5 things to know before the stock market opens Friday

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

Stock futures are up Friday morning as they prepare to close out a turbulent week. After a Fed-related selloff and rebound, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 1% so far this week. The broad S&P 500 is up 0.3%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite is down 0.6%, left to digest a big week of tech earnings (more on that below.) Follow live market updates.

January saw the highest level of job cuts since early last year, with layoffs totaling more than 82,000, according to a new report by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas. Those reductions represented an increase of 136% from December and the second-highest layoff total in a data set that goes back to 2009. The report also found a low level of planned hiring, which is likely to pressure an already tight labor market. On Friday, the Labor Department will release its readout on nonfarm payrolls, which is expected to show slowing growth of 185,000.

It wasn’t quite an ace for Amer Sports Thursday. The Finnish maker of Wilson tennis rackets and Arc’teryx outerwear debuted on the New York Stock Exchange, opening — and closing — at $13.40 after pricing at a discount in the initial public offering. The gains made for a first-day pop of just 3%. There were early signs of little sell-side interest, with only a fraction of the shares offered being traded at the debut. That could be the result of apathy toward Amer itself, or toward the still-tepid IPO market more broadly.

Inflation, who? Despite some persistent macroeconomic headwinds, small business owners are more optimistic to start the year. According to a survey by Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business Voices, 75% of small business owners said they were optimistic about their financial trajectory in 2024, up from 68% a year earlier. Of the respondents, 28% said the economy was excellent or good, and more than half expected to create jobs this year.

Formula 1 legend Lewis Hamilton is leaving his long-time home at Mercedes for the red rivals down the paddock at Ferrari. Hamilton “activated a release option” in his contract, and will depart Mercedes at the end of the 2024 season, the team said. It’s a major shakeup in the racing world: Hamilton and Mercedes became nearly synonymous in the past decade, and it means Carlos Sainz, one of Ferrari’s high-performing and wildly popular drivers, will lose his spot on the team. It’s the type of circuit-side drama that F1’s growing fan base has come to know and love, as the sport grips new audiences, particularly in the U.S., and drives revenue for league owner Liberty Media.

– CNBC’s Lisa Kailai Han, Annie Palmer, Jonathan Vanian, Kif Leswing, Jeff Cox, Gabrielle Fonrouge, Kate Rogers and Sam Meredith contributed to this report.

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