Macy’s reports quarterly profit

NEW YORK – Shoppers’ return to occasion dressing helped to power Macy’s fiscal first-quarter results, and the department store chain raised its annual earnings outlook even as surging inflation is crimping Americans’ budgets.

The performance, announced Thursday, was among the few bright spots in a pile of reports from retailers that showed the impact of rising costs for everything from labor to shipping.

Macy’s, along with others, is also adjusting to quickly changing shopping behavior as consumers go back to the office and resume normal lives.

Macy’s said that it earned $286 million, or 98 cents per share, for the three-month period ended April 30.

Broadcom buying VMware

Computer chip and software maker Broadcom will spend about $61 billion to acquire the cloud technology company VMware, one of the biggest deals of the year despite an environment of rising inflation and economic uncertainty.

Broadcom CEO Hock Tan has been among the most aggressive buyers, building out the company with big acquisitions in recent years like Symantec for close to $11 billion in 2019.

He also bought CA Technologies for about $19 billion the previous year.

Broadcom wants to establish a stronger foothold in the cloud computing market and VMware’s technology allows large corporations to blend public cloud access with internal company networks.

VMware has close relations with every major cloud company and provider, including Amazon, Google and Microsoft.

From wire reports