5 things to know before the stock market opens Wednesday

Happy Wednesday. Or maybe not, if you held U.S. assets amid yesterday’s sell-off.

S&P 500 futures are little changed this morning. The three major indexes are coming off their worst day in months.

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

President Donald Trump’s threat of new tariffs on European nations who oppose American ownership of Greenland sent U.S. stocks plunging yesterday. The three major averages notched their worst days since October, with yesterday’s slides pulling the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite into negative territory for the year.

Here’s what to know:

There were several signs of traders taking risk off the table yesterday: Tech stocks led the decline and Wall Street’s “fear gauge” hit its highest level in nearly two months.Tuesday’s session shaped up to be a poster-child for the “sell America” trade. The U.S. dollar fell in tandem with stocks, while Treasury yields and gold surged.Traders worried that Trump’s tariff announcement would lead global investors to dump their U.S. investments. Indeed, Danish pension operator AkademikerPension told CNBC yesterday that it is exiting a position of around $100 million in U.S. Treasurys, citing concerns over America’s budget deficit.Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he is not worried about the fund’s decision, telling reporters this morning that “Denmark’s investment in U.S. Treasury bonds, like Denmark itself, is irrelevant.”Trump hasn’t signaled any willingness to back off his aggressive push to acquire Greenland. Asked yesterday the lengths he’d go to to make the self-governing Danish territory part of the U.S., the president said, “You’ll find out.”Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said that the island should be prepared for “everything” and didn’t rule out a U.S. military action.Follow live markets updates here.

All eyes are on Trump today, as he arrives in Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum. The president, who is making his first in-person visit to Davos since 2020, is scheduled to address the summit at 8:30 a.m. ET.

Later, Trump will sit down with CNBC’s Joe Kernen for an interview. Watch on CNBC TV or CNBC+.

In the run-up to Trump’s arrival in Switzerland, other attendees have been making their fair share of headlines. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff told CNBC that he and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin tomorrow. U.K. Chancellor Rachel Reeves meanwhile said the U.S. is still the “closest of allies,” despite brewing trade disputes.

Netflix narrowly beat expectations on both lines for the fourth quarter, but shares of the company fell 7% overnight as Wall Street compared the results to the streaming giant’s reportedly loftier internal targets.

Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters said yesterday that investors should think of those goals as “long-term aspirations” rather than a forecast. Peters also said they did not include merger or acquisition impacts — an important caveat given the streamer’s accepted bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery‘s streaming and film studio assets.

In other earnings news, United Airlines shares jumped 3% after the air carrier said earnings could hit a record this year. United surpassed earnings per share expectations for the fourth quarter, while revenue came in line with Wall Street’s consensus estimate.

ServiceNow struck its latest artificial intelligence deal yesterday, signing a three-year contract with OpenAI to use its models to offer AI agents to customers and GPT-5.2 on its enterprise platform.

Amit Zavery, ServiceNow’s operations and product chief, said combining the technologies will “drive faster value for customers” and create “more intuitive ways of working with AI.” Neither ServiceNow or OpenAI shared the financial terms of the deal.

Speaking of OpenAI, the startup said yesterday that it’s launching a prediction model for ChatGPT consumer plans to help identify accounts operated by users under the age of 18. It’s the latest sign of OpenAI’s efforts to improve safety amid increasing scrutiny of what minors can access via its platform.

At the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco last week, investors and executives of drugmakers game planned for 2026. They discussed whether this year could mark a turning point for initial public offerings, though there weren’t any splashy deal announcements during the event.

As CNBC’s Annika Kim Constantino reports, Trump was also a hot topic. The pharmaceutical industry is evaluating how to handle the new pricing deals companies inked with the White House as they aimed to avoid tariffs. The pharma industry is also staring down around $300 billion in lost revenue from drug patent expirations.

CNBC’s Sean Conlon, Lisa Han, Lim Hui Jie, Tasmin Lockwood, Garrett Downs, Lillian Rizzo, Leslie Josephs, Holly Ellyatt, Samantha Subin, Ashley Capoot, Annika Kim Constantino, Spencer Kimball and Gabriel Cortes contributed to this report. Josephine Rozzelle edited this edition.