REUTERS/Yuya Shino
A pedestrian holding his mobile phone is reflected on an electronic board showing the graph of the recent fluctuations of Japan's Nikkei average outside a brokerage in Tokyo February 5, 2014. The Nikkei average rose 1.2 percent in a volatile session on Wednesday, rebounding from a four-month low as investors scooped up recently battered stocks such as Panasonic and Toyota Motor following strong earnings reports.
Good morning. Here's what you need to know.
- The ECB announces its latest interest rate decision at 7:45 AM ET. The consensus view among market economists is that the Bank will leave its benchmark refinancing rate unchanged at 0.25%, and that no new policy will be announced. The press conference with ECB president Mario Draghi at 8:30 AM will likely center on the Bank's options for further liquidity provisioning in the eurozone should the outlook deteriorate further.
- The Bank of England elected today to leave its benchmark policy interest rate unchanged at 0.5% and maintained the target for its asset purchase program at £375 billion. The pound is strengthening a bit against the dollar and the euro in the wake of the announcement.
- S&P 500 futures are higher and U.S. Treasury note futures are lower after a day in the red for both yesterday. Gold is also gaining, and the dollar is down slightly against the euro and the yen. European equity indices are staging a sizable rally after a mixed session in Asia - the Japanese Nikkei 225 closed down 0.2% while the Hong Kong Hang Seng advanced 0.7%.
- Sony is selling its personal computers business and spinning off its TV business into a separate unit, and will cut 5,000 jobs worldwide this year. The company plans to make 100 billion yen per year of cost cuts under its new restructuring plan.
- Twitter shares are down more than 20% in pre-market trading following the release of its first quarterly earnings statement since its initial public offering. Although the company reported earnings of $0.02 per share - above analysts' consensus estimate of a loss of $0.02 per share - and revenues came in at $242.7 million (also above expectations), investors honed in on weak user growth. Monthly active users were 241 million, up only 9 million from the previous quarter.
- Shares of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters are up over 40% in pre-market trading following the announcement that Coca-Cola will take a $1.25 billion, 10% stake in the company. The two will work on a cold beverage for the Keurig device. Shares of competitor SodaStream, meanwhile, are down more than 8% in pre-market trading.
- German factory orders unexpectedly dropped 0.5% from the previous month in December after rising 2.4% on November. Economists were looking for a 0.2% gain. On a work-day adjusted year-over-year basis, orders were up 6.0%, down from 7.2% in November and below expectations of a 6.3% advance.
- Weekly initial claims figures are due out at 8:30 AM ET. Economists predict initial claims fell to 335,000 in the week ended February 1 from 348,000 the week before. Continuing claims are expected to have risen slightly top 2.998 million in the week ended January 25 from 2.991 million in the previous week.
- Monthly U.S. trade data are also released at 8:30. Economists predict the trade deficit widened to $36.0 billion in December from $34.3 billion in November.
- Another economic data release of interest out at 8:30 - though not market-moving - is fourth quarter nonfarm productivity and unit labor costs. Economists predict nonfarm productivity growth slowed to 2.8% in Q4 from 3.0% in Q3. Unit labor costs are expected to have fallen 0.7% in Q4 after falling 1.4% in Q3. Follow all of the data LIVE on Business Insider »