10 Things You Need To Know Before The Opening Bell

Eric Platt

 Sep. 12, 2012

Esam Omran Al-Fetori/Reuters

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

• Markets in Asia rallied in overnight trade, with Japan's Nikkei up 1.7 percent. Shares in Europe are higher and U.S. futures point to a positive open.

• The German high court ruled this morning that Europe's bailout fund is legal, setting the stage for leaders to begin greater work on the European Stability Mechanism. The court capped German contributions at €190 billion, saying the country's parliament must approve any figures above that mark. 

• The eurozone moved closer to a banking union on Wednesday, after European Commission President Barroso outlined a plan for the ECB to oversee all regional banks. The plan would shift links from individual banks and their sovereign governments to that of the eurozone.

• Apple is expected to unveil the iPhone 5 at an event today in San Francisco at 1 p.m. The phone is expected to have a larger screen, operate on 4G LTE networks, and could have a panoramic camera. Here's how many iPhones Apple has to sell to beat Wall Street estimates.

• Italy sold one-year notes at the lowest level since March following the German court's ruling. The country issued €9 billion worth of one year notes at 1.69 percent, below the 2.77 percent yield recorded at the last auction.

• The U.S. Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, was killed in an attack on the country's consulate in Benghazi. Reuters has also reported the deaths of three others following attacks in both Libya and Egypt.

• U.K. jobless claims fell by the greatest amount in more than two years this August. Jobless claims dropped by 15,000 people to 1.57 million, better than forecasts for no change.

• Mark Zuckerberg spoke publicly for the first time since Facebook's IPO this spring, admitting the company's biggest mistake was not executing properly on its mobile strategy. Zuckerberg says the company should have abandoned the HTML-5 version it built and written code for a native application sooner. 

• Ford directors are expected to lay out a succession plan tomorrow when they meet, with the company's president of North and South American operations the most likely candidate. Mark Fields is viewed as current CEO Alan Mulally's top choice when he retires.

• The key U.S. economic announcement of the day is the wholesale inventories report at 10:00 a.m. Economists forecast inventories increased 0.3 percent in July, following a 0.2 percent contraction in June.