5 things to know before the stock market opens Thursday

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

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite moved lower for the second trading session in a row, extending their rough start to the trading month. The broad market index lost 0.16% to close out Wednesday’s session at 5,520.07. The tech-heavy Nasdaq slid even lower, falling 0.3% to finish at 17,084.30. On the flip side, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.09% to end the session at 40,974.97. Follow live market updates.

Job openings have hit the lowest level in more than three years. The Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed there were 7.67 million available positions in July, which is 237,000 fewer than the downwardly revised number for June. Not only that, July’s number marks the lowest number of openings since January 2021. Economists had expected 8.1 million for the month, according to Dow Jones. Layoffs also grew to 1.76 million during the month, an increase of 202,000 from June. “The labor market is no longer cooling down to its pre-pandemic temperature, it’s dropped past it,” said Nick Bunker, economic research director at the Indeed Hiring Lab. “Nobody, and certainly not policymakers at the Federal Reserve, should want the labor market to get any cooler at this point.”

The National Football League is generating huge returns for its owners. The average team is worth around $6.5 billion today, with the higher valuations primarily due to the league’s media deals. And the teams’ owners have seen better returns on their initial investments than those from traditional stocks. Seven of the 10 past NFL teams to be sold have outperformed the S&P 500 in terms of percentage gains since the sales took place. Among the three that have underperformed, the Washington Commanders and the Denver Broncos were sold within the past two years, and the Miami Dolphins were last sold in 2009, a time when the market was still recovering from the 2007-08 financial crisis. Those teams are ranked 13th, 14th and 8th, respectively. Here is how the other teams rank on CNBC’s Official 2024 NFL Team Valuations list.

Nvidia is denying reports that it received a subpoena from the Department of Justice. Shares of the chipmaker fell Wednesday on the heels of a Bloomberg report that it was subpoenaed as part of an antitrust investigation. “We have inquired with the U.S. Department of Justice and have not been subpoenaed,” an Nvidia representative told CNBC. “Nonetheless, we are happy to answer any questions regulators may have about our business.” This also comes after the stock plummeted more than 9% on Tuesday, with its market cap declining by almost $300 billion.

The box office has made a comeback this summer. Before the season began, the domestic box office was down 22% from the year before. However, the summer season — which runs from the first weekend in May through Labor Day — saw $3.6 billion in ticket sales, receiving a boost from the record-breaking “Inside Out 2” by Disney and Pixar as well as “Deadpool & Wolverine.” That’s much better than what those in the industry anticipated despite being a 10% decline from the same period last year. Heading into the fall, box office analysts expect the summer momentum to continue and prop up box office results for the third quarter.

— CNBC’s Samantha Subin, Sarah Min, Jeff Cox, Michael Ozanian, Kif Leswing and Sarah Whitten contributed to this report.

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