NEW YORK — (CNN) Markets are looking perky Friday morning, holding out the prospect of an upbeat end to a rough week.
All major European indexes are trading more than 2% higher, and U.S. stock futures are pointing to a positive start as investors welcome Janet Yellen’s defense of the Fed’s decision not to hike rates last week.
Here are the five things you need to know before the opening bell rings in New York:
1. New boss at Volkswagen: The German automaker is expected to promote Porsche chief Matthias Mueller to group CEO as it struggles to get control of a crisis over falsified U.S. emissions tests. Media reports say Mueller will be named Friday as successor to Martin Winterkorn, who quit Wednesday.
Volkswagen is also under huge pressure to provide more details about whether European tests were also deliberately manipulated, and to identify who was responsible for the misconduct. Its shares were trading 1% higher in Europe, but have lost about 25% since the scandal broke a week ago.
2. It’s another iPhone day: The iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus hit stores Friday, with Apple fans around the world camping out in line to become some of the first owners of the new devices.
The company has said it expects to beat last year’s first-weekend record sales of 10 million units.
3. Stock market movers — Nike, Under Armour, BMW: Nike stock is up nearly 8% premarket after the company reported strong earnings Thursday afternoon. The report helped rivals too — Adidas was trading 3.5% higher in Europe, while Under Armour also got a lift, climbing 2% after hours.
BMW shares are bouncing back, trading 5% higher. The stock was slammed Thursday after a German magazine reported that one of the group’s diesel fueled cars had breached European pollution limits by a huge margin in road tests. The company said it could not explain the results because it was not familiar with the detail, but strongly denied attempting to manipulate or rig any emissions tests.
4. Earnings and economics: Blackberry and Finish Line are reporting before the opening bell.
The U.S. government will issue new estimates for second-quarter GDP at 8:30 a.m. ET. Initial numbers showed it improved after lackluster results from the first three months of 2015.
Then, at 10 a.m. ET, the University of Michigan will post its final estimate for September consumer sentiment. First readings of the index showed a dip from August levels.
5. Thursday market recap: The S&P 500 briefly fell back into correction on Thursday before trimming its losses to close with a 0.3% dip. The Dow Jones industrial average was down 0.5%, and the Nasdaq dropped 0.4%.
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