5 things to know before the stock market opens Thursday

Here are the most important news items that investors need to start their trading day:

There are just two trading days till the end of the month, which can’t come quickly enough for the bulls. Stocks are on pace to close out September – and the third quarter, for that matter – in the red. While job growth remains strong, consumers are still contending with higher prices and interest rates as the Federal Reserve attempts to bring inflation down to its target level of 2%. The end of the quarter also means earnings season will start within weeks, so investors will get a sharper look at how companies see the state of the consumer heading into the holiday season. Follow live market updates.

The United Auto Workers union plans to unveil new strike locations Friday if negotiations with automakers don’t make significant progress. The strike started with three facilities and expanded to dozens more last week. The UAW spared Ford from last week’s expansion. As of now, more than 12% of the UAW’s members are on strike. The union’s next move comes after both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, the two likely rivals in next year’s presidential election, visited Michigan to rally support. Biden appeared on a picket line with striking UAW workers, while Trump spoke at a nonunion auto parts facility.

Mark Zuckerberg is still banking on the metaverse in a big way. The Meta Platforms CEO demonstrated new artificial intelligence software, along with the company’s Quest 3 virtual reality headset and Ray-Ban smart glasses. “Before this last year of AI breakthroughs, I kind of thought that smart glasses were only really going to become ubiquitous once we really dialed in, you know, the holograms and the displays and all of that stuff, which we’re making progress on,” Zuckerberg said at a conference for VR developers. Silicon Valley is entrenched in a rapidly developing AI arms race as companies such as Meta and Alphabet’s Google contend with the meteoric rise of OpenAI and its ChatGPT program.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX landed its first Pentagon contract for its Starshield military satellite service, building on the company’s already-lucrative ties to the U.S. military. The contract provides for end-to-end service through SpaceX’s Starlink satellite constellation, as well as user terminals, other equipment, network management and related services, a Space Force spokesperson told CNBC. The new contract comes under a cloud of controversy, however, as several lawmakers have criticized the Pentagon’s ties to Musk – most recently following the revelation that he denied Ukraine internet service that would have helped it launch a drone attack on Russia’s navy.

Once again, Donald Trump didn’t debate his rivals in the 2024 Republican primary field. And, once again, Trump still dominated the spotlight. The former president, who is contending with four criminal indictments and a civil case that threatens his business empire, spoke at a rally at a nonunion facility Wednesday night in Michigan in a bid to secure blue collar support amid the UAW strike. In California, meanwhile, seven candidates for the nomination, all of whom are well behind Trump in the polls, duked it out in a messy debate full of attacks. While Nikki Haley has made some headway in the race in recent weeks, it’s unlikely the debate made any impact on the race or Trump’s standing. Read CNBC’s recap of the evening.

– CNBC’s Alex Harring, Michael Wayland, Jonathan Vanian, Michael Sheetz, Kevin Breuninger and Brian Schwartz contributed to this report.

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