• Stock futures are higher Thursday morning as the market appears poised to regain ground.
• Cisco announced over 4,000 job cuts, a 5% dent to its global workforce.
• Black Americans continue to own a disproportionately small share of homes in relation to population size.

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

1. Regaining the rally?

Stock futures are higher Thursday morning as the market appears poised to regain the ground it lost earlier this week. On Wednesday, the S&P 500 rose 0.96% and recaptured the 5,000 benchmark, the Nasdaq Composite advanced 1.3%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average ticked 0.4% higher. "Looking forward, the market is trading more on economic growth and earnings projections than interest rates and inflation," said Dylan Kremer, chief investment officer at Certuity. In global markets, the U.K. and Japan both slipped into technical recession during the fourth quarter. Japan gave up its spot as the No. 3 economy. Follow for live market updates.

2. Cuts continue

Cisco announced over 4,000 job cuts, a 5% dent to its global workforce. The tech company is the latest in a string to announce of layoffs aimed at restructuring and saving costs. Since the new year, 144 tech companies have laid off almost 35,000 workers, according to the website Layoffs.fyi. Cisco also reported strong fiscal second-quarter results Wednesday afternoon, coupled with a light forecast.

3. Pulse check

The Federal Trade Commission is examining the impact that drug wholesalers and companies that purchase medicines for healthcare providers are having on the drug shortage. The announcement follows an unprecedented strain on the availability of medicine, ranging from generic drugs to cancer therapies. The FTC and the Department of Health and Human Services are seeking public comment on the middlemen in the medicine sphere and their practices to determine if they are cutting prices of drugs to discourage suppliers from competing in the market.

4. Out of reach

Black Americans continue to own a disproportionately small share of homes in relation to population size, according to a new study by LendingTree. Between 2021 and 2022, the number of homes owned by Black people stayed roughly flat, at an average of 10.15% of homes in the largest metropolitan areas of the country. Some of the biggest factors presenting hurdles to homeownership are income disparity and the tax system.

5. Personal and professional

Artificial intelligence has increasingly seeped into practically every industry – including the office and the dating world. Nearly 1 in 3 men ages 18 to 34 in the U.S. use ChatGPT for dating advice, according to a survey last month on AI platform Pollfish. And now, the chatbots are taking a more active role in romance, with tools like YourMove.AI, which offers everything from drafting messages to evaluating dating profiles. At the same time, generative AI is becoming smarter in darker ways. Research shows that AI financial scammers are getting better at phishing emails and other dupes, including fake phone calls. Cybersecurity experts say it'll take time for companies to adjust, but that time means financial scammers are just getting better.

– CNBC's Jesse Pound, Lisa Kailai Han, Hakyung Kim, Lim Hui Jie, Clement Tan, Elliott Smith, Jordan Novet, Ari Levy, Ana Teresa Solá, Annika Kim Constantino, Hayden Field and Ellen Sheng contributed to this report.

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