5 things to know before the stock market opens Monday

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

U.S. stock futures were mixed Monday, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq looking modestly higher. Twitter shares soared roughly 22% in the premarket after Elon Musk revealed a big stake in the social media company. The second quarter on Wall Street got off to a positive start on Friday, which was also the first day April. Historically, April has been the best month of the year for stocks, with the S&P 500 gaining an average 1.7%. The first quarter, which ended Thursday, was the worst first three months in two years, which included the Covid pandemic lows in late March 2020.

Key bond yield spreads on Monday — the 2-year/10-year and the 5-year/30-year — remained inverted, a market distortion that’s happened before past economic recessions. Bond yields rose Friday. But the real strength was among shorter-term Treasurys as traders worried that the weaker than expected but still robust March jobs growth might give the Federal Reserve the green light to get more aggressive with its interest rate-hiking cycle.

U.S. oil prices jumped 3% on Monday, still right around $100 per barrel as supply concerns due to disruptions from Russia’s Ukraine war persisted. Crude did fall about 13% last week after the U.S. announced it will release 1 million barrels per day of oil from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve for six months starting in May to help combat elevated energy costs.

Musk, the outspoken Tesla and SpaceX CEO and the richest person in the world, has become Twitter’s largest outside shareholder, not long after criticizing the social network for what he said was its falling down on free speech. According to a regulatory filing, Musk owns nearly 73.49 million shares of Twitter.

That’s a 9.2% stake, worth $3.6 billion based on Twitter’s premarket surge to as much as more than $49 per share. While classified in the filing as a passive stake, investors were bidding the company’s shares higher on the chance that this could lead to something more.

• Over the weekend, Tesla reported first-quarter electric vehicle deliveries of 310,048, slightly below estimates but 67% more than a year ago. Model 3 and Model Y vehicles comprised 95% of Q1 numbers. Deliveries are the closest approximation to sales numbers reported by Tesla.

Starbucks shares dropped roughly 4% after the coffee chain suspended its stock buyback program. Howard Schultz who’s returning as interim CEO of Starbucks, wrote in a message to employees: “Starting immediately, we are suspending our share repurchasing program. This decision will allow us to invest more profit into our people and our stores — the only way to create long-term value for all…