The outlook for slowing inflation in today’s CPI update is unlikely to pave the way for an interest rate cut because of distortions from one-offs like energy rebates and a six percent fall in petrol prices.

Economist Warren Hogan told the ABC’s senior business correspondent Peter Ryan that the Reserve Bank of Australia might have to raise interest rates if underlying inflation remains stubbornly high.

Google is facing a global backlash, due to deals it has been striking with the likes of Apple — and even with Australian telcos Telstra and Optus.

The biggest legal challenge could even see it split up, after it lost an antitrust case against the Department of Justice (DoJ) in the United States.

Court documents reveal Google paid Apple an estimated $US20 billion ($29.9 billion) in 2022, in return for preloading its search engine as the exclusive default on Apple’s Safari browser.

Google’s parent company Alphabet is worth $US2 trillion dollars ($3 trillion). As well as search, Google and its parent company Alphabet are big players in email, Android phone sales, streaming platform YouTube, the internet browser Chrome, and it is pushing into artificial intelligence (AI).

It makes a large chunk of its money selling online ads, which run on its products including its search engine, Gmail and YouTube.

Google is facing other cases against it — the DoJ has sued the tech giant over allegations it monopolised advertising technology.

There’s also the long-running challenge from Fortnite developer, Epic Games and a US district judge in San Francisco has ordered Google to open up its Play app store to greater competition — a decision the tech giant says it will appeal.

Here in Australia, Google is also being challenged by the consumer watchdog, which is investigating its powers in search.

Read more from Business Reporter Emilia Terzon.

Myer CEO Olivia Wirth joins The Business host Kirsten Aiken to explain why the company is acquiring five Apparel Brands from Premier Investments in a deal worth more than $900 million.

The purchase will give the department store ownership of Just Jeans, Jay Jays, Portmans, Dotti and Jacqui E, while Premier will retain Smiggle and Peter Alexander.

The deal needs to be approved by shareholders and if it goes ahead, the combined retail group will have more than 780 stores across Australia and New Zealand.

Premier Investment’s chairman Solomon Lew will become Myer’s biggest shareholder and will sit on the board.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed higher on Tuesday while the Dow fell in choppy trading as investors digested a host of corporate earnings and awaited Google-parent Alphabet’s results after the market close.

Alphabet, one of the so-called “Magnificent Seven” megacap technology stocks, rose ahead of its earnings report.

This is the busiest week for S&P 500 earnings in the quarter, with eyes on five of the “Magnificent Seven” companies that are reporting results.

The group’s results will be crucial to determining whether Wall Street can sustain the optimism around technology and artificial intelligence that has lifted indexes to record highs this year.

“I think one of the things the market is digesting is the idea of some degree of convergence in earnings growth between the high fliers – the Magnificent Seven that are obviously very high in terms of market weighting – versus the rest of the market,” said Bill Merz, head of Capital Markets Research for US Bank’s asset management group.

Investors sifted through a deluge of corporate earnings. Vans parent VF Corp jumped after the apparel company reported its first profit in two quarters.

D.R. Horton fell on Tuesday after the homebuilder forecast 2025 revenue below estimates. Other homebuilders lost ground, dragging down the PHLX Housing index.

Ford slumped a day after the automaker said it expected to hit the lower end of its annual profit forecast. Restaurant chain Chipotle Mexican Grill slipped ahead of its earnings later on Tuesday.

Good morning and welcome to Wednesday’s markets live blog, where we’ll bring you the latest price action and news on the ASX and beyond.

A mixed session on Wall Street overnight sets the tone for local market action today.

The Dow Jones index dropped 0.4 per cent, the S&P 500 gained 0.2 per cent and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.8 per cent.

ASX futures were down 7 points or 0.1 per cent to 8,268 at 7:00am AEDT.

At the same time, the Australian dollar was down 0.4 per cent to 65.6 US cents.

Brent crude oil was down 0.2 per cent, trading at $US71.30 a barrel.

Spot gold gained 1.1 per cent to $US2,771.99.

Iron ore rose 0.7 per cent to $US104.15 a tonne.