• The major indexes declined on Friday.
• More key names like Disney and Eli Lilly are set to report earnings this week.
• CrowdStrike is denying blame for Delta's mass flight cancellations.

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

1. Fearful

Stocks continued to sell off on Friday, with July's weaker-than-expected jobs report fueling fears of a potential recession. The S&P 500 declined 1.84% to close the trading session at 5,346.56. The Nasdaq Composite fell 2.43% to finish at 16,776.16, leading to a more than 10% drop from the tech-heavy index's all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1.51% to close at 39,737.26. The index's session low was a drop of 989 points. On the jobs front, nonfarm payrolls increased by only 114,000 in July, according to the Labor Department. That's down from the 179,000 jobs that were added in June and well below the expected 185,000 from economists polled by Dow Jones. With that, the unemployment rate rose to 4.3%, which is the highest since October 2021. Follow live market updates.

2. Halfway through

The second half of earnings season is afoot, and there are many more names to watch. This week alone, more than 70 companies in the S&P 500 are scheduled to post their quarterly results, such as Disney and Eli Lilly. This comes amid a solid season overall so far, with almost 78% of companies beating estimates, per FactSet. On a year-over-year basis, the S&P 500's profit growth in the second quarter is on pace to surpass 11%. Here are the major earnings to look out for this week:

• Tuesday: Uber Technologies, Caterpillar (before the bell)
• Wednesday: Walt Disney (before the bell)
• Thursday: Eli Lilly (before the bell)

3. Don't blame me

CrowdStrike is denying responsibility for Delta's thousands of flight cancellations last month. On Sunday, the cybersecurity software company said that Delta Air Lines had rejected onsite help during the global IT outage on July 19 that led the airline to cancel more than 5,000 flights between then and July 25 – which was more than any of its rivals. CrowdStrike lawyer Michael Carlinsky, who is co-managing partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, wrote to Delta's lawyer David Boies over the weekend, saying that Delta's litigation threats "contributed to a misleading narrative that CrowdStrike is responsible for Delta's IT decisions and response to the outage." This comes in response to Delta's CEO, Ed Bastian, telling CNBC's "Squawk Box" last week that the cancellations in the wake of the outage cost the company about $500 million.

4. Slicing Apple

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has cut nearly half of its Apple stake. In an earnings filing, the conglomerate disclosed that its holding in Apple was valued at $84.2 billion at the end of the second quarter. That suggests Berkshire trimmed more than 49% of its stake in the iPhone maker. This comes after the Oracle of Omaha had also trimmed his stake in Apple by 13% in the first quarter. That said, Apple still remains far and away the largest stock stake for Berkshire. That's not all that was offloaded in the second quarter. In all, Berkshire saw more than $75 billion in stocks sold in the period, bringing its cash fortress to a record $277 billion.

5. Under scrutiny

The office of Michigan's secretary of state is investigating an Elon Musk-backed political action committee. The America PAC, which Musk said he created and helped fund, has been acquiring detailed voter information from people who live in Michigan and other battleground states after they submit their personal data through a section on its website that says "register to vote." After clicking on that section, those in states like Michigan can submit a ZIP code, address and phone number. Those with a Michigan address specifically are then brought to a page that says "thank you" and asks users to "complete the form below." But as of Sunday afternoon, there was no other form to complete underneath "thank you." To be sure, legal experts are uncertain if any Michigan laws have been broken by the PAC.

— CNBC's Pia Singh, Hakyung Kim, Fred Imbert, Leslie Josephs, Jordan Novet, Yun Li and Brian Schwartz contributed to this report.

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