10 things you need to know before the opening bell
It's the eighth anniversary of the failure of Lehman Brothers. The Dow Jones Industrial Average crashed 500 points that day, and Business Insider's Henry Blodget summed it up by saying, "On the whole, given that one major brokerage firm went bankrupt and another rushed to sell itself to avoid collapse, a 500-point fall (-4.4%) isn't that bad."
The Bank of England meets. The BOE is expected to hold its key interest rate following last month's decision to cut the rate to a record low 0.25%. The announcement will cross the wires at 7 a.m. ET.
The Swiss Central Bank says the franc is "still significantly overvalued." The central bank held its target range for three-month Libor at -1.25% to -0.25%, as expected. The Swiss franc is little changed near .9735 per dollar.
Australia's jobs report missed big. The Australian economy unexpectedly lost a seasonally adjusted 3,900 jobs (+15,000 expected) in August as the unemployment rate dipped to 5.6%. The Australian dollar is higher by 0.1% at .7475 versus the dollar.
Vancouver is taxing empty homes. The 2% tax aimed at secondary homes left empty year round is the latest effort to slow down Vancouver's out of control housing market, CBC News reports.
Tesla is investigating a fatal crash that might be linked to Autopilot. The Associated Press reports, a dash cam shows the car crashing into a slow moving truck, and an official interviewed by CCTV says the Autopilot feature was engaged at the time of the accident.
Apple says it's sold out of the initial batch of iPhone 7 Plus. The phone is sold out in all colors, and while customers won't be able to get the phone on Friday, when its officially released, they will still be able to order it online, Reuters says.
Stock markets around the world are mixed. In Asia, Japan's Nikkei (-1.3%) lagged while Hong Kong's Hang Seng (+0.6%) led. In Europe, Spain's IBEX (+0.3%) paces the advance. S&P 500 futures are up 6.50 points at 2,126.75.
Oracle reports after markets close. Analysts expect adjusted earnings of $0.60 per share on revenue of $8.70 billion, according to the Bloomberg consensus.
US economic data heavy. Empire Manufacturing, initial jobless claims, Philly Fed, and retail sales are all due out at 8:30 a.m. ET before industrial production and business inventories are released at 9:15 a.m. ET and 10 a.m., respectively. The US 10-year yield is unchanged at 1.70%.