10 things you need to know before the opening bell
Here is what you need to know.
1. Global stocks are jumping after China says trade talks with the US will resume in October. Investors are still cautious about further developments after last week's tariff hikes.
2. Boris Johnson's plan to win an election before taking Britain out of the EU at the end of October is in doubt. His government was forced to abandon its attempt to block a bill that could delay Brexit until 2020.
3. Slack's service went down for about 2 hours last quarter - and it cost $8 million in sales. The collaboration software group, which went public in June, awarded $8.2 million worth of credits to users after it only managed 99.9% service uptime in the three months to July 31 - short of its 99.99% commitment.
4. Revenues at the world's biggest investment banks have plunged to their lowest levels since 2006. Equities were hit especially hard as revenues across 12 of the world's biggest banks fell 11%.
5. Crypto whiz kid Justin Sun, who postponed his $4.6 million lunch with Warren Buffett, is working to reschedule it. "We are in the process of corralling all of those nine people again to get it back on track," Tron's communications director told Blocktv.
6. Germany's recession risk continues to rise as industrial orders dropped significantly. Data on Thursday added to Germany's woes, as new factory orders declined in July and construction fell to its lowest level in five years.
7. Fashion brand Zara seeks to distance itself from Hong Kong controversy. Zara said in a statement on China's Weibo social media platform that it supported the "one country, two systems" policy under which China rules Hong Kong and said it had not supported strikes.
8. Stocks are rallying Thursday after the news on China and US trade talks. US futures underlying the S&P 500 (+0.9%) and Nasdaq (+1.2%) rose. Europe opened strong as the DAX (+0.8%) and Euro Stoxx 50 (+0.8%) rose. In Asia, the Nikkei (+2.3%) shot up, the Shanghai Composite (+1.0%) also rose but the Hang Seng was flat.
9. There is a slew of earnings out today. Lululemon has its second-quarter results, as does Melrose Industries, the London-listed turnaround specialist.
10. There is a raft of data on the docket today. Non-farm productivity and ISM non-manufacturing PMI are coming out.