5 things to know before the stock market opens Friday

Here are the most important news, trends and analysis that investors need to start their trading day:

U.S. stock futures fell Friday as the Dow looks to avoid its first five-session losing streak since January. As of Thursday’s close, the second 200-point-plus down day in a row following the Federal Reserve meeting, the 30-stock average was off nearly 2% for the week. The S&P 500, tracking for a more modest weekly decline, fell Thursday for the third straight session. The Nasdaq bucked Thursday’s down trend, adding nearly 0.9% and breaking a two-session losing streak. The Nasdaq was within just 13 points of Monday’s record close. The S&P 500 was less than 1% away from its record close Monday. The Dow was more than 2.7% away from its latest record close in early May.

The 10-year Treasury yield continued to give up Wednesday’s Fed-driven spike to nearly 1.6%, trading Friday around 1.49%. Yields drifted lower despite the Fed raising inflation expectations, following its two-day June meeting, which ended Wednesday afternoon. The Fed also indicated two interest rate hikes in 2023, after saying in March it saw no increases until at least 2024. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has said he’s willing to let inflation run above the Fed’s traditional 2% target rate before adjusting policy in order to allow the economy more room to recover from the depths of the Covid pandemic.

Many commodities bounced Friday, one day after falling sharply as China started to take steps to cool off rising prices. Those declines cut into months of gains and weighed on stocks. On Thursday, the drops in commodities were widespread, with platinum futures falling more than 11%, along with declines of nearly 6% in corn futures and 4.8% in copper futures.

A Chinese government agency announced a plan Wednesday to release some of its reserves of key metals. Commodities often move inversely to the dollar since they are mostly priced globally in the U.S. currency, which has been strengthening since this week’s Fed decisions.

A new U.K. study examined brain imaging before and after coronavirus infections and looked specifically at the potential effect on the nervous system. “In short, the study suggests that there could be some long-term loss of brain tissue from Covid, and that would have some long-term consequences,” Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith.” The destruction of brain tissue could explain why Covid patients lost their sense of smell, he said.

England’s top medical officer warned it would likely take five years before there are Covid vaccines that could “hold the line” to a very large degree against a range of coronavirus variants. Until then, Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty said new vaccination programs and booster shots would be needed. A further easing of lockdown restrictions in England was delayed this week due to a surge in cases of the delta variant first discovered in India.

Most federal workers will observe Juneteenth on Friday because the holiday marking the end of slavery in the U.S. falls on a Saturday this year. The New York Stock Exchange will not close for Juneteenth this year, but will evaluate closing for it in 2022. On Thursday, President Joe Biden signed a bill establishing Juneteenth, celebrated on June 19, as the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983. Juneteenth marks the day in 1865 when Union soldiers arrived Galveston, Texas and officially ended slavery in the state. It happened more than two years after then-President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

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Disclosure: Dr. Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and is a member of the boards of Covid vaccine maker Pfizer, genetic testing start-up Tempus, health-care tech company Aetion and biotech company Illumina. He also serves as co-chair of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings′ and Royal Caribbean‘s “Healthy Sail Panel.”