5 things to know before the stock market opens Friday

• The S&P 500 hit a record ahead of Friday's jobs report.
• The numbers are expected to show steady but not torrid job growth.
• Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank is "not far" from being able to cut interest rates.

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

Stocks notched a strong day ahead of Friday's jobs report. The S&P 500 notched a record close on Thursday, while the Nasdaq Composite hit a fresh high during the session. February jobs numbers, and what they mean for monetary policy, will be the market catalyst on Friday. A strong earnings season has helped to buoy stocks. Entering the week, the vast majority of the S&P 500 had reported fourth-quarter results, and earnings had jumped 9.8% from last year and come in 6.2% above expectations. Follow live market updates here.

Investors are watching whether the U.S. kept up a solid stretch of job growth in February. The number has major implications not only for the health of economy, but also when the Federal Reserve will start to cut interest rates. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones expect the U.S. added 198,000 jobs in February. That would be a drop from growth of 353,000 in January — a strong number that helped to lower expectations the Fed would ease monetary policy this year. While layoffs in February rose to their highest level since the financial crisis, other data suggest people are not staying out of work long. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden called the U.S. economy the "envy of the world" during his State of the Union address Thursday night, as he made the case that his policies are working.

The Fed has not moved to cut interest rates as quickly as investors wanted. Even so, the day may be coming