a doctoral candidate in law and social policy at the University of California, Berkeley.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
A federal appeals court has upheld a jury verdict condemning Google’s Android app store as an illegal monopoly, clearing the way for a federal judge to enforce a potentially disruptive shakeup that’s designed to give consumers more choices.The unanimous ruling issued Thursday by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals delivers a double-barreled legal blow for Google, which has been waylaid in three separate antitrust trials that resulted in different pillars of its internet empire being declared as domineering scofflaws monopolies since late 2023.The unsuccessful appeal represents a major victory for video game maker Epic Games, which launched a legal crusade targeting Google’s Play Store for Android apps and Apple’s iPhone app store nearly five years ago in an attempt to bypass exclusive payment processing systems that charged 15% to 30% commissions on in-app transactions.The jury’s December 2023 rebuke of Google’s app store for Android-powered smartphones began a cascade of setbacks that includes monopoly judgements against the company’s ubiquitous search engine last year and the technology underlying its digital ad network earlier this year.Although not as lucrative as Google’s search engine or ad system, the Play Store for Android apps has long been a gold mine that generated billions of dollars in annual revenue by taking a 15% to 30% cut from in-app transactions funneled through the company’s own payment processing system.Following a month-long trial, a nine-person jury determined that Google had rigged its system to thwart alternative app stores from offering better deals to consumers and software developers. That verdict resulted in U.S. District Judge James Donato ordering Google to tear down digital walls shielding the Play Store from competition, triggering the company’s appeal to overturn the jury’s finding and void the judge’s mandated shakeup.But a three-judge panel that heard Google’s appeal in February rejected its lawyers’ contention that Donato erred by allowing the case to be determined by a jury that deviated from the market definition outlined by another federal judge who mostly sided with Apple in Epic’s case against the iPhone maker’s app store.Epic’s lawsuit “was replete with evidence that Google’s anticompetitive conduct entrenched its dominance, causing the Play Store to benefit from network effects,” the judges wrote in the decision.The ruling “will significantly harm user safety, limit choice, and undermine the innovation that has always been central to the Android ecosystem,” Google’s vice president of regulatory affairs Lee-Anne Mulholland said in a statement.Unless Google can extend the enforcement delay placed on Donato’s order issued last October, the company will have to begin an overhaul that includes making the Play Store’s entire library of more than 2 million Android apps available to would-be rivals and also help distribute the alternative options. Google has argued that the required revisions will raise privacy and security risks by exposing consumers to scam artists and hackers masquerading as legitimate app stores.But Epic’s lawyers have ridiculed Google’s warnings about the changes as scare tactics in a desperate attempt to protect the fortunes of its corporate parent Alphabet Inc.Although Epic fell short in its attempt to have the iPhone’s app store declared a monopoly, that case resulted in a judge issuing an order that required Apple to surrender exclusive control over the payment processing of in-app transactions and allow links to alternative systems without collecting a commission.Besides being hit with Donato’s order, Google still faces further trouble ahead that could leave an even bigger dent in its finances.As part of the effort to address Google’s illegal monopoly in search, a federal judge is weighing a proposal by the U.S. Justice Department that would require the sale of its Chrome web browser and ban the multibillion dollar deals that company has been making with Apple and others to lock-in its search engine as the main gateway to the internet.Google is also facing a proposed breakup of its advertising technology as part of the countermeasures to its monopoly in that business. A trial on that proposal is scheduled to begin in September.
Michael Liedtke, AP Technology Writer
Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech on Friday lost their bid to overturn a ruling that their COVID-19 vaccine infringed one of Moderna’s patents at London’s Court of Appeal.
Last year, the High Court ruled that one of Moderna’s patents relating to the messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, which underpinned its COVID-19 vaccine, was valid and that Pfizer and BioNTech’s Comirnaty vaccine had infringed it, meaning Moderna is entitled to damages in relation to sales after March 2022.
