Economy
Prompting speculation for additional support measures, China reported that its economy expanded 7.4% in 2014, its slowest pace in 24 years. Growth in the world's second biggest economy has not fallen below 7.6% since 1990, when it grew 3.8% as a result of international sanctions in the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Q4 GDP growth came in at 7.3% from the year-ago period, beating analysts' 7.2% forecast. The Shanghai Composite closed up 1.8% on the news, after tumbling close to 8% yesterday following a crackdown on margin trading.

Although the ECB is widely expected to announce QE on Thursday, French President Francois Hollande reinforced expectations yesterday, saying that the central bank will declare large-scale purchases of government bonds later this week. The QE scheme could be as large as €550B ($635B), according to a median estimate of economists polled by Bloomberg. Following the remarks, Germany's Angela Merkel issued another warning that the ECB's money printing was no substitute for economic reforms in the euro zone.

"Iran has no plan (to hold an emergency OPEC meeting) and is currently in consultations with other OPEC member states in a bid to prevent the sharp fall in the oil price, but these consultations have yet to bear fruit," said Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh on the Iranian oil ministry's website SHANA. "Iran is strong enough to withstand a deeper slump in prices even if the country must sell at $25 a barrel," he added. Brent is flat at $48.83/bbl, while WTI is down 2.6% at $47.41.

"Sliding oil prices will give global growth a brief jolt, but the benefits won’t be strong enough to keep the world economy out of a deepening long-term rut," announced the International Monetary Fund in its latest World Economic Outlook report. As a result, global growth is projected at 3.5% for 2015 and 3.7% for 2016, said the Washington-based lender, lowering its forecast by 0.3 percentage points for both years. The U.S. was the lone bright spot in an otherwise gloomy report for major economies, with its 2015 projected growth raised by half a percentage point to 3.6%.

Stocks
In a move to cut operating costs, DreamWorks Animation (NASDAQ:DWA) is planning a "substantial" number of layoffs, sources tell the LA Times. While the precise number of people who will lose their jobs has yet to be finalized, the number is expected to exceed the 350 layoffs that occurred in 2003 after the studio shelved production of the movie "Me and My Shadow," the report said.

Amazon Studios says it is beginning production with the goal of bringing customers a dozen movies each year, and announced that its movies will premiere on Prime Instant Video only four to eight weeks after their theatrical debut. Ted Hope will lead the creative development efforts as Head of Production at the Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) studio.

Samsung Electronics is considering a stock split, making shares easier to buy and attracting more retail investors, as sliding profits continue to put pressure on the firm. Samsung (OTC:SSNLF) shares remain well off last year's peak of 1.495M won ($1,380) following a series of quarterly profit declines, but its newly launched $2B share buy-back program and planned dividend increase has helped them recover from multi-year lows.

SAP has lowered its profit outlook for 2017, saying its push into cloud-based software would eat into its profit margins. "I think we're doing the right transition, we're a growth company and this is what the investor wants," said SAP Chief Executive Bill McDermott. The company announced earlier that it expected to reach an operating margin of 35% on revenues of up to €22B in 2017 resulting in an operating profit of around €7.7B, but now expects operating profit of €6.3B-€7B on revenues of €21B-€22B. SAP -4.7% premarket.

Google is nearing a deal to invest in Elon Musk-founded rocket/spacecraft maker SpaceX with the reported goal of "supporting the development of SpaceX satellites that could beam low-cost Internet around the globe to billions who don’t have it," The Information reports. A Google (GOOG, GOOGL-SpaceX effort would have competition: Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) and Richard Branson's Virgin Group just agreed to invest in OneWeb, a firm that plans to launch 648 broadband-capable low-orbit satellites.

Twitter has announced it will buy Indian mobile phone marketing start-up ZipDial, reportedly for $30M-$40M, as the U.S. company looks to expand in the world's second-biggest mobile market. ZipDial gives clients phone numbers for use in marketing campaigns. Consumers call the numbers and hang up before connecting and incurring charges, and then receive promotion-related text messages. TWTR +1.1% premarket.

A half-decade after killing it off to focus on the web, J.C. Penney (NYSE:JCP) is bringing back its hefty print catalog, WSJ reports. The move is substantiated by an "oddity of the digital age," which shows that many of its online sales were driven by what the shoppers saw in print. Earlier this month, J.C. Penney said that better-than-expected holiday results meant sales growth should come in at the high end of a forecast range of 2%-4% from a year ago.

Unilever posted a rise in full-year profit today despite struggling in recent quarters due to a sales slump in emerging markets. Full-year profit climbed 6.8% to €5.2B ($6B) despite a 2.7% fall in revenue to €48.4B, dragged down by a 20% sales decline in China in Q4. "We do not plan on a significant improvement in market conditions in 2015," Chief Executive Officer Paul Polman said in the statement. UL -3% premarket.

Schlumberger is acquiring a 45.65% stake in Russia's largest drilling company, Eurasia Drilling, for $1.7B, and will have the option to buy the rest of the company three years after the deal closes. Schlumberger's (NYSE:SLB) agreement will require Eurasia to delist its depositary receipts from the London Stock Exchange.

Goldcorp has agreed to buy Probe Mines (OTCPK:PROBF) in an all-stock deal that values the metals exploration company at C$526M, in a bid to win control of the Borden Gold project in northern Ontario. While analysts have been predicting consolidation in the gold sector for many months, the deal is one of the first sizable ones in some time. Last year saw the lowest level of gold mining merger acquisitions in over a decade. GG +5% premarket.

Fidelity Investments and eight other big money managers, including BlackRock (NYSE:BLK), BNY Mellon (NYSE:BK), JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM), and T. Rowe Price (NASDAQ:TROW), are close to launching a dark pool. The project is aimed at creating a private trading venue for the benefit of mutual fund shareholders in an effort to reform trading by cutting costs and weeding out high-frequency traders. Despite coming under increased regulatory scrutiny, dark pools have recently seen a major jump in trading volume.

Today's economic calendar:

10:00 NAHB Housing Market Index

Notable earnings before today's open: ATI, BHI, DAL, EDU, HAL, IGTE, JNJ, MS, MTB, MTG, PETS, RF, SAP

Notable earnings after today's close: ADTN, AMD, CA, CLS, CREE, FULT, IBKR, IBM, NFLX, SMCI, WWD