10 things you need to know before the opening bell

Here is what you need to know.

Gary Cohn is reportedly out of the running to head the Fed. Cohn is no longer being considered for the position of Fed chairman, according to Bloomberg, leaving Jerome Powell, Kevin Warsh, Janet Yellen and John Taylor as the final four candidates.

The ECB meets. The European Central Bank is expected to announce the tapering of its bond-buying program down to €30 billion a month from the current level of €60 billion, which has been in place since April. The decision will cross the wires at 7:45 a.m. ET and Mario Draghi's press conference will begin at 8:30 a.m. ET.

Saudi Arabia's crown prince says the Aramco IPO remains on schedule. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman told Reuters the Armaco IPO, which could value the company at more than $2 trillion, remains on track for 2018.

New York tops San Francisco in VC cash. Startups in New York City raised $4.227 billion in funding during the third quarter of 2017, outpacing the $4.177 billion raised by startups located in San Francisco, according to the Q3 2017 MoneyTree Report from PwC and CB Insights.

Barclays is the latest bank to blame low volatility for its trading woes. "A lack of volume and volatility in FICC hit Markets revenues hard across the industry, and we were no exception to this trend," Chief Executive Jes Staley said in a statement, responding to his bank's 14% year-over-year drop in markets income.

Traders betting against Chipotle had a big day. Short sellers raked in $260 million on Wednesday as Chipotle's stock tumbled as much as 16% to its lowest level since 2013, according to data from financial analytics firm S3 Partners.

Buffalo Wild Wings rasies its EPS forecast. The restaurant chain forecast adjusted earnings per share of $4.85 to $5.15, above the Wall Street estimates of between $4.13 and $4.70 according to Bloomberg.

Stock markets around the world are higher. China's Shanghai Composite (+0.26%) led in Asia and Britain's FTSE (+0.35%) leads in Europe. The S&P 500 is set to open up 0.1% near 2,560.

It's a big day for tech earnings. Ford and Twitter report ahead of the opening bell while tech giants Alphabet, Amazon, Intel and Microsoft all release their quarterly results after markets close.

US economic data is light. Initial claims will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET and pending home sales are due out at 10 a.m. ET. The US 10-year yield is down 1 basis point at 2.42%.