5 things to know before the stock market opens Friday, February 3

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

Meta raised everyone’s hopes with its refreshing talk of efficiency Wednesday, but the Facebook parent ultimately set markets up for a bummer after the bell Thursday. Major tech companies Apple, Alphabet and Amazon all reported earnings, and all disappointed in some way, sending their shares down in off-hours trading. Apple posted its biggest year-over-year quarterly revenue decline since Barack Obama was president. Google parent Alphabet suffered from a decline in ad spending at YouTube. And Amazon offered soft guidance as it wrapped up its slowest year of growth as a publicly traded company. Stock futures were in the red before the open Friday, especially at the tech-heavy Nasdaq. Read live markets updates.

The January jobs report hits at 8:30 a.m. ET. Economists are expecting a slowdown – 187,000 jobs added vs. 223,000 in December – as well as slight growth in the unemployment rate and an easing in wage increases. Yet, as CNBC’s Patti Domm points out, economists aren’t certain about what kind of impact the wave of tech layoffs will have on the January number. Markets could react positively if the count comes in lower than expected, particularly after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell this week acknowledged “disinflationary” factors in the economy and offered slightly more dovish commentary on rate hikes. “The market is so desperate to find in anything a reason that the Fed is going to pivot,” said Jefferies economist Tom Simons.