10 Things You Need To Know Before The Opening Bell

Good morning! Here's what you need to know:

IBM And Apple?! "Apple announced Tuesday a partnership with IBM that will help the company greatly increase the presence of its mobile devices in the enterprise," reported BI's Sam Colt. "IBM will use its sales force to sell iPhones and iPads to its network of business customers. IBM will also develop cloud services optimized for iOS, the operating system for iPhones and iPads."

China's Answers The Growth Question. China's GDP grew at a 7.5% rate in Q2, up from 7.4% in Q1. This was stronger than economists' expectations for a 7.4% rate. "The major driver is Beijing's stimulus measures focusing on increasing spending on railway and social housing with its own money," said Bank of America Merrill Lynch economist Ting Lu. "The negative impact of the stimulus on the financial system is thus relatively small. We believe Beijing is quite serious about its 7.5% growth target as it needs a stable economic and financial backdrop as it steps up its anti-corruption campaign, so the new government will most likely continue its mini-stimulus in the face of higher base effect and some strong headwinds in 2H."

Yahoo! Whiffs. "Our top priority is revenue growth and by that measure, we are not satisfied with our Q2 results," said Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer. Revenue ex-traffic acquisition costs fell 3% to $1.04 billion, missing expectations for $1.09 billion.

Intel Beats. "The second quarter came in above the expectations we provided in the April Earnings call, and consistent with the revised outlook we released on June 12," said Intel CFO Stacy Smith. "It was a good quarter representing financial growth and solid momentum as we approach the second half of the year." Intel reported Q2 EPS of $0.55 on revenue of $13.8 billion. Analysts were expecting earnings per share of $0.52 on revenue of $13.71 billion.

The Inflation Story Just Got Serious. The Hershey Company announced that it would be raising prices in response to rising costs. "A weighted average price increase of approximately 8 percent across the company's instant consumable, multi-pack, packaged candy and grocery lines is effective today," said the company in a Tuesday afternoon press release.

Markets Are Up. Dow futures are up 52 points and S&P futures are up 5.8 points. In Europe, Britain's FTSE is up 0.93%, France's CAC 40 is up 1.4%, and Germany's DAX is up 1.2%. In Asia, Japan's Nikkei closed down 0.1% while Hong Kong's Hang Seng climbed 0.2%. CNBC and Institutional Investor will host their annual Delivering Alpha conference today in New York City, and these events always have the potential to move markets. Attendees will include hedge fund giants John Paulson and Leon Cooperman. We'll have live coverage of the event at BusinessInsider.com/Finance.

An Inflation Update. The June producer price report will be published at 8:30 a.m. ET. Economists estimate PPI climbed by 0.2%. Year-over-year, they estimate prices climbed by 1.9%, with core PPI climbing 1.7%. "Farm prices declined again in June and should put downward pressure on producer prices," said Nomura economists. "However, the jump in energy prices should put upward pressure on headline PPI."

An Industrial Production Update. The June Industrial Production report will be published at 9:15 a.m. ET. Economists estimate industrial production increased 0.3% in June as capacity utilization climbed to 79.3% from 79.1%. "A small gain in factory hours worked in the employment report and industry figures pointing to a modest drop in motor vehicle assemblies ahead of a scheduled rise to an eleven-year high in July point to a 0.2% gain in manufacturing output after a 2.8% surge over the prior four months," said Morgan Stanley's Ted Wieseman. "Some upside in utility production after a sharp spring pullback following a surge in the winter and a continued strong trend in oil and gas drilling should provide additional boosts to overall IP."

A Housing Market Update. The July NAHB Housing Market Index will be updated at 10:00 a.m. ET. Economists estimate this homebuilder confidence index ticked up to 50 in July. "Sentiment had been above 50 until February when presumably the harsh weather weighed on builder expectations," noted BofA Merrill Lynch economists. "New home sales have improved, and it seems that the late start to the spring season will support the homebuilding industry."

Fed And More Fed. Fed Chair Janet Yellen presents her Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the House Committee on Financial Services at 10:00 a.m. ET. She'll be repeating what she said before the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday. Fed watchers are likely to pay closer attention to the Fed's Beige Book, which gets released at 2:00 p.m. ET. Here's Credit Suisse: "The pictures painted by recent Beige Books may not illustrate robust growth, but they suggest the economy is at least moving in the right direction (with that -2.9% Q1 GDP print looking like a significant aberration). The July 16 Beige Book may provide real-world anecdotes to supplement the better labor market data reported recently. Any observations from business contacts related to wage growth or pricing power also would be of particular market interest at this juncture."