5 things to know before the stock market opens January 13, 2020

U.S. stock futures were pointing to a higher open Monday on Wall Street. The Dow Jones Industrial Average briefly traded above 29,000 for the first time ever on Friday but ended up closing nearly a half-percent lower. The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq broke two-day winning streaks as investors considered the government’s weaker-than-expected December jobs report at the end of a volatile week of geopolitical concerns. However, on the week, the Nasdaq was the big winner with an increase of 1.75%. The S&P 500 saw weekly gains of nearly 1%., with the Dow advancing 0.66% for the week. Ahead of Monday’s regular session, the Dow was about 177 points away from 29,000.

Boeing‘s new CEO, David Calhoun, a 10-year veteran of the company’s board, starts Monday. Last month, the company announced Calhoun as successor to Dennis Muilenburg, who had been chief executive officer since 2015 but was fired in December. Muilenburg was widely seen as botching the handling of the 737 Max crisis after two of those jets went down within five months of each other. The second crash in March 2019 led to the worldwide grounding of the entire fleet. Dow stock Boeing is down about 20% since then. The other crash happened in October 2018. The tragedies claimed 346 lives.

President Donald Trump authorized the killing of leading Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani seven months ago if Iran’s increased aggression were to result in the death of any Americans, NBC News reports. That explains why taking out Soleimani was among the options the military presented to Trump two weeks ago after an attack by Iranian proxies in Iraq killed a U.S. contractor and wounded four U.S. service members. On Sunday, Trump expressed solidarity with Iranian protesters as they took to the streets of Tehran over the weekend, after the Islamic Republic admitted to accidentally shooting down a Ukraine-bound airliner, killing all 176 people on board the Boeing aircraft.

China’s commitments in the phase-one trade deal with the U.S. were not changed during a lengthy translation process. Secretary Steven Mnuchin also said on Sunday that American and Chinese officials will sign the agreement Wednesday at the White House. About $370 billion worth of U.S. tariffs against Chinese imports per year remain in place as the thorny U.S. gripes, such as Beijing’s heavy subsidies to Chinese state-owned enterprises and cybersecurity issues, were booted to future negotiations. Trump wants to start phase-two trade talks with China this year.

The trade war between Washington and Beijing continued to be among the headwinds for Ford in China, with sales there dropping 26.1% in 2019, the third straight year of declines. Ford’s greater China CEO said, “The pressure from the external environment and downward trend of the industry volume will continue in 2020.” The automaker plans to launch more than 30 new models in China over the next three years. A third of those planned releases will be electric vehicles. U.S. rival General Motors last week said its sales in China fell 15% in 2019, its second yearly decline.

— Reuters contributed to this report.