5 things you need to know before the stock market opens on Friday, August 19

Traders work at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), August 17, 2022.

Brendan McDermid | Reuters

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

1. Rough morning for stocks

The three main US indices were set to open in negative territory on Friday morning, dimming hopes of a fifth straight week of wins for the S&P 500. Stocks have done quite well since the brutal first half concluded, but investors are still looking for certainty despite a recent cooling in price increases. The Fed sounds brazen about raising rates to boost inflation now, or at least soon. There are also other problems in the economy. While talk of a broader recession may have died down a bit, housing is facing a real slowdown, especially for builders. However, home prices remain high and people are still paying contractors to do work, according to home improvement giants Home Depot and Lowe’s.

Activist investor Ryan Cohen, a favorite of the meme crowd on Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum, is out Bed bath and beyond after all. In a filing Thursday, Cohen’s RC Ventures said it unloaded its entire position in the troubled home goods retailer. Meme investors this week had pushed the stock to highs not seen since the spring, but shares fell as it became clear in recent days that Cohen would cash in on the company after several major moves, including a change of CEO in June. and a strategic review of the retailer’s Buybuy Baby business. Cohen, who also chairs meme stock company GameStop, had been pushing for a spin-off or sale of that unit.

After a major fire that led to several bankruptcies and liquidity crises, interesting things are happening in the crypto markets. Early Friday, there was one rapid fall in crypto markets, which sent bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, below $22,000 after recently rallying above $25,000. Ether has also made a much bigger rally than bitcoin since hitting lows in June. Ether’s big move comes ahead of a planned upgrade to the ethereum blockchain next month. Both Ether and Bitcoin are still a long way from their November highs.

Big changes are happening starbucks The coffee chain said Thursday that its chief operating officer, John Culver, will leave the company in October after 20 years. He also said he is eliminating the chief operating officer role entirely. Culver had been seen as a possible candidate for the CEO job, which Howard Schultz slid into earlier this year on an interim basis after Kevin Johnson retired. It’s Schultz’s third term as Starbucks CEO, though many on Wall Street expect the company to name a successor next month at its investor day. The next CEO will have to deal with a growing unionization drive in the company’s cafeterias.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, plan to be at the November Group of 20 meeting in Indonesia. according to Reuters. It would mark Xi’s first trip outside China since January 2020, before Covid, which originated in China, became a pandemic. The development comes as Putin continues to wage war in Ukraine after his military launched an unprovoked invasion of Russia’s former Soviet neighbor earlier this year. Both Xi’s and Putin’s governments have been accused of human rights violations, which they have denied. President Joe Biden, whose administration has supported the defense of Ukraine, is also expected to attend the G-20 summit, and a meeting between him and Xi is also reported. Read live updates from Ukraine here.

– CNBC’s Jesse Pound, Diana Olick, Jack Stebbins, Amelia Lucas, Jenni Reid and Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report.

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