AMC Entertainment and other meme stocks are still shaking, while the broader market ticked higher after data showed the unemployment rate fell in May. Here’s what we’re watching ahead of Friday’s opening bell.

  • Futures tied to the S&P 500 gained 0.4%. Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.3% and contracts on the tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 were up 0.5%. Read our full market wrap here.
  • Bitcoin fell almost 5% from its price at 9 p.m. ET Thursday after Tesla CEO Elon Musk posted breakup memes on Twitter, writing “#Bitcoin” with a broken-heart emoji.
  • AMC shares are down 7% premarket, extending Thursday’s big drop on the heels of its plan to sell more shares. Other stocks popular with retailer traders were also slipping; BlackBerry shed 1.7%, GameStop slipped 1.2% and Koss dropped 5.3%.
  • Employers added 559,000 jobs in May and the unemployment rate fell to 5.8%, in a pickup of the labor market’s recovery from Covid-19.
What’s Coming Up
  • U.S. factory orders for April, due at 10 a.m., are expected to have fallen by 0.2% from the prior month.
Market Movers to Watch
  • DocuSign climbed 6.8% premarket after the digital agreement company’s quarterly results and outlook surpassed Wall Street expectations.
  • Five Below shares jumped 5.7% ahead of the bell. The retailer said first-quarter net sales were up 197.6% from the first quarter of fiscal 2020.
  • Asana shares gained 11% after the collaboration-software company raised its annual forecast as revenue easily outstripped expectations.
  • Ford shares added 2.6% premarket, extending gains from the prior session that came after the automaker said total U.S. sales in May rose 4.1 to 161,725 vehicles, as jumps SUV and electrified vehicle sales offset declines in truck and car sales.
Ford Motor company unveiled the new all-electric F-150 Lightning pickup truck at an event outside the Ford World Headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan on May 19, 2021.

Ford Motor company unveiled the new all-electric F-150 Lightning pickup truck at an event outside the Ford World Headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan on May 19, 2021.

Photo: Dominick Sokotoff/Zuma Press

Market Facts
  • In recent months, the shares of companies that have been making cars for decades have overtaken those of startups hoping to take their place. On average, the 17 largest non-Chinese incumbents are up roughly 11% over three months on an equal-weighted basis. Over the same period, the shares of 19 electric-vehicle specialists have fallen 15%.
  • Russia is to ditch the dollar from its sovereign-wealth fund, but the central bank said on Thursday that it doesn’t expect the decision to seriously affect the market. The Russian ruble was little changed against the dollar, trading at 73.20 against the greenback.
  • On this day in 1953, Woodcock, Hess & Co. of Philadelphia incorporated, becoming the first firm that was a member of the New York Stock Exchange to do so. Until then, all NYSE member firms had been structured as partnerships.
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