10 things you need to know before the opening bell

Here is what you need to know.

1. The Fed says it'll be patient on future rate hikes. The Federal Open Market Committee held its key interest rate in a range between 2.25% and 2.5% Wednesday, and in his press conference following the decision, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said he didn't know if the next move would be an interest-rate hike or cut.
2. The Fed told the stock-market exactly what it wanted to hear. Powell said the Fed's balance sheet isn't on "automatic pilot" and it won't shrink much further, sending the S&P 500 to a gain of 1.5%.
3. Stock markets around the world were higher. Hong Kong's Hang Seng (+1.08%) led the gains in Asia Thursday and Britain's FTSE (+0.44%) was out front in Europe. The S&P 500 was set to open up 0.15% near 2,685.
4. Italy has officially entered a recession. Europe's fourth-largest economy contracted 0.2% in the fourth-quarter, after shrinking 0.1% in the third quarter, according to data released Thursday by the statistics agency Istat.
5. Facebook soars after crushing earnings. Facebook shares climbed 12% in after-hours trading Wednesday after the social-media company delivered top- and bottom-line results that were well above Wall Street estimates.
6. Elon Musk declares Tesla will be profitable for 'all quarters going forward.' Tesla's CEO made the comments on the electric-car maker's fourth-quarter earnings call, after the company posted just its third-ever quarterly profit.
7. Microsoft just misses on earnings. The most-valuable company in the world by market cap earned $1.08 a share, missing estimates by a penny, as revenue matched the $32.5 billion than analysts were expecting. Shares were trading down about 2%.
8. Deutsche Bank is bracing for a potential forced merger by the middle of the year. Executives at the bank are becoming increasingly concerned that a government-brokered merger with Commerzbank may be their only option, Bloomberg says.
9. Earnings reports keep coming. Altria, Ferrari, General Electric, MasterCard, and UPS are among the names reporting ahead of the opening bell while Amazon announces its quarterly results after markets close.
10. US economic data is heavy. Initial claims will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET before Chicago PMI and new home sales cross the wires at 9:45 a.m. ET and 10 a.m. ET respectively. Data concludes at 4 p.m. ET with net long-term TIC flows. The US 10-year yield is down 1.4 basis points at 2.66%

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