5 things to know before the stock market opens on Thursday

Here are the most important news, trends and analysis that investors need to start their trading day:

Nasdaq futures rebounded nearly 2% on Thursday, boosted by a 14% rise in shares of Meta Platforms, Facebook’s parent company, on better-than-expected earnings. Bond yields rose as data showed US economic growth slowed in the first quarter. After Thursday’s bell, big tech continues to dominate corporate America with quarterly results, as Apple and Amazon are expected to report.

• The tech-heavy index, already in a bear market, closed at its lowest of the year on Wednesday, a day after its worst single-session selloff since September 2020.
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 were both expected to open higher on Thursday after ending the previous session with modest gains. The S&P 500 was still in correction.
• The Dow was just below the 10% or more correction threshold from recent highs.

Some pre-market movers: Teladoc fell 44% after reporting a shortfall; Southwest Airlines rose more than 4% after issuing upbeat outlook; and Ford rose 1.5% after slightly beating profit and revenue expectations.

The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield rose on Thursday, trading around 2.88%, after the government announced that the US economy contracted 1.4% in the first quarter. Economists were expecting growth of 1%. Initial jobless claims for the week ended April 23 were 180,000, in line with estimates. The Federal Reserve will be paying close attention to the reports as it seeks a sweet spot to aggressively raise interest rates to fight inflation without shutting the door on economic growth.

Meta Platforms, formerly Facebook, reported mixed first-quarter results after the closing bell on Wednesday. However, while revenue faltered, key engagement metrics were better than expected, as were earnings. During the call, management provided very encouraging comments on spend, monetization, and longer-term profit potential. They said they also expect revenue growth to accelerate over time. Despite soaring to around $199 per share pre-market, such a level would still keep Meta Platforms down more than 40% for the year.

Twitter released its first-quarter results before the opening bell on Thursday, in what may be one of its last reports as a public company after the social media network’s board of directors agreed to sell to Elon Musk for $44 billion. Twitter shares rose 1% to around $49 apiece premarket, but that’s below Musk’s cash offer of $54.20 per share. Twitter said monetizable daily active users exceeded estimates in the first quarter, but overall revenue was slightly below expectations.

Two of the three components of the Dow Jones that released quarterly results Thursday morning saw their stocks rise in premarket trading.

• McDonald’s was expected to open 2% higher after posting better-than-expected revenue, fueled by price increases in the United States and strong international sales growth.
• Caterpillar was expected to open 2% lower despite the beats and earnings, with help from increased construction activity and rising commodity prices leading to more mining.
• Merck was on course to open around 2% after beating the top and bottom lines, helped by strength from its cancer treatment Keytruda, its HPV vaccine Gardasil and its Covid oral antiviral Molnupiravir.

Shares of Eli Lilly jumped 4% in premarket Thursday, shortly after the release of promising data from a 72-week trial of its obesity drug tirzepatide. Participants lost up to 22.5% of their body weight, or about 52 pounds. Sixty-three percent of participants taking tirzepatide achieved a weight reduction of at least 20%. Also before the bell on Thursday, Lilly reported better-than-expected quarterly earnings and revenue. The drugmaker cut its annual profits but raised its revenue outlook.

—CNBC Samantha Subin, Hannah Miao, Sarah Min, Jeff Cox, Zev Fima, lauren feiner and Dom Chu contributed to this report.

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