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Now, let's take a look at some of the stocks on the move today in Europe. I'm Lizzie Burdon in London with Stephen Carroll in Brussels, and we're joined by Bloomberg reporter Chloe Melly. Chloe, I want to start with BMW because we've seen shares slumping this morning on the profitability outlooks slashed. They've also flagged weaker demand in China and it seems to be spreading across the auto sector.
Yeah, absolutely so. As you said, BMW share is really really taking a hit this morning and dragging down the rest of that sector after cutting its profitability outlook, and it blamed we demand in China's as you said, Lizzie, but also the impact from the Iran war, and so it will accelerate its cost cutting program as a result of their weaker demand, although it didn't clarify whether or not their meant job cut, so we'll be waiting for
more details there. And this comes just a month since the new CEO took over, so it's a bit of a tough start for him. And the big problem, and it is a problem that's faced by all the carmakers in Europe, really is that demand for electric cars. So in the US there's been policy reversals and around electric cars and a bit of a slump and demand as
a result. And then in China, which is really where the problem is, the domestic manufacturers make much cheaper evs and so the European car makers are just not as competitive in that market and that is something that BMW
is really feeling at the moment. The weakness in China is not new, according to analysts, and this is a profit warning that was actually quite expected, and ANALYSTA Jeffries said that a margin reset of such magnitude was unexpected, so this might be a bit of a wake up call actually for that entire industry, and this explained why all of those carmakers were much weaker today because they'll have to really tackle this weakness in China and try and revise that demand there.
So that's the car makers, but a related company, Auto Worn, which operates an online portal for buying and selling cars. Their shares are on the rise to this morning.
Why, yeah, it's quite interesting in the context of car makers not doing so well, But then what is doing well is a platform for buying and selling used cars, so this really points to some of the affordability problems that consumers are having, so the consumer spending side of things here as well. And so Auto one is up quite strongly today after unveiling some long term financial targets.
So it expects as much as fifteen percent unit growth for its much and division, which is the B to B side of the business where used car dealers are essentially buying inventory, and then as much as forty percent unit growth for the retail segment. So that's very healthy growth and it really follows in the trajectory of what we saw from the earnings. Actually last month it had record first quarter results because of that massive growth and
demand for used cars. The one thing that's a bit unclear in which some analysts have flagged is the outlook for cash flow. But overall, the targets do look very solid, and we can see the gap in performance between those carmakers and then those used car platforms actually widening, So that's quite interesting.
And Chloe Hay shares the recruitment company hitting a two month high.
Why Yeah, so completed a sale of operations in six countries and then it's also exploring options for its operations in seven other countries. So the market is reacting quite positively to this decision to essentially streamline the business. Because Hayes and all of the other recruitment firms in the UK, So Robert Walters and Page Group have been having, of course,
quite a tough time. They're all down between thirty and fifty percent this year, and they of course reflect the difficulties that is faced by the labor market in a lot of the countries in which they operate. You know, both permanent and temporary recruitment is weak. Companies are really hesitating to hire because of everything that's happening. Geopolitical uncertainty, inflation, all of those things really weighing on those hiring trends, and of course recruitment firms are really the first to
feel the impact. A lot of them have been reducing the headcount and from what we've heard from hayesydate seems that it's very likely that we'll see more of that streamlining in that sector going forward.
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