5 things to know before the stock market opens on Thursday, January 5

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

The US stock market recovered slightly on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 up 0.75%, the Nasdaq up 0.69% and the Dow up 133 points. But while it was a positive session, it wasn’t without some difficulties as investors looked at fresh (pretty strong) jobs data and the Fed minutes (more on that below). ). The December jobs report is also due on Friday morning, so market watchers still have another big data point to mull over this week. Read live market updates this.

Amazon plan lay off more than 18,000 employees, more than originally expected. In November, CNBC reported that Amazon, which employs more than 1.5 million people, is expected to lay off 10,000 people. The move comes after several other tech companies cut their payrolls, including Sales forcesaid Wednesday morning it will cut 10% of the workforce. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced the layoffs Wednesday night after a news release of employee layoffs blasted plans to reveal the company’s job cuts. company. “However, because one of our teammates leaked this information to the outside, we decided to share this news sooner so you can hear the details directly from me,” Jassy wrote in a company blog post.

Issued by the Federal Reserve minutes from the December policy-setting meeting Wednesday. While the central bank doesn’t exactly give investors what they want, it doesn’t really rock the boat either. “Participants generally observe that a restrictive policy stance will need to be maintained until incoming data provides confidence that inflation is on track to decline to 2%, which may take some time.” , the minutes summary said. The Fed is expected to raise rates again at its next meeting, which ends on February 1, although traders think that increase could be smaller than December’s half a percentage point increase. .

Cox Communications, the privately held internet and cable giant, will join its publicly traded rivals in providing nationwide cellular service to its customers. Cox, which has 7 million customers in 18 states across several regions of the US, intends to offer plans that cost about the same as what Comcast and Charter sell to their customers. Cable and internet providers have been ramping up mobile services as a way to keep customers on their broadband service, especially as more and more people are ditching cable and switching to broadband. streaming services. Read more from CNBC’s Lillian Rizzo this.

The US House of Representatives on Thursday entered no speaker on Tuesday, leaving a large part of the federal government in turmoil and confusion. Until a speaker is selected, no member of the House of Representatives may take the oath of office. Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader, on Wednesday failed three more times in his bid to seize power as a small but stubborn group of far-right lawmakers continued to vote against him, despite New endorsement from former President Donald Trump. It is unclear when Republicans will break the deadlock. The Democrats, who have nominated their new leader, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, as speaker, have shown no willingness to rescue them from their mess.

— Alex Harring, Jordan Novet, Jeff Cox, Lillian Rizzo, Christina Wilkie, and CNBC’s Chelsey Cox contributed to this report.

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