12:01 PM EDT, 06/27/2024 (MT Newswires) -- The major US stock indexes were up slightly as Wall Street looks forward to another critical inflation report on Friday.

In company news, Walgreens Boots Alliance ( WBA ) slashed its full-year earnings outlook on Thursday amid "challenging" trends in the pharmacy industry and a worsening retail environment. The company now anticipates adjusted earnings to be in a range of $2.80 to $2.95 per share for FY 2024, compared with prior projections of $3.20 to $3.35. Walgreens Chief Executive Timothy Wentworth also announced that the company is finalizing a store footprint optimization program through which it expects to close "a significant portion" of underperforming stores over the next three years. Shares of the company were down 24.5% near noon.

SM Energy (SM) said Thursday it has agreed to acquire the Uinta Basin oil and gas assets of XCL Resources for $2.55 billion. Meanwhile, Northern Oil and Gas (NOG) said it agreed to acquire a 20% stake of the oil and gas assets of XCL for $510 million in cash. The deal, expected to close in September, will result in a net purchase price for SM of $2.04 billion for an 80% stake in the Uinta Basin assets. SM Energy shares were down 11.2%, while Northern Oil and Gas shares were down 0.8%.

JPMorgan Chase ( JPM ) said Thursday the Federal Reserve's projections for the bank's Other Comprehensive Income under its 2024 stress test results appear to be too high, and, if that is the case, the resulting stress losses would be modestly higher than those disclosed by the Fed. Shares of the company were up 1.2%.

An initiative to label Massachusetts Uber Technologies (UBER) and Lyft ( LYFT ) drivers as independent contractors is allowed to appear on the 2024 ballot, the state Supreme Judicial Court said Thursday. The court also approved a separate ballot measure that would grant collective bargaining rights to Uber ( UBER ) and Lyft ( LYFT ) driver. Shares of Uber ( UBER ) were down 0.7%, while those of Lyft ( LYFT ) were flat.

Novo Nordisk ( NVO ) plans to limit the launch of Wegovy, its obesity medication, in China, Bloomberg reported Thursday, citing the company's chief of international operations. The drugmaker is restricting access to the injectable in order to prevent depletion of its supply for the rest of the world, the report said. The company also wants to ensure that patients can keep filling their prescriptions without worrying that supplies may run out later, the report said. Shares of Novo Nordisk ( NVO ) were up 0.1%.

The US Supreme Court on Thursday blocked an effort by the federal government to reject 20 individual state plans to control ozone pollution and relace them with a single, uniform rule. The Supreme Court stayed the enforcement of the Environmental Protection Agency rule that would allow it to reject the state plans pending "the disposition of the applicants' petitions for review" in the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit and any petition for writ of certiorari. Kinder Morgan ( KMI ) , which owns and controls oil and gas pipelines and terminals, was one of the entities named in the case asking the Supreme Court to block the regulation. Shares of KMI were up 0.1%.

The Supreme Court also ruled Thursday that a defendant facing fraud charges has the right be tried by a jury before a neutral adjudicator as opposed to being compelled by the US Securities and Exchange Commission to defend themselves before one of the agency's in-house administrative law judges.

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