Morning Briefing: 10 Things You Should Know

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- U.S. stock futures were suggesting Wall Street would open lower Thursday amid signs of a slowing global economy.

European stocks were trading lower as German unemployment in August rose for a fifth straight month. Asian shares ended Thursday's trading session with losses after Japan posted a larger-than-expected 0.8% drop in retail sales in July. Japan's Nikkei finished 1% lower to 8,983.78.

The economic calendar in the U.S. Thursday includes weekly initial and continuing jobless claims at 8:30 a.m. EDT, and personal income and spending for July at 8:30 a.m.

U.S. stocks on Wednesday closed with slight gains after the Federal Reserve's Beige Book report found the U.S. economy grew "gradually" last month.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose more than 4 points, or 0.03%, to finish at 13,107.48, snapping a two-day losing streak.

British bank Barclays(BCS) named Antony Jenkins, head of its retail and business banking operations, as its new CEO. He replaces Bob Diamond, who resigned in the wake of the Libor rate-fixing scandal.

Pandora(P) , the streaming music company, posted break-even results for its fiscal second quarter on Wednesday and provided strong guidance.

Ciena(CIEN) is scheduled to report fiscal third-quarter results before Thursday's opening bell and analysts expect a loss of 2 cents a share in the July-ended quarter from the optical networker on revenue of $473.9 million.

Other companies reporting earnings Thursday include OmniVision Technologies(OVTI) , Splunk(SPLK) , and Zumiez(ZUMZ) .

Retailers will be reporting same-store sales throughout Thursday. Thomson Reuters is forecasting overall growth of 2.1% for August, down from an increase of 4.8% last year.