A small fisherman's boat makes its way past the rocks of Sete Nave as the sun sets outside Pietrosella, on the southern part of Corsica, France
France's economy is driving Europe. For the first time since 2012, France's economy is doing better than Germany's, at least according to preliminary PMI data released by IHS Markit. The euro is up 0.1% at 1.1218 against the dollar.
Job openings in finance are plunging in the UK. Data from Institute for Public Policy Research says that jobs openings in the finance industry in the UK are down 10.1% since the UK's vote to leave the European Union.
Leon Cooperman says he is going to beat the insider trading charges. Cooperman, who was charged with insider trading on Wednesday, told reporters, "If you're 73 and don't give a sh-- what it costs you and your reputation is important, basically you'll defend yourself to the end."
CBOE is trying to buy the second largest US equity market. Bloomberg reports the Chicago Board Options Exchange has approached Bats Exchange for a takeover, but a price is not yet known.
Facebook over-inflated its video views. A Wall Street Journal report found that for more than two years the social media giant exaggerated a key advertising metric used to assess video views on the site by as much as 80%, but Business Insider's Lara O'Reilly says its not as bad as it seems.
Yahoo's data breach is enormous. The company believes at least 500 million user account credentials were stolen by a "state-sponsored actor" in 2014, which would make it the largest data breach of all-time.
All of the top 5 investment banks are located in the US. Deutsche Bank has fallen to sixth place in Coalition's latest investment bank rankings, making it the first time since the tail end of the financial crisis that a European bank is not in the top five.
Valvoline IPOs. The engine and automotive-maintenance company will begin trading on Friday after pricing its initial public offering at $22 per share, between the $20 and $23 that was expected. Shares of Valvoline will trade under the ticker 'VVV.'
Stock markets around the world are in the red. China's Shanghai Composite (-0.3%) lagged in Europe and Spain's IBEX (-1.3%) trails in Europe. S&P 500 futures are down 2.50 points at 2,165.75.
US economic data trickles out. Markit US Manufacturing PMI will be released at 9:45 a.m. ET and the Baker Hughes rig count will cross the wires at 1 p.m. ET. The US 10-year yield is down 1 basis point at 1.61%.