Welcome to Markets Desk, your midday read on the stories moving markets and the broader conversation.
Apple has a new chief executive. John Ternus, the company's longtime head of hardware engineering, has succeeded Tim Cook at the top of the world's most valuable company. Ternus joined Apple in two thousand one and built his reputation shepherding the product lines that define the brand — a signal that Apple intends to stay anchored to its hardware roots.
Staying with Apple, the company is now caught in the middle of a geopolitical naming dispute. The Trump administration says it has directly contacted Apple to rename Lake Ontario on its maps, following a broader push to rebrand the body of water. Google is already showing different names depending on a user's country, and the pressure on Apple suggests this cartographic controversy has real corporate stakes attached to it.
On the earnings front, Medtronic delivered a strong second quarter, posting net income of one point four seven billion dollars, up sharply from one point zero four billion a year ago. Earnings per share came in at one dollar and fourteen cents versus eighty-one cents in the prior-year period. The medical device giant is showing double-digit growth on both the top and bottom lines, a meaningful signal for the broader healthcare sector.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
