Hello friends and Fortune readers.
Wall Street stock futures are set to open higher after a big bounce in China’s stock markets overnight.
Today’s must-read story is by Fortune‘s Stephen Gandel and it explains how a faulty system upgrade is likely to blame for trading on the New York Stock Exchange grinding to a halt for a few hours on Wednesday afternoon.
Here’s what else you need to know today.
1. China’s stock market rebounds
China’s stock indices staged a sharp rebound after a raft of measures from Beijing aimed at stopping panic-selling started to bite. The Shanghai index climbed 5.8%. That’s also caused a rebound in some of the major commodities markets that had taken fright in the last couple of days that the market collapse could have serious knock-on effects in the real economy. Crude futures are up 1.6%, while copper is up 1.3%.
2. Pepsico earnings
Pepsi (PEP) reports second-quarter financial results today and the snack food and beverages giant is expected to post profit and sales that outpace Wall Street’s forecasts. However, investors are concerned that the strong U.S. dollar could eat into Pepsi’s profits, while the company’s declining soda sales have also been a point of concern.
3. Weekly jobless claims
The U.S. Labor Department is expected to report a decline in the number of Americans who filed claims for unemployment benefits last week. The number of claims should drop by about 6,000 from the previous week, falling to 275,000 claims.
4. Walgreens earnings
The drugstore operator releases its third-quarter earnings report today. Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA), which said in April it would close 200 stores as part of a plan to cut $1.5 billion in expenses over the next three years, is expected to beat analysts’ expectations for quarterly profit.
5. NYSE back in business?
Forget the market sell-off, the New York Stock Exchange will likely be happy just to make it through today without any major system glitches after technical issues halted trading for more than three-and-a-half hours on Wednesday afternoon. As Fortune reported, the culprit for the technical issues appears to have been a failed systems upgrade attempted by the exchange. Of course, investors would also like to see a market rebound today after the Dow Jones Industrial Average continued its recent decline yesterday, dropping more than 260 points, or 1.5%. Both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq composite also fell more than 1.5% each on Wednesday.
— Reuters contributed to this report.
