10 Things You Need To Know Before The Opening Bell

10 Things Before Opening Bell

May 27, 2014

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

China Sinks Vietnamese Fishing Boat. Vietnamese and Chinese ships have been running into each other near a disputed oil rig ever since China towed a platform to the site earlier this month, BI's Michael Kelley notes. But it's the first time a ship has been sunk.

Italian Consumer Confidence. The country's index hit a four-year high, the FT says. This weekend the centre-left Democrats, led by widely popular PM Matteo Renzi, swept the country's elections for European parliament seats. Renzi also recently won approval for new tax breaks for the country's working class.

Pfizer Officially Drops AstraZeneca Bid. AstraZeneca had spurned the most recent off of $120 billion. But..."under U.K. takeover rules ... Pfizer could submit another offer for AstraZeneca in six months," WSJ says.

Chicken Deal. Pilgrim's Pride is offering to buy Hillshire Brands for $45.00 per share in a deal worth $6.4 billion. CNBC's Dominic Chu observes Hillshire had recently cut its own deal to buy Pinnacle Foods for $4.3 billion.

Lagarde Warns On Banks' 'Ransom'. IMF chief Christine Lagarde warned banks continue to practice a form of capitalism that is "more extractive than inclusive," the FT says. "The size and complexity of the megabanks meant that, in some ways, they could hold policymakers to ransom. The implicit subsidy they derived from being too-big-too-fail came from their ability to borrow more cheaply than smaller banks—magnifying risk and undercutting competition."

New Emissions Regulations. Next week, the Obama administration will roll out a states-based cap-and-trade system. Key items energy companies will be watching for include "the percentage by which companies and states must reduce carbon emissions, which is expected to be proposed in a range instead of a single number," WSJ says. "The baseline year against which those reductions are calculated will also be closely monitored."

Data: Non-Housing Categories. At 8:30 we get durable goods orders for April; expectations are for a slight retreat. At 9:45 we get PMI flash services for May, with a slight increase forecast. Conference board consumer confidence, coming in at 10, is also expected to have improved. Finally we get Richmond and Dallas Fed surveys at 10 and 10:30, respectively.

Data: Housing Categories. At 9 we get the latest reading for FHFA home price index. Price growth is expected to have slowed a tick to 0.5% from 0.6%. Also at that hour we get the latest Case-Shiller reading, which is also expected to have slowed 0.1 ppts to 0.7%.

Piketty. In an email to Business Insider, the French economist said he would soon respond to the FT's findings of discrepancies in his data in an update to "Capital in the 21st Century"'s online index. The FT, meanwhile, doubled down on their critique, finding in an editorial that "problems with Prof Piketty’s data undermines his thesis that capitalism has a natural tendency for wealth to become ever more concentrated in the hands of the rich."

Markets. U.S. futures were higher. Stocks in Asia finished with mixed gains. Europe stocks were up.

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