5 things to know before the stock market opens Thursday, November 30

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

It’s going to be hard to say goodbye to November. Heading into the last day of the month, the three major stock indices are on pace to break a three-month losing streak and post their best month of this year. The bond market is helping: The yield on the 10-year Treasury note dipped below 4.3% for the first time in a couple months. And that’s even after the revised gross domestic product number came in higher than expected at a 5.2% annual rate. On the data front, investors will be watching for the personal consumption expenditure report for October, an important inflation measurement for the Federal Reserve. Follow live market updates.

With equities markets humming again as yields ease and the economy shows signs of moderating, the next big question is when will the Federal Reserve cut its benchmark rate again? Market expectations are that it’ll start happening next year. To get there, though, it will likely have to take a more dramatic economic slowdown, including a decline in employment, according to CNBC’s Jeff Cox. “And it’s not clear all that will happen. In a different cycle, when inflation hadn’t spiked so much, I think the Fed would have been cutting rates already. This is a very different cycle. There is going to be much more caution on their part,” said Kathy Jones, Charles Schwab’s chief fixed income strategist.

Elon Musk has a message for companies that halted advertising on his social media platform, X: “Go f— yourself.” Musk, who also runs Tesla and SpaceX, recently endorsed an antisemitic remark and has given broad attention to fringe, racist opinions on his site, formerly known as Twitter. Disney, Apple and several other major companies were among those who stopped advertising on X. Musk, meanwhile, has been on somewhat of an apology tour after his endorsement of the antisemitic post. This week, he visited Israel and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a ceasefire in the nation’s war with Palestinian militant group Hamas. On Wednesday, Musk attempted to again walk back his post. “I’m sorry for that tweet or post,” he said. “I tried my best to clarify, six ways to Sunday, but you know at least I think over time it will be obvious that in fact, far from being antisemitic, I am in fact philosemitic.”

Nvidia is riding high on the artificial intelligence wave, with its revenue tripling in the third quarter as demand for its AI chips surged. The company’s CEO, Jensen Huang, sees even more growth as the technology advances, too. If artificial general intelligence (AGI) is defined as a computer that can finish tests in a way that’s “fairly competitive” to human intelligence, he said Wednesday at the DealBook Summit, then “within the next five years, you’re going to see, obviously, AIs that can achieve those tests.” Nvidia’s stock is up more than 200% this year.

Not to be outdone by crosstown rival General Motors, which gave a business update Wednesday, Detroit automaker Ford addressed its own state of affairs Thursday morning. Like GM, Ford also reinstated its guidance for 2023, lowering its outlook for earnings and free cash flow. Before the six-week United Auto Workers strike, Ford was on pace to meet its guidance for the year, but then the company pulled the outlook once the labor stoppages began. Now that the company has a new contract with the UAW, Ford expects a total hit of $8.8 billion during the life of the deal, which concludes in spring 2028.