The High Court also ruled that the other Moderna patent under challenge in the case was invalid. Moderna was refused permission to appeal against that decision.
But Pfizer and BioNTech were granted permission to appeal in an attempt to try and invalidate Moderna’s second patent and appealed earlier this month, arguing Moderna’s developments of mRNA technology were obvious developments of previous work, rendering the patent invalid.
Judge Richard Arnold, however, rejected Pfizer and BioNTech’s appeal.
Pfizer and BioNTech said in a joint statement that the decision “does not change our unwavering stance that this patent is invalid” and the companies will seek to appeal.
“This decision has no immediate impact on Pfizer and BioNTech or Comirnaty,” the companies added.
Moderna did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Friday’s decision in the latest ruling in the legal dispute between the two sides over their competing vaccines, which helped save millions of lives during the pandemic.
The companies have also been involved in proceedings in Germanywhere a court ruled in Moderna’s favour in Marchthe United States Patent Office, which held that two Moderna COVID-19 vaccine patents were invalid, and elsewhere.
Sam Tobin, Reuters
McDonald’s plans to “double down” on its artificial intelligence investments by 2027 and is betting on India to be a key hub for data governance, engineering and platform architecture, a senior executive said on Friday.
The fast-food giant, which entered India in 1996, operates hundreds of restaurants across the country and recently set up a global office in the southern city of Hyderabad, with an aim to make it the largest outside the United States.
“We’re still in the early stages, so it’s hard to pin down the exact investment,” McDonald’s head of Global Business Services operations, Deshant Kaila, said in an interview on the sidelines of an event in Hyderabad.
McDonald’s is using AI to verify orders at 400 restaurants to pre-empt errors before handing them over to customers, and expects to roll this out to 40,000 locations globally by 2027, Durga Prakash, head of technology (global offices), said.
The fast-food giant is also using AI tools to forecast sales, decide on pricing and assess product performance and is building a personalised app, which would work across countries, according to Kaila.
He said the India push will centre on building its AI team, but added that spending will lean more toward technology and tools, not headcount.
The company is in talks to set up a global office in Poland, just like the ones in India and Mexico, according to Durga Prakash.
Earlier this year, the southern Indian state of Telangana said that McDonald’s would launch a global capability center, employing 2,000 people in Hyderabad.
India’s global capability centers, once low-cost outsourcing hubs for global corporations, have evolved to support their parent organisations in domains ranging from operations and finance to research and development.
Rishika Sadam, Reuters
Midsize cities are where the growth is. Thats according to new report from BILL, the payments management company used by nearly half a million small and medium-size businesses and that processes around 1% of U.S. GDP. The report analyzed business-to-business accounts payable spending of companies with between 2 and 200 employees from the largest 342 U.S. cities with a population of 100,000 or more. Heres what to know:
While payments per company from large cities grew 11% year-over-year during the 12-month period ending May 2025, midsize cities have grown 32% over the same period. Since the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020, the growth in payments per company from midsize cities is two times that of large cities. While growth in midsize cities has increased by 200%, large cities growth escalated by just 113%.
Since January 2025, one month before the introduction of new tariffs, midsize cities have outpaced payments growth from large cities by nearly three times, with payments in large cities growing by 1.9% and midsize cities growing 5.5% in payment volume per business.
Below are the five U.S. cities with the fastest growing payments this year. All five are midsize cites.
1. Mesquite, Texas
2. El Monte, California
3. South Fulton, Georgia
4. Quincy, Massachusetts
5. Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
BILL Chief Economist Fergus McCormick says hes never seen this trend before. Through the data from May, were seeing really strong growth and resilience among SMBs in midsize cities, he says. Thats the key message.
The South and West regions of the U.S. have seen the fastest payments growth by city. This trend in data follows the exodus of people from larger cities during Covid-19, when an estimated 2 million migrated to the South and 957,000 to the West. According to the report, midsize cities in California and Texas saw the highest payments growth since May 2024. Those two states are also home to nine of the 25 fastest-growing cities this year, all midsize.
