10 Things You Need To Know Before The Opening Bell

Eric Platt

Phil Stafford/Shutterstock

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

• Markets sold off in overnight trading in Asia, with Japan's Nikkei down nearly 2 percent. European shares also traded lower and U.S. futures point to a negative open.  

• The Bank of England voted 8 to 1 to keep its bond-purchase target unchanged at £325 billion, with a lone dissenter hoping to boost easing by £25 billion. The committee voted 9 to 0 to keep interest rates unchanged at 0.5 percent. 

• Germany set record low yields at a two-year bond sale. The country sold some €4.56 billion zero-coupon notes at a yield of 0.07 percent. Demand remained healthy at 1.7 times the offering, similar to earlier auctions this year. 

• Italian consumer confidence fell to its lowest level since 1996 this May — registering at 86.5. That was below market expectations for a slight rise to 89.5. 

• Morgan Stanley was subpoenaed by the Massachusetts Secretary of Commonwealth over the way it handled analyst disclosure during the Facebook roadshow. 

• Mazda and Fiat will jointly develop a new sports car to be manufactured in Hiroshima, the first venture between the two automakers. The news comes as Mazda has scaled back its ties to Ford.

• Dell shares sold off in after-hour trading yesterday after the company missed on both the top and bottom lines, reporting EPS of $0.43 on revenue of $14.42 billion. Dell saw sales decline in its computer, software and mobile segments. 

• U.S. economic announcements kick off at 10:00 a.m. with new home sales and a reading of home prices.  Expectations are for sales to increase 2.6 percent month-on-month to an annualized pace of 337,000 units, while the house price index increases 0.3 percent sequentially in March. 

• Pandora and Hewlett-Packard will report quarterly results after the closing bell today. Wall Street expects the streaming music service to lose $0.17 per share, with HP projected to post earnings of $0.91 per share. 

• President Barack Obama suffered humiliating close calls in two Democratic primaries last night — although still winning contests in Kentucky and Arkansas. More than 40 percent of the vote in Kentucky went to "Uncommitted," while challenger John Wolfe took share in Arkansas.