Market Updates: Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Walmart Stores (NYSE:WMT), Macy’s (NYSE:M), Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS)

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), in connection with last year’s introduction of the iPad, colluded with News Corp’s HarperCollins Publishers unit and four other publishers to fix prices of electronic books, according to a lawsuit. Apple, threatened by Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN)’s Kindle e-book reader and its potential to distribute other digital media, agreed with the publishers on or before January 2010 to announce a so-called agency model to “force the e-book sales model to be entirely restructured,” according to the complaint filed yesterday in federal court in Oakland, California. The traditional “brick-and-mortar” publishers agreed to the price-fixing because they were threatened by Amazon’s “pro- consumer” e-book titles priced at $9.99, according to the suit. -Bloomberg Walmart Stores (NYSE:WMT) on Wednesday launched . . . → Read More: Market Updates: Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Walmart Stores (NYSE:WMT), Macy’s (NYSE:M), Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS)