5 things to know before the stock market opens Friday, February 24

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

Investors are watching consumer spending data, expected Friday morning, for another point of evidence in the Federal Reserve’s ongoing effort to bring down inflation. The major averages are all headed for a down week, despite posting gains on Thursday. Through the first four days of the week, the S&P 500 is down 1.64%, set for its worst week since Dec. 16; the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down nearly 1.99%, headed for its fourth straight losing week; and the Nasdaq Composite is down 1.67%, on pace for its second negative week in three. “We’re still looking down the barrel of a gun that has not come to grips with what the consumer may or may not have strength for for the rest of the year,” SoFi’s Liz Young said Thursday on CNBC’s “Halftime Report.” Follow live stock markets updates.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy marked one year since his country was invaded by Russia with a message of resilience: “On 24 February, millions of us made a choice. Not a white flag, but a blue and yellow flag. Not fleeing, but facing. Facing the enemy. Resistance and struggle,” Zelenskyy wrote in a post on Telegram. Thousands of people had died because of the conflict and millions more have been made refugees. “It was a year of pain, sorrow, faith and unity. And this is a year of our invincibility. We know that this will be the year of our victory,” he said. Read live updates on the war in Ukraine.

Boeing is again halting deliveries of its 787 Dreamliner jets so it can do more analysis on a fuselage component, according to the company and the Federal Aviation Administration. The company had only just resumed deliveries of the planes in August — after the second pause in under a year. The company doesn’t expect this latest issue to require additional work on the 787s, but it won’t be able to resume deliveries until it can prove to the FAA that the fuselage issue is resolved. Production will continue in the meantime and there’s no immediate flight-safety risk associated with the issue, Boeing said.

Warner Bros. Discovery warned of a softer advertising market in its latest quarterly report Thursday, posting a big loss per share and falling short of Wall Street expectations. While revenue in the company’s streaming segment was up, boosted by higher subscriptions, Warner Bros.’s network TV segment fell 6%. CEO David Zaslav spoke on the company’s earnings call of a “very challenging” macroeconomic environment and said, “We are assuming things will get better in the second half” of 2023. The company owns cable-TV channels like TNT, TBS and Discovery and said weaker advertising trends it first spotted last summer were exacerbated in the most recent quarter.

Retirement savings took a beating last year. According to a new report by Fidelity Investments, the nation’s largest provider of 401(k) plans, the average account balance ended 2022 down 23% from a year earlier to $103,900. Fidelity found savers are contributing the same amount, and few are drawing down loans. Plus, balances ticked higher in the fourth quarter. “Everyone is feeling pressure financially — there’s a lot of uncertainty out there in the markets and the economy,” said Mike Shamrell, Fidelity’s vice president of thought leadership. “Don’t let short-term economic events derail your long-term retirement savings efforts.”

– CNBC’s Sarah Min, Natasha Turak, Gabrielle Fonrouge, Lillian Rizzo and Jessica Dickler contributed to this report.

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