• Markets ended a choppy October lower.
• Apple and Amazon reported earnings.
• Friday's jobs report came in much lower than expected.

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

1. Uneven October

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite marked their worst day in over a month on Thursday as investors took in discouraging earnings reports from megatech companies. The S&P 500 fell 1.86% while the Nasdaq Composite sank 2.76%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 378.08 points, or 0.9%. Microsoft shares shed 6% for the day while Facebook parent Meta Platforms dropped more than 4% after earnings. Meanwhile, all three indexes ended a choppy October lower. Follow live market updates.

2. Tech divide

Amazon and Apple both reported better-than-expected earnings and revenue on Thursday, but Amazon stock rose more than 6% in premarket trading Friday while Apple shares fell 1%. Amazon saw growth in its cloud computing and advertising businesses. Apple, meanwhile, said its net income slumped after the company reported a one-time charge of $10.2 billion as part of a tax decision in Europe.

3. Jobs report

The U.S. economy added only 12,000 jobs in October, as job creation was hit by the ongoing Boeing factory strike, as well as Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Economists had been expecting payrolls to rise by 100,000 for the month, according to a survey from Dow Jones. The nonfarm payrolls report was the smallest gain since December 2020. Meanwhile, Boeing and the union representing roughly 33,000 machinists who walked off the job in mid-September agreed on a sweetened deal Thursday that will go before workers early next week.

4. Comcast cable changes?

Comcast (CNBC's parent company) is considering separating out its cable networks (of which CNBC is one). Comcast President Mike Cavanagh, alongside the company's third-quarter earnings report on Thursday, said the company was "exploring whether creating a new well-capitalized company, owned by our shareholders and comprised of our strong portfolio of cable networks, would position them to take advantage of opportunities in the changing media landscape and create value for our shareholders." That review would not include broadcast channel NBC or streaming platform Peacock. Along with CNBC and MSNBC, it could include Bravo, E!, Syfy, Oxygen, True Crime and USA Network. Executives stressed the process was in the early stages and that nothing had been decided, but it could be a test balloon for broader media consolidation as Americans continue to cut the cord on cable.

5. Open search

OpenAI is taking on search. The artificial intelligence startup launched a search feature in its popular ChatGPT chatbot to better compete with search engines like Google and Microsoft's Bing. The feature offers up-to-date information on sports, news, weather, stock quotes and more, according to the company. Shares of Google parent Alphabet fell roughly 1% after the news. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also said Thursday that his company's next big AI model release is taking a while and likely won't come this year.

— CNBC's Hakyung Kim, Annie Palmer, Kif Leswing, Jeff Cox, Leslie Josephs, Sara Salinas, Lillian Rizzo, Alex Sherman and Hayden Field contributed to this report.

— Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.