• Levi's narrowly missed Wall Street’s sales expectations as denim surges in popularity.
• Amazon is planning a budget storefront that would let Chinese sellers ship directly to U.S. consumers.
• Southwest Airlines cut its second-quarter revenue forecast as booking patterns change.

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

1. Sluggish

The S&P 500 eked out a small gain for the second day in a row Wednesday, rising 0.16%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was nearly flat, ending the day 0.04% higher. Meanwhile, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite saw a bigger move, rising 0.49% for the day as tech shares gained. Amazon shares jumped 3.9%, hitting an all-time high and topping a $2 trillion market cap for the first time. Outside of Big Tech stocks, the market was mostly sluggish, leading to speculation about whether the 2024 rally, largely powered by Nvidia, has run its course. Follow live market updates.

2. Friction

Levi Strauss posted better-than-expected earnings on Wednesday after the bell, but its revenue fell just short of Wall Street's expectations. The sales miss comes despite denim surging in popularity recently. Levi's chief financial officer warned that consumers have been "generally cautious" and aren't spending a lot on discretionary items. The company also raised its dividend by 8% to 13 cents per share, its first increase in six quarters, but shares still fell about 15% in premarket trading Thursday.

3. Uncharted Amazon territory

Amazon is planning to launch a budget storefront that features low-cost apparel, home goods and other items in a bid to fend off Temu and Shein, two emerging e-commerce sites with ties to China. The new section on its website will allow Chinese sellers to ship directly to U.S. consumers, CNBC's Annie Palmer reported. The goal would be for products to arrive to consumers in nine to 11 days. It's unclear when the storefront would launch, but it was announced at an invite-only conference for Chinese sellers on Wednesday. The company pitched the idea as a cost-saver for Amazon sellers in China.

4. Turbulence ahead?

Southwest Airlines cut its second-quarter revenue forecast on Wednesday, blaming changing booking patterns. The company expects revenue per available seat mile — or the amount the airline brings in for every seat it flies one mile — will fall between 4% and 4.5% from the year-ago second quarter. It previously expected a more modest decline of 1.5% to 3.5%. Southwest also said its unit expenses, excluding fuel, would be up as much as 7.5% over the year-ago period instead of staying flat, as it previously anticipated. Southwest is facing activist investor pressure from hedge fund Elliott Management, which said in a statement that the lowered outlook was "yet another example that fundamental leadership change is urgently needed at Southwest."

5. Plans for dominance

Nvidia is on top and planning to stay there. CEO Jensen Huang, speaking at an annual shareholder meeting, laid out the company's overall strategy to maintain its dominant position in the artificial intelligence chip market. Wall Street has rewarded the company's more than 80% market share in AI chips by sending its stock up roughly 210% over the past year. Huang said Nvidia has "transformed" into a data-center-focused company and it is looking to create new markets for its AI. He also said the company has achieved a "virtuous circle," a term in the technology industry that refers to when a platform has the most users, which allows it to make the improvements it needs to attract even more users. Nvidia shareholders, meanwhile, approved a nonbinding vote on executive compensation at the meeting.

— CNBC's Hakyung Kim, Gabrielle Fonrouge, Annie Palmer, Leslie Josephs and Kif Leswing contributed to this report.

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