Other factors drawing people to midsize cities include a lower cost of living, stronger schools, safer neighborhoods and the increased regularity of working remotely.
McCormick says we are truly in the era of the midsize city. This payments data is a leading indicator of economic activity across the United States, he says. To the extent that we can help people understand the trends in economic activity, that is absolute gold.
By Ava Levinson
This article originally appeared on Fast Company’s sister publication, Inc.
Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy.
Figmas initial public offering this week was a boon for investors. Well, some investors.
When shares of the design software startup started trading on Thursday, they immediately went to the moon. After being priced at $33, the stock closed at $115.50 a share, an increase of around 250%. That meant some serious returns for investors, at least the ones who were able to get in on the action.
But complaints and reports surfaced yesterday among some Robinhood users who say missed out, as they were not able to purchase as much Figma stock as they wouldve liked.
Several users took to social media to air their grievances, claiming that they had tried to buy many Figma shares when they hit the market via Robinhood, but were only granted a single share. For instance, one user, posting on X, claimed to receive only one share after requesting 3,000.
The issue sparked a number of memes throughout the day on Thursday as Figma’s blockbuster IPO dominated financial headlines.
mom, how are we so rich?your dad sold his 1 figma share robinhood allocated him in the $fig ipo pic.twitter.com/FR96C4IxeT— Alex Kehr (@alexkehr) July 31, 2025
It may have happened because Robinhood, like other trading platforms, only receives a certain number of shares when a company goes public.
We receive a limited number of shares for each IPO, reads an article from Robinhoods support team. We use the number of shares, customer demand, and other factors to determine how many shares you’ll get. You may get the full number of shares you requested, a partial amount, or none at all.
So Robinhood does make it fairly clear that just because a user is requesting shares, it doesnt mean that theyll necessarily get them. In this case, as demand outstripped supplylikely exceedingly sothe company may have had to divvy the stock out accordingly, regardless of how many users actually requested.
Fast Company has reached out to Robinhood for comment and clarification.
A few days before Figmas listing on Thursday, Bloomberg reported that its IPO was approaching 40 times oversubscribed, reflecting what was largely expected to be enormous demand for the stock.
Robinhood has drawn the ire of users in the past due to concerns around the limited trading of certain stocks. Notably, it happened in 2021, when the platform restricted purchases of GameStop and AMC shares (among others) during the so-called meme stock rally.
But the Figma IPO is perhaps another example of how retail investors, relative to institutional investors, can end up getting the short end of the stick.
There may not be much that investors can do about that, but for those who missed out on Figma’s IPO price, its a reminder that access to the marketsas a retail investor using a trading app or platformmay not be as unfettered or democratic as wed like to think.
Figma shares opened even higher on Friday, at one point hitting close to $143.
