5 things to know before the stock market opens Friday – CNBC

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

1. Tech pressures Wall Street premarket; data shows inflation still high

Traders on the floor of the NYSE, April 28, 2022.

Source: NYSE

2. Amazon falls on ugly forecast and slowest growth since dot-com bust

Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon and then CEO of Amazon Web Services, speaks at the WSJD Live conference in Laguna Beach, California, October 25, 2016.

Mike Blake | Reuters

Amazon dropped more than 10% in the premarket, following its late Thursday announcement of weaker-than-expected first-quarter earnings and lower forward guidance. Revenue for the quarter increased 7% year over year to $116.4 billion, basically matching expectations. That was the slowest sales rise for any quarter since the dot-com bust in 2001 and the second straight quarter of single-digit percentage growth. The Amazon Web Services cloud unit was once again strong. But not strong enough to carry the e-commerce side of the business, which saw $6 billion in added costs due to rising inflation, lower worker productivity and excess fulfillment capacity.

3. Apple drops after warning of a massive hit due to supply constraints

Tim Cook, chief executive officer of Apple Inc., speaks during the Peek Performance virtual event in New York, U.S., on Tuesday, March 8, 2022.

Gabby Jones | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Apple fell 1% in Friday’s premarket, the morning after warning that supply constraints related to Covid could hurt sales by between $4 billion and $8 billion in its fiscal third quarter. The guidance overshadowed strong fiscal second-quarter results, including earnings, revenue and gross margin beats. While analysts were looking for a little bit more out of the Services segment, it nonetheless reported record revenue. Products sales saw a March-quarter record. Investors also got a 5% dividend increase and a $90 billion buyback authorization. At quarter end, Apple had a $73 billion net cash position.

4. Musk sells around $4 billion of Tesla shares as he moves to buy Twitter

Elon Musk sold roughly $4 billion worth of Tesla shares in the days following his $44 billion bid to take Twitter private, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The bulk of the CEO’s sales were made on Tuesday, the filings showed. Tesla shares fell 12% that day, but edged higher on Wednesday by less than 1 percentage point.

As the filings became public Thursday evening, Musk wrote on Twitter, “No further TSLA sales planned after today.” Tesla’s stock rose 2% in Friday’s premarket. Twitter shares climbed nearly 1% to more than $49 each, below the $54.20 per-share cash offer from Musk.

5. Chevron, Exxon drop despite reporting strong earnings on high energy prices

Gas prices are displayed at a Chevron station on June 14, 2021 in Los Angeles, California.

Mario Tama | Getty Images

Shares of Chevron turned positive in Friday’s premarket, after the oil giant reported that profit more than quadrupled during the first quarter on higher oil and gasoline prices. Chevron’s revenue rose nearly 70% to $54.37 billion. West Texas Intermediate crude futures spiked to $130.50 in early March, a price last seen in 2008 as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sparked supply fears. Prices have since cooled, but are still sitting above $100, boosting energy companies’ operations.

Gas prices are displayed on a gas pump at an Exxon station in Washington on Tuesday, March 8, 2022.

Bill Clark | Cq-roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images

Shares of Exxon Mobil turned positive in the premarket following the company’s Friday announcement that it took a $3.4 billion after-tax charge in the first quarter related to its Sakhalin-1 operation in Russia. Earnings doubled to $5.5 billion in the quarter. However, profit was down from $8.87 billion in the fourth quarter. Revenue rose more than 50% to $90.5 billion, though that was short of expectations.

— CNBC’s Tanaya Macheel, Jeff Cox, Annie Palmer, Jeff Marks, Kif Leswing, Zev Fima, Lora Kolodny, Christine Wang and Pippa Stevens contributed to this report.

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