10 things you need to know before European markets open

The European Central Bank is coming. The ECB's latest decision on interest rates rolls out at 12:45 p.m. UK time (7:45 a.m. ET) with a press conference 45 minutes later. Not many analysts are expecting a move from the central bank this time, but with inflation still stubbornly weak, President Mario Draghi could start to lay the foundations for more quantitative easing.Valeant shares went through the floor after negative research was published. Short-selling firm Citron Research asked whether Valeant Pharmaceuticals was the next Enron. That, and allegations that the company cooked its books, sent the stock down as much as 30% in trading.That didn't stop some activist investors from weighing in. Hedge fund titan Bill Ackman purchased 2 million more shares of Valeant Pharmaceuticals Wednesday amid the stock's decline, CNBC's Scott Wapner reports.China's regulator says its yuan intervention was nothing special. China's market-based reform of its currency regime that took place in August was a normal government conduct rather than large-scale intervention, an official at the country's foreign exchange regulator told a news conference in Beijing on Thursday.UK retail sales are coming. At 9:30 a.m. UK time (4:30 a.m. ET) figures for British retail sales in September are outanalysts expect a 4.8% rise year-on-year, up from the 3.7% jump recorded in August.Honda is reportedly delaying a massive investment in China. Honda will delay the construction of a planned $822 million (532.92 million) plant in Wuhan, China, as demand slows in the world's largest auto market, Bloomberg reported.Twitter snapped up a new set of tools. Twitter has acquired Fastlane, a set of tools that found a lot of popularity with iPhone developers as an easy way to constantly test and update their apps.AT&T threw cold water over expectations for its Q3 results. AT&T said on Wednesday that consensus revenue estimates for its third-quarter were "inflated" as they differed from its own accounting, which includes results from DirecTV, acquired by the No. 2 U.S. wireless carrier in July.Revenues slipped at eBay. Facing intensifying competition from Amazon as well as from traditional retailers, the e-commerce site reported a 2.4% fall in revenue in its first quarterly results since the spinoff of its PayPal payments business.AmEx profits got slapped by the strong dollar. American Express, the world's largest credit card issuer, reported a 15.8% fall in quarterly profit due to higher expenses and a strong dollar. The company's net income attributable to common shareholders fell to $1.23 billion in Q3 from $1.47 billion a year earlier.Join the conversation about this storyNOW WATCH: How to make it out of a free-falling elevator alive
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