Global news you need to know before the U.S. stock market opens on Thursday

Bescent "softens" to Republican lawmakers: supports the Senate taking over the Powell investigation instead of the Department of Justice.
The market temporarily eases fiscal concerns, with Japanese long-term government bonds rebounding across the board, and the yield on Japan's 40-year government bonds significantly declining by 10 basis points.
The $550 billion U.S.-Japan investment fund is about to launch, with the first three projects focusing on "data centers, crude oil terminals, and synthetic diamonds."
U.S. stocks in the storage sector rose pre-market, with Sandisk up over 6% and Micron Technology up nearly 4%.
Storage giant Kioxia's full-year profit guidance exceeds consensus by 60%, with a net profit of 87.81 billion yen in Q3.
Samsung: has begun shipping HBM4 to customers.
SoftBank turned a profit in Q3, but net income fell significantly short of expectations, with a 2.8 trillion yen investment return from a heavy stake in OpenAI over the first three fiscal quarters.
Lenovo's Q4 revenue hit a record high, with adjusted net profit growing 36% year-on-year, and AI business accounting for 32% of total revenue.
"Development speed is too fast!" Musk praises Seedance 2.0, while ByteDance claims "it's still far from perfect."
AI impacts the "hard-hit area," with Indian IT stocks plummeting over 4% to a four-month low.
U.S. asset management giant Nuveen will acquire Schroders for £10 billion, ending its 200-year independence.
The Nikkei 225 index closed down 0.02%, while the Shanghai Composite Index closed up 0.05%; the Hang Seng Index closed down 0.86%