Hours after multiple global agencies detected a magnitude 5.3 earthquake near North Korea's nuclear test site, Pyongyang declared it had conducted its fifth nuclear test and was now able to produce miniaturized nuclear warheads. South Korea's vice finance minister said the government will closely monitor financial markets and guard against geopolitical risks linked to the North's actions, and promised to take measures to stabilize markets if needed. South Korea's KOSPI -1.3% to 2,037.

Economy

Global equities are also lower after the European Central Bank held interest rates at record lows and refrained from adding new stimulus. While President Mario Draghi said the ECB was looking at options to continue its money-printing program, investors were looking for more immediate action, including an extension or expansion of the current plan, or at least clearer hints of future actions.

Although it's only implemented two out of the 15 actions from its first bailout review, Greece has assured Brussels it will fulfill all of them by the end of September to pave the way for the disbursement of a subtranche of €2.8B. Greece will also be on the agenda of the informal Eurogroup meeting in Bratislava today, ahead of an informal meeting of EU finance ministers on Saturday.

China's consumer price inflation slowed to its weakest pace in almost a year in August, although an encouraging moderation in producer price deflation added to growing evidence of a steadying economy. The CPI climbed 1.3% from a year earlier, compared with a 1.8% increase in July, while the PPI slipped 0.8% on-year, the slowest pace of decline since April 2012.

Secretary of State John Kerry is scheduled to meet his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, in Geneva today to broker a cease-fire, expand military cooperation and increase humanitarian assistance in Syria. The meeting will be the third time the two will have met in recent weeks. It'll aim to repair the last cease-fire agreement announced in February, which collapsed due to the Assad regime's frequent violations and the rise of the Syrian Conquest Front.

Oil prices have pulled back after settling more than 4% higher on Thursday, following EIA data that showed a huge drawdown in U.S. crude stocks. Brent and WTI crude futures have gained about 6% this week and are on course for their biggest weekly gain in three weeks, after major producers Saudi Arabia and Russia agreed on Monday to cooperate on stabilizing the oil market.

Stocks

Federal regulators say employees at Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) created millions of fake bank accounts and credit card numbers over the past five years in an illegal bid to boost their sales figures. The bank has been fined $185M for the practices, including a record $100M by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Wells Fargo has also fired at least 5,300 employees who were involved in the scam, sources told the NYT.

Big boost for Germany's top lenders... Deutsche Bank (NYSE:DB) +4% premarket after Germany's Manager Magazin reported that the bank will pay more than $2.4B to settle mortgage cases with U.S. authorities. Shares in Commerzbank (OTCPK:CRZBY) are also near the top of the DAX on reports that it's looking to radically overhaul its corporate banking business that serves small and medium-sized companies.

Monte dei Paschi di Siena CEO Fabrizio Viola has agreed to step down as the bank prepares to tap investors for the third time in as many years, raising as much as €5B in a share sale. Marco Morelli, chief of BofA Merrill Lynch Italy (NYSE:BAC), will most likely replace him. Since the beginning of the year, BMPS (OTCPK:BMDPY) shares have lost more than 60% of their value, while the Italian banking sector has shed 44%.

Dealing another blow to Samsung's (OTC:SSNLF) recovery efforts, the FAA has singled out the Galaxy Note 7 as a potential airborne fire hazard, urging passengers to avoid using the devices entirely on board airliners. The statement comes less than a week after Samsung announced a global recall and replacement program for millions of the smartphones due to exploding batteries that could catch fire. Samsung shares ended down 4.2% in Korea.

Norway's prime minister has joined a campaign by local newspaper Aftenposten accusing Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) of undue censorship by barring a Vietnam War-era photograph showing a naked child fleeing a napalm attack. "Facebook gets it wrong when they censor such pictures. It limits the freedom of speech," Erna Solberg wrote. "I say yes to healthy, open and free debate - online and wherever else we go. But I say no to this form of censorship."

GTCR, Charlesbank Capital, Berkshire Partners and Stonepeak are teaming up to bid on a data center business that CenturyLink (NYSE:CTL) is hoping to divest for more than $2.5B, Reuters reports. The move illustrates that private equity firms will still occasionally partner in so-called club deals when the amount of equity they need to raise exceeds the commitments their funds and their investors can make.

