5 things to know before the stock market opens on Friday

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

Thursday brought another historic moment to the final frontier as a new space race begins. Intuitive Machines became the first company to land on the moon when the IM-1 mission touched down on the celestial body. The cargo lander Odysseus became the first American spacecraft to reach the moon’s surface since 1972. As befits its name from Greek mythology, the ship predictably faced several unexpected delays on its way home. “Welcome to the moon,” Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus said after controllers established contact with the lander. The landing is key for NASA, a government agency that will rely even more on private companies to carry out its missions in the coming years. Intuitive Machines’ stock price soared as much as 50% in pre-market trading after the mission’s success.

Reddit’s IPO comes after a slow and slow process for social media platforms. More than two years after Reddit filed its draft listing, the company filed its IPO prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday. Reddit is scheduled to debut on the New York Stock Exchange in March and will trade under the ticker “RDDT.” The company is the first social media company to go public since 2019, and the listing comes amid tepid investor demand for an IPO. Reddit said it generated $804 million in revenue last year thanks to advertising, a 20% increase from 2022. Net loss for 2023 was $90.8 million, narrower than a loss of $158.6 million a year earlier.

A massive outage affected thousands of AT&T customers on Thursday until cell phone service was restored in the afternoon. The effects ranged from disrupting calls and text messages for consumers to disrupting the city’s emergency services. Some Verizon and T-Mobile users have also reported problems, but the companies said those problems likely arose while trying to contact AT&T customers. AT&T said an initial investigation into the outage determined it was caused by “an incorrect application and execution of processes used to expand the network, rather than a cyberattack.”

Two stocks jumped in premarket trading Friday morning after companies reported unexpected quarterly profits. Block’s stock price rose about 15% as the company showed solid revenue growth in its Square and Cash App businesses. Meanwhile, Carvana stock soared more than 30% after the company announced its first-ever profit. The result has been an earnings season that has far exceeded expectations. As of Thursday, 87% of S&P 500 companies had reported fourth-quarter results, with profits beating expectations by 6.9%, according to LSEG (formerly Refinitiv).

– CNBC’s Brian Evans, Michael Sheets, Jonathan Bunyan, Ryan Anastasio, Mackenzie Sigalos and Robert Hamm contributed to this report.

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