5 things to know before the stock market opens Friday, May 18

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

Stocks are looking to round out a hot week, after the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite notched their highest closing levels since August of last year. The S&P closed Thursday up 0.94%, the Nasdaq closed up 1.51% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 0.34%. A strong quarterly report from Walmart Thursday helped boost the market, offering hope of a resilient consumer. But the big watcher on Wall Street remains debt ceiling negotiations. “I think the debt ceiling is personally a lot of noise, but I think investors and even traders are having a hard time ignoring,” said Jeff Kilburg, CEO of KKM Financial. Follow live market updates.

Debt ceiling negotiations between the country’s top political leaders are expected to continue into the weekend, as they face a June 1 deadline at which point the U.S. could default on its bills. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Thursday he was optimistic the two sides could reach an agreement in time to hold a House vote next week. “I see the path that we can come to an agreement,” he said. “And I think we have a structure now and everybody’s working hard, and I mean, we’re working two or three times a day, then going back, getting more numbers.” Both sides have been tight-lipped about what specific changes or concessions have been made, but all leaders agree they’re making progress.

The Group of 7 summit begins Friday in Hiroshima, Japan. It’s an annual meeting of the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States and this year much of the focus is on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The leaders agreed to ramp up pressure on Russia, committing to support Ukraine’s recovery budget and squeeze Russia’s economy. “We will starve Russia of G-7 technology, industrial equipment and services that support its war machine,” the group said in a statement. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to join the leaders in Japan during the summit. Follow CNBC’s live blog for Russia-Ukraine war updates.

Disney is ducking out — in part. The entertainment giant said Thursday it will scrap plans to build a new campus in Lake Nona, Florida, in light of “changing business conditions.” The company has been locked in a battle with the state’s governor (and hopeful 2024 presidential candidate) Ron DeSantis that’s spilled over into the courts. The campus construction was set to be completed in 2026 and would have seen more than 2,000 California-based employees relocate to Florida. The company says it will still invest $17 billion in the state and contribute an estimated 13,000 jobs, but for now, it’s no-no to Lake Nona.

Twitter is accusing tech giant Microsoft of misusing its data in ways that “may have been in violation of multiple provisions” of its agreement with Twitter. The dispute revolves around Twitter’s application programming interface (API), which allows developers to embed tweets into software and programs and to access Twitter data. Twitter recently started charging for access to its API, which had previously been free for some partners. And though Microsoft cloud and search products have recently utilized the API, Twitter claims Microsoft last month “declined to pay even a discounted rate for continued access to Twitter’s APIs and content,” according to a letter sent from an attorney for Twitter-owner Elon Musk to Microsoft’s CEO and board.

– CNBC’s Alex Harring, Hakyung Kim, Christina Wilkie, Jihye Lee, Sarah Whitten, Lora Kolodny and Jordan Novet contributed to this report.

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