Five things to know before the stock market opens on Friday, May 31

Here are five important things investors should know before starting the trading day.

Stocks fell on Thursday as Salesforce tumbled 20%. The cloud software vendor reported weaker-than-expected first-quarter results, its worst day since 2004. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was dragged down by Salesforce, falling 330.06 points, or 0.86%. The S&P 500 fell 0.6% and the Nasdaq Composite Index had its worst day, dropping 1.08% on weakness in technology stocks. AI darling Nvidia also fell more than 3%, its first drop since reporting huge earnings last week. Microsoft also fell more than 3%. Follow our live market updates.

Former President Donald Trump was found guilty on Thursday in a New York court of all 34 felony charges of falsifying business records. The charges were related to hush money paid by his then-personal lawyer Michael Cohen to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. Trump is the first former U.S. president to be convicted of any crime. Sentencing is scheduled for July 11, four days before the start of the Republican National Convention, where Trump is scheduled to be formally endorsed as the Republican presidential candidate. Trump will be free without bail and can continue to campaign, but he faces up to four years in prison for each charge. However, the judge is not required to impose a prison sentence. An appeal is almost inevitable, and the process could take months or even years.

Friday’s personal consumption expenditures report showed inflation rose as expected in April. The PCE price index, which excludes food and energy costs, rose just 0.2% over the period, in line with Dow Jones’s expectations, while core PCE rose 2.8% year-over-year, or 0.1 percentage point higher than expected. PCE inflation, which includes volatile food and energy, was 2.7% year-over-year and 0.3% month-over-month, both in line with expectations. PCE is the Fed’s favorite inflation measure because it takes into account changes in consumer behavior, such as consumers choosing cheaper options over more expensive ones.

Thursday was a big day for retailers, with disappointing earnings reports and big swings in stock prices. Kohl’s shares fell more than 20% in one day after the company reported a surprise loss per share, well below Wall Street’s slim profit expectations. Other retailers, however, fared better. Foot Locker shares rose 15%, signaling that the company’s turnaround is starting to bear fruit. And Best Buy shares rose 13% after the company reported weaker-than-expected quarterly sales but better-than-expected earnings per share and reaffirmed its full-year outlook. Gap also saw big moves after its afternoon earnings report, with shares up more than 20% in premarket trading after the company reported well above earnings expectations and better-than-expected sales.

Consumers and businesses are becoming more cautious about spending on everything from hard goods to software, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said Thursday at a financial conference in New York. Moynihan said there’s still some growth to come, with consumer spending on card transactions, checks and ATM withdrawals up about 3.5% this year to about $4 trillion. But he noted that’s down significantly from the nearly 10% growth rate seen in May 2023. “We need to keep consumers in the game in the U.S. economy,” he said. [they’re] “A big part of it is running the bank as the head of the second-largest bank in the U.S. by assets,” Moynihan said. “The bank is becoming a little bit more unstable, and that’s because of everything that’s going on around it.”

—CNBC’s Alex Harring, Dan Mangan, Kevin Breuninger, Brian Schwartz, Jeff Cox, Gabriel Fonrouge, Melissa Repko, Sean Conlon and Hugh Song contributed to this report.

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