10 Things You Need To Know Before The Opening Bell

Mamta Badkar

Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

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

• Asian markets were mostly higher in overnight trading. Europe is rallying on reports that the EU is drafting banking union pillars. U.S. futures are up.

• The ECB left its interest rate unchanged at 1 percent. We could hear about non-standard measures like LTRO or coordinated action when ECB head Mario Draghi speaks at 8:30 a.m. ET.

• The EU has a new proposal that could force unsecured creditors of failing banks to take losses, and force lenders to pay levies, as a first step to its banking union. 

• German industrial output fell 2.2 percent in April, missing estimates for a 1 percent decline. Meanwhile, Germany auctioned €5 billion of five-year notes at record low yield of 0.41 percent. 

• Australian GDP rose 1.3 percent in the first quarter, beating expectations for a 0.5 percent increase. GDP increased 4.3 percent from a year ago. 

• In industry news, Chesapeake Energy is in talks to sell pipelines to Global Infrastructure Partners for over $4 billion. Meanwhile, India has hired Accenture to bring in up to $10 billion of investments in semiconductor manufacturing.

• Moody's cut the credit ratings of several German banks. The long-term debt and deposit ratings for six banks and one German subsidiary of a foreign group were cut by one notch. Moody's also downgraded two France-owned Greek banks yesterday.

• Euro area Q1 GDP fell 0.1 percent from a year ago, and was unchanged from the previous quarter when it fell 0.3 percent.

• Spanish industrial output plunged 8.3 percent in April, falling the most in over two years. The Bank of Spain expects that the country will slide into a deeper recession as prime minister Rajoy pushes to slash the budget deficit.
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• Productivity and costs data for the first quarter will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET. Consensus is for a 0.8 percent drop in non-farm productivity and a 2.1 percent rise in unit labor costs.