10 Things You Need To Know Before The Opening Bell

Eric Platt

Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Good morning. Here's what you need to know.

• Asian markets rallied in overnight trade, with Hong Kong's Hang Seng gaining 1.8 percent. Shares in Europe are mostly higher and U.S. futures point to a positive open.

• Yahoo named Google's Marissa Mayer its new chief executive in a surprise announcement yesterday. Mayer led Google's search operations for years, before managing its launch in local. 

• Business conditions in Germany worsened for the third straight month, but may have hit bottom, the Zew institute said today. The key expectations index fell to -19.6 in July from -16.9 a month earlier.

• Moody's downgraded 13 Italian banks yesterday after cutting Italy's sovereign rating last week. Ratings were lowered one level for seven of the institutions, and by two notches for the remaining six.

• Spain sold €3.56 billion in 12- and 18-month bills, exceeding targets as borrowing costs fell. One-year notes sold at a yield of 3.918 percent, below the 5.074 percent recorded at the last auction in June. 

• Bank of England Governor Mervyn King told a parliamentary panel they have no evidence that banks were deliberately misreporting borrowing costs at the height of the financial crisis. 

• Goldman Sachs plans to increase lending to wealthy individuals and companies as it grows its private bank, Liz Rappaport of the Wall Street Journal reports. Executives hope to lend at least $100 billion, up from $12 billion at the end of the first quarter. 

• General Motors is expected to post a "substantial" loss in Europe during the second quarter, sources tell the Wall Street Journal's Sharon Terlep. However, GM does not plan to sell it's Opel unit.

• U.S. economic announcements kick off at 8:30 a.m. with the June Consumer Price report, which is expected to show a 1.6 percent increase from the year ago period. U.S. industrial production hits at 9:15 a.m. Economists project production improved 0.3 percent in June from a month earlier. 

• Earnings announcements are expected from Johnson & Johnson, Coca-Cola, and Goldman Sachs before the opening bell. Consensus is for Johnson to report earnings per share of $1.29 while Coca-Cola posts net income of $1.19 a share. Investment banking giant Goldman Sachs is projected to earn $1.17 a share.