10 things you need to know before the opening bell
Here is what you need to know.
1. Stocks are jumping as traders bet Fed Chair Jerome Powell will signal more interest-rate cuts in his speech today at the Jackson Hole conference. Markets are pricing in about a 94% chance of a rate cut in September.
2. Shares in Peppa Pig owner jump 30% after Hasbro's $4 billion offer. The transatlantic deal gives Hasbro, which has seen growth with Marvel's "Avengers" toys, access to Entertainment One's lucrative infant and preschool market.
3. Trump's latest tariffs could drag China's growth to its lowest level in almost 30 years - but there's still 'no chance' it will cave to US demands. China's GDP growth has remained above 6% since the early 1990s.
4. Huawei said on Friday it is "fully prepared" to live and work with US trade restrictions. The Chinese firm said there is no impact to its business from Washington's decision this week to extend a reprieve allowing it to buy supplies from US firms.
5. Two US lawmakers have called on a top financial regulatory panel to consider direct oversight of the cloud services big tech companies provide to banks. Katie Porter and Nydia Velázquez said Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud should be considered systemically important like payment and settlement services.
6. A deal in the works for BNP Paribas to assume the prime brokerage operations of Deutsche Bank will involve the transfer of up to 800 people. Deutsche Bank said in July that it had struck a preliminary agreement with BNP for the business that serves hedge funds as part of its 7.4 billion euro ($8.19 billion) overhaul.
7. Gloomy labor statistics show that the retail apocalypse was worse than we thought. The retail industry added 146,400 fewer new jobs between 2018 and 2019.
8. Stocks are rising today ahead of the Jackson Hole conference. US futures underlying the S&P 500 (+0.4%) and the Nasdaq (+0.5%) are up. Europe opened strongly, with the Dax (+0.4%) and Euro Stoxx (+0.5%) rising. Asia closed higher with the Nikkei (+0.4%), Shanghai Composite (+0.5%), and the Hang Seng (+0.5%) all up.
9. There are some interesting earnings out later. Today's highlights are Foot Locker and Asian insurer AIA.
10. There's some intriguing economic data out today. Markit PMI composite - a measure of manufacturing and services activity - is out later, along with new home sales.