5 things to know before the stock market opens Wednesday

Happy Wednesday. I’ve been craving birria since reading about the Mike’s Red Tacos new franchising plan.

Stock futures are higher this morning. The three major indexes all ended yesterday’s session little changed.

Here are five key things investors need to know to start the trading day:

Amazon broke a major losing streak yesterday, but the damage was done. The e-commerce giant lost hundreds of billions of dollars in market cap over the last two weeks.

Here’s what happened:

• Shares of Amazon rose more than 1% yesterday, ending their nine-day losing streak that saw the stock drop around 18% between Feb. 2 and Feb. 13.
• That slide represents its worst negative stretch in roughly two decades and more than $450 billion dollars erased from Amazon’s market valuation.
• Amazon’s Feb. 5 announcement that it plans to spend $200 billion on capital expenditures this year drew skepticism from Wall Street and contributed to some of the selling frenzy.
• But the stock’s gain yesterday helped buoy the broader market, despite pressure on other tech names.
• Stock futures are rising this morning as traders look ahead to the release of the minutes from the Federal Reserve’s last meeting this afternoon.
• Follow live markets updates here.

Grab your popcorn: The latest update in the race to buy Warner Bros. Discovery dropped yesterday.

WBD said it would restart deal talks with Paramount Skydance thanks to a seven-day waiver from Netflix. The conversation would focus on “deficiencies” in Paramount’s offer and allow the media firm to make its best and last bid, WBD said.

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos told CNBC’s Julia Boorstin yesterday that the streamer approved the waiver to ensure WBD shareholders could be confident in its $27.75 per share, all-cash offer. “Paramount had been making a ton of noise, flooding the zone with confusion for shareholders,” Sarandos said. “We’ve given the opportunity to get those shareholders exactly what they deserve, which is complete clarity and certainty.”

Meta announced yesterday that it is expanding its deal with Nvidia to use millions of its artificial intelligence chips for a data center build-out. The social media company also said it will use Nvidia’s products to support networking technology and AI features on WhatsApp.

As CNBC’s Katie Tarasov reports, the new agreement is only the latest step in the Big Tech giants’ long-term partnership: Meta has used Nvidia’s graphics processing units, or GPUs, for at least a decade. Financial terms of Tuesday’s deal were not disclosed.

Meanwhile, in another sign of AI-built apps’ boom, cloud infrastructure startup Render said yesterday that it raised $100 million in funding at a $1.5 billion valuation. CEO Anurag Goel told CNBC that more than 4.5 million developers use Render’s tools, and that its revenue growth exceeds 100%.

Consumer spending is strong, yet debt is at all-time highs. Economic output is surging, but many people feel terrible financially. A post-pandemic recession never materialized, but most Americans believe the country is in one.

Welcome to the “boomcession,” a portmanteau of the words “boom” and “recession.”

The term encapsulates the feeling among many Americans that the economic engine they help feed is not pushing them forward. It can also help explain the continued disconnect between solid GDP data and sour consumer sentiment readings.

“Late Show” host Stephen Colbert ripped CBS and its parent company Paramount Skydance in his show last night, after the network denied blocking the comedian from airing his interview with U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico.

CNBC’s Annie Palmer, Sean Conlon, Sarah Min, Sara Salinas, Lillian Rizzo, Jordan Novet, Katie Tarasov, Dan Mangan and Sarah Whitten contributed to this report. Josephine Rozzelle edited this edition.