U.S. hiring is slowing sharply as President Donald Trump’s erratic and radical trade policies paralyze businesses and raise doubts about the outlook for the world’s largest economy.The Labor Department reported Friday that U.S. employers added just 73,000 jobs last month, well short of the 115,000 forecasters had expected.Worse, revisions shaved a stunning 258,000 jobs off May and June payrolls. And the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2% as Americans dropped out of the labor force and the ranks of the unemployed rose by 221,000.“A notable deterioration in U.S. labor market conditions appears to be underway,” said Scott Anderson, chief U.S. economist at BMO Capital Markets. “We have been forecasting this since the tariff and trade war erupted this spring and more restrictive immigration restrictions were put in place. Overall, this report highlights the risk of a harder landing for the labor market.”Economists have been warning that the rift with every U.S. trading partner will begin to appear this summer and the Friday jobs report appeared to sound the bell.“We’re finally in the eye of the hurricane,” said Daniel Zhao, chief economist at Glassdoor. “After months of warning signs, the July jobs report confirms that the slowdown isn’t just approachingit’s here.”U.S. markets recoiled and the jobs report and the Dow tumbled more than 600 points at the opening bell Friday.The revelations in the new data raise questions about the health of the job market and the economy as President Donald Trump pushes forward with an unorthodox overhaul of American trade policy.Trump has discarded decades of U.S. policy that had favored fewer barriers and ever-freer trade. Instead, Trump is imposing hefty import taxestariffson products from almost every country on earth. Trump believes the levies will bring manufacturing back to America and raise money to pay for the massive tax cuts he signed into law July 4.Mainstream economists say the cost of the tariffs will be passed along to Americans, both businesses and households. That has already begun to happen, with major U.S. companies from Walmart to toothpaste, detergent and toilet paper maker Procter & Gamble announcing price hikes.Trump has also sowed uncertainty in the erratic way he’s rolled the tariffs outannouncing, then suspending them, then coming up with new ones. Overnight, Trump signed an executive order that set new tariffs on a wide swath of U.S. trading partners to that go into effect on Aug. 7., and that arrived after a flurry of unexpected tariff-related actions this week.“There was a clear, significant, immediate, tariff effect on the labor market and employment growth essentially stalled, as we were dealing with so much uncertainty about the outlook for the economy and for tariffs,” said Blerina Uruci, chief U.S. economist for the brokerage T. Rowe Price.Still, Uruci said the data suggests we could be past the worst, as hiring actually did pick up a bit in July from May and June’s revised and depressed levels.“I’m not overly pessimistic on the U.S. economy based on this morning’s data,” she said, though she does think that hiring will remain muted in the coming months as the number of available workers remains limited due to reduced immigration and an aging population.Trump has sold the tariffs hikes as a way to boost American manufacturing, but manufacturers cut 11,000 jobs last month after shedding 15,000 in June and 11,000 in May. The federal government, where employment has been targeted by the Trump administration, lost 12,000 jobs. Jobs in administration and support fell by nearly 20,000.Healthcare companies added 55,400 jobs last monthaccounting for 76% of the jobs added in July and offering another sign that recent job gains have been narrowly concentrated.The department originally reported that state and local governments had added 64,000 jobs in education in June. After the revisions released Friday, that number fell to below 10,000.After the big revisions for May and June, Labor Department data show that the U.S. economy has generated an average of just 85,000 jobs a month this year., barely half the 2024 average of 168,000 and well below an average 400,000 from 2021-2023 as the economy rebounded from COVID-19 lockups.The weak jobs data makes it more likely that Trump will get one thing that he most fervently desires: A cut in short-term interest rates by the Federal Reserve, which oftenthough not alwayscan lead to lower rates for mortgages, car loans, and credit cards.Fed Chair Jerome Powell and other Fed officials have repeatedly pointed to a healthy job market as a reason that they could take time to evaluate how Trump’s tariffs were affecting inflation and the broader economy. Now that assessment has been undercut and will put more pressure on the Fed to reduce borrowing costs.Wall Street investors sharply raised their expectations for a rate cut at the Fed’s next meeting in September after the report was released.On Wednesday, the Fed left its key rate unchanged for the fifth straight meeting and Powell signaled little urgency to reduce rates anytime soon. He said the “labor market is solid” with “historically low unemployment.” But he also acknowledged there is a “downside risk” to employment stemming from the slow pace of hiring that was evident even before Friday’s weaker numbers.The current situation is a sharp reversal from the hiring boom of just three years ago when desperate employers were handing out signing bonuses and introducing perks such as Fridays off, fertility benefits and even pet insurance to recruit and keep workers.Weighing on the job market are the lingering effects of higher interest rates that were used by the Federal Reserve to fight inflation; Trump’s massive import taxes and the costs and uncertainty they are imposing on businesses; and an anticipated drop in foreign workers as the president’s massive deportation plans move forward.The rate of people quitting their jobsa sign they’re confident they can land something betterhas fallen from the record heights of 2021 and 2022 and is now below where it stood before the pandemic.
Paul Wiseman and Christopher Rugaber, AP Economics Writers
