10 things you need to know before European markets open
The election is here. British voters get to decide on Thursday who they want to rule the world's fifth-largest economy in a tight election that could yield weak government, propel the United Kingdom towards a vote on EU membership and stoke Scottish desire for secession. The only thing that currently looks certain is that neither Labour or the Conservative party will get a majority.
Yemen wants international intervention and boots on the ground. Yemen urged the international community "to quickly intervene by land forces to save" the country, specifically in the cities of Aden and Taiz, according to a letter sent to the United Nations Security Council by Yemen's UN Ambassador Khaled Alyemany.
French industrial output is coming. At 7:45 a.m. GMT (2:45 a.m. ET) France's latest industrial output figures are out. Analysts are expecting a 0.1% boost month-on-month for March.
Three German automakers are buying mapping technology that would help with self-driving cars. According to the Wall Street Journal, Audi, BMW, and Daimler (Mercedes-Benz) are preparing to launch a formal bid for Nokia Here, the mapping unit owned by the former phone maker, that values the business at "considerably more" than" €2 billion ($2.27 billion, £1.49 billion).
Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu managed to form a coalition. The Primse Minister narrowly made a midnight deadline to form a coalition, making a deal with the right-wing Bayit Yehudi party, according to the BBC.
Chilean president Michelle Bachelet asked her entire cabinet to resign. Bachelet said she will announce a new cabinet in the next few days, she said in a TV interview on Wednesday evening. "A few hours ago I requested the resignation of all the ministers, and I will take 72 hours to decide who will stay and who will go," she said.
German factory orders rose 0.9% in March, from February. Analysts were expecting a 1.5% boost month-on-month, after a 0.9% fall in February.
Asian markets are down. Hong Kong's Hang Seng is 1.02% lower, the Shanghai Composite is 2.02% down and Japan's Nikkei is down 1.33%.
Tesla wants to ship 55,000 cars this year. Tesla said that it remains on track "to deliver approximately 55,000 Model S and X cars in 2015," but that means it would have match or outpace all of last year, when the company managed to build 35,000 cars, in the remaining seven months of 2015.
Samsung's huge new South Korean chip plant will start production in less than two years. Samsung Electronics said on Thursday its new $14 billion (£9.18 billion) South Korean chip plant, which is expected to help drive growth as smartphone earnings slow, will start production sometime in the first half of 2017.