Trading on Wall Street was lethargic before the opening bell, the Associated Press reports, with futures for the S&P 500 rising about 0.1% early today and futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average essentially flat.
Apple shares were off less than 1% after the European Union’s top court rejected the tech giant’s final legal challenge against an order from the bloc’s executive commission to repay 13 billion euros — more than $14 billion — in back taxes to Ireland. The European Commission accused Apple of striking an illegal tax deal with Irish authorities so that it could pay extremely low rates. Apple denies such a deal took place.
Google lost its final legal challenge against a European Union penalty for giving its own shopping recommendations an illegal advantage over rivals in search results. The decision ends the long-running antitrust case that comes with a 2.4 billion euro ($2.7 billion) penalty. Shares in Alphabet, Google’s parent company, rose less than 1% before markets opened.
Oracle shares jumped more than 8% after the business software company beat Wall Street’s first quarter sales and profit targets on the strength of its cloud services business.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise tumbled close to 5% after the information technology company said it would try to raise $1.35 billion in a stock offering to fund its pending acquisition of Juniper Networks.
In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude fell 97 cents to $67.74 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, lost 94 cents to $70.90 per barrel.
In currency trading, the U.S. dollar ticked down to 143.05 Japanese yen from 143.15 yen.
