5 things to know before the stock market opens Friday, November 1

Here are five key things investors need to know to start the trading day:

Amazon and Apple both reported better-than-expected earnings and revenue on Thursday, but Amazon stock rose more than 6% in premarket trading Friday while Apple shares fell 1%. Amazon saw growth in its cloud computing and advertising businesses. Apple, meanwhile, said its net income slumped after the company reported a one-time charge of $10.2 billion as part of a tax decision in Europe.

Friday’s jobs report is expected to take a hit from the ongoing Boeing factory strike, as well as Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Economists expect that payrolls rose by just 100,000 for the month, according to a survey from Dow Jones. That would be the lowest job total since December 2020 and a significant drop from September’s 254,000. Meanwhile, Boeing and the union representing roughly 33,000 machinists who walked off the job in mid-September agreed on a sweetened deal Thursday that will go before workers early next week. The jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is set to be released at 8:30 a.m. ET.

Comcast (CNBC’s parent company) is considering separating out its cable networks (of which CNBC is one). Comcast President Mike Cavanagh, alongside the company’s third-quarter earnings report on Thursday, said the company was “exploring whether creating a new well-capitalized company, owned by our shareholders and comprised of our strong portfolio of cable networks, would position them to take advantage of opportunities in the changing media landscape and create value for our shareholders.” That review would not include broadcast channel NBC or streaming platform Peacock. Along with CNBC and MSNBC, it could include Bravo, E!, Syfy, Oxygen, True Crime and USA Network. Executives stressed the process was in the early stages and that nothing had been decided, but it could be a test balloon for broader media consolidation as Americans continue to cut the cord on cable.

OpenAI is taking on search. The artificial intelligence startup launched a search feature in its popular ChatGPT chatbot to better compete with search engines like Google and Microsoft‘s Bing. The feature offers up-to-date information on sports, news, weather, stock quotes and more, according to the company. Shares of Google parent Alphabet fell roughly 1% after the news. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also said Thursday that his company’s next big AI model release is taking a while and likely won’t come this year.

— CNBC’s Hakyung Kim, Annie Palmer, Kif Leswing, Jeff Cox, Leslie Josephs, Sara Salinas, Lillian Rizzo, Alex Sherman and Hayden Field contributed to this report.

— Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.