Macy’s Predicts a Strong Year and Google Goes to Court: Morning Buzzers

U.S. stock futures resisted international economic headwinds on Tuesday morning, and were posting modest gains despite broad losses in Europe and Asia. The Redbook and ICSC-Goldman Store Sales reports, released this morning, showed strong year-over-year sales growth for the previous week.

Futures at 8:45 a.m.: DJIA: +0.23%, S&P 500: +0.24%, NASDAQ: +0.13%.

Here’s what’s buzzing on Tuesday morning:

Home Depot (NYSE:HD) reported fourth-quarter and full-year 2012 results before the markets opened. Sales at the world’s largest home-improvement retailer increased 13.9 percent, year over year, to $18.2 billion, while comparable-store sales increased 7 percent. Net earnings increased 36 percent for the same period to $0.68 per diluted share. For the full year, sales increased 6.2 percent to $74.8 billion, with 4.6 percent comparable-store sales growth. Earnings increased 21.5 percent for the same period to $3.00 per diluted share.

Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) heads to court in Europe on Tuesday over information privacy concerns. One of the primary issues on the table is whether or not Google should — or can even be ordered to — delete information so that it does not appear in search results. The outcome of the case could determine whether Google is expected to control or simply host the information revealed by its search engine, a fine but critical distinction to make under the law. Also on the table is a proposal to give people “the right to be forgotten.”