Wednesday, September 16
Long seen as the safest Big Tech bet, Apple is heading into Thursday's earnings with its business facing pressure from U.S. tariffs, tough competition in China and a high-stakes artificial intelligence race it has been late to enter. Wall Street expects the company to post a 4.2% rise in revenue for the April-June quarter to $89.34 billion. Still, the focus will be on how Apple plans to adjust to a landscape that has turned its global supply chain, long a strength, into a potential liability. U.S. President Donald Trump has targeted the consumer electronics giant for its reliance on overseas manufacturing, threatening 25% tariffs on foreign-made iPhones. To limit the damage, Apple shifted production of U.S.-bound iPhones to India, further drawing Trump's ire. The total volume of Indian-mad
Europe's economy barely grew in the April-June quarter as frantic earlier efforts to ship goods ahead of new U.S. tariffs went into reverse and output fell for the continent's biggest economy, Germany. Gross domestic product grew an anemic 0.1% compared to the previous quarter in the 20 countries that use the euro currency, the EU statistics agency Eurostat reported Wednesday. Growth was 1.4% over the same quarter a year ago. And prospects are mediocre for the coming months, given the 15% tariff, or import tax, imposed on European goods in the U.S. under the EU-U.S. trade deal announced Sunday. The higher tariff will burden European exports with higher costs to either be passed on to U.S. consumers or swallowed in the form of lower profits. The economy sagged after stronger than expecte