Space news roundup: SpaceX (Private:SPACE) is leading a probe into its recent Falcon 9 rocket explosion, but some say it may be another 9-12 months before the firm returns to flight. That may be good news for rival United Launch Alliance (LMT, BA), which launched an Atlas 5 rocket from Florida on Thursday to collect samples from near-Earth asteroid Bennu. Meanwhile, Virgin Galactic's new spaceship had its first test flight yesterday afternoon, the first since an October 2014 crash that killed one of two test pilots.

Korean Air Lines, the biggest shareholder in Hanjin Shipping (OTC:HNJSF), has delayed a decision on a funding plan for the troubled company for a second time, adding to the uncertainty of around $14B of cargo stranded at sea. With Hanjin's future in doubt, carriers have announced they will hike container freight rates by as much as 50% beginning next month as retailers scramble to secure shipping ahead of the peak year-end holiday season.

Total is taking full control of the Barnett Shale in Texas after Chesapeake Energy's (NYSE:CHK) recent decision to exit the once-prolific gas field to clean up its finances. Under terms of the deal, Chesapeake will pay $334M to Williams Cos. (NYSE:WMB), the gatherer of 80% of the gas from Barnett Assets. Total (NYSE:TOT) will then pay $420M to restructure the gas gathering agreement and $138M to be released from three other contracts.

Meanwhile, Enterprise Products Partners has withdrawn its takeover bid for Williams Cos. (WMB), saying the company's lack of engagement left it with "no actionable path forward." Enterprise (NYSE:EPD) made a second, all-stock offer for the company in late August, topping its previous bid from earlier in the summer, but Williams made no official response to either approach. EPD +1.7%; WMB -2.6% AH.

Nearly 18 months before Volkswagen admitted to cheating on emissions tests, its chief executive met with the head of supplier Robert Bosch (OTC:BSWQY) to discuss the cars' illegal "defeat device" software, according to an amended class-action lawsuit. Separately, VW (OTCPK:VLKAY) has rejected suggestions it may have breached EU consumer rules and doesn't see the need to compensate affected car owners.

Ford's outlook has hit another speed bump, with the company saying hefty charges for an expanded safety recall will reduce this year's operating profit guidance by 6%. In July, the automaker flagged Brexit headwinds and an expected slowdown in its core U.S. market as reasons for concerns about 2016's second half. Ford (NYSE:F) shares are relatively unchanged premarket despite the news.

"Autopilot" was not in use at the time of a fatal crash in the Netherlands earlier this week, Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) has confirmed. The company's crashes have come under scrutiny since it was revealed in June that a Model S ran into a truck in Florida while its Autopilot feature was engaged. The fatal accident has also ignited a broader debate about autonomous vehicle technology in development.

Drones will soon be delivering burritos on the campus of Virginia Tech. The experimental service, to begin this month and last just a few weeks, will be conducted by Alphabet's (GOOG, GOOGL) Project Wing and a Chipotle (NYSE:CMG) food truck at the university. The initiative marks the most comprehensive of its kind and has gotten the green light from the FAA.

In other news, Chipotle (CMG) has agreed to financial settlements with more than 100 customers who fell ill after eating at its restaurants last year, in a string of food-safety problems that battered its stock price and reputation. The burrito chain's strategy of resolving claims out of court shows it wanted to avoid drawn-out public battles. Terms of the settlements were confidential.

Pre-dawn aerial spraying for Zika-carrying mosquitoes has begun in Miami Beach, but it's bugging out some locals due to health concerns surrounding insecticide Naled. Originally scheduled for Thursday, the spraying was delayed for a day after angry residents protested. So far there have been 56 locally transmitted and 596 travel-related Zika cases in Florida. According to the CDC, there are 2,977 cases of the virus in the continental U.S.

Thursday's Key Earnings

Barnes & Noble (NYSE:BKS) -4.1% on disappointing guidance.

Today's Markets

In Asia, Japan flat at 16965. Hong Kong +0.8% to 24099. China -0.6% to 3078. India -0.9% to 28797.
In Europe, at midday, London -0.3%. Paris -0.4%. Frankfurt -0.3%.
Futures at 6:20, Dow -0.3%. S&P -0.3%. Nasdaq -0.2%. Crude -1.6% to $46.88. Gold -0.3% to $1337.80.
Ten-year Treasury Yield +1 bps to 1.63%

Today's Economic Calendar

7:45 Fed's Rosengren: Economic Outlook
9:30 Fed's Kaplan speech
1:00 PM Baker-Hughes Rig Count
8:15 PM Fed's Kaplan speech