5 things to know before the stock market opens Thursday

• OpenAI closed its funding round at a $157 billion valuation.
• Tesla shares dropped after the EV maker missed estimates on deliveries.
• Americans might be able to bet on the outcome of the 2024 congressional elections soon.

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

1. Feeling flat

The three major averages closed just above the flatline on Wednesday, as growing tensions in the Middle East weighed on stocks. The S&P 500 rose just 0.01%, while the Nasdaq Composite added 0.08% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.09%. West Texas Intermediate crude oil prices continued to rise following Iran's firing of ballistic missiles on Israel. Energy stocks outperformed, meanwhile and represented the only S&P 500 sector that was up more than 1% in the session. Meanwhile, ahead of Friday's highly anticipated jobs report, ADP data released Wednesday showed better-than-expected private payroll growth in September. Follow live market updates.

2. Open and closed

How much is one of the hottest tech companies worth? OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, closed a long-awaited funding round with a valuation of $157 billion, CNBC's Hayden Field reported Wednesday. That includes the $6.6 billion the company raised from a lengthy list of investment firms and big tech companies. The round was led by Thrive Capital and included participation from existing backer Microsoft, chipmaker Nvidia, SoftBank and others, according to a person familiar with the matter. "The new funding will allow us to double down on our leadership in frontier AI research, increase compute capacity, and continue building tools that help people solve hard problems," OpenAI wrote in a blog post Wednesday.

3. U.S. auto stalls

Industry forecasters' call that U.S. automakers would see sales slip during the third quarter seem to be panning out. Stellantis continued its yearslong sink in sales during the third quarter, reporting a 19.8% drop from a year ago and an 11.5% decrease since the end of the second quarter. Meanwhile, Tesla shares dropped more than 3% Wednesday after the company reported lower-than-expected deliveries. While the EV automaker's stock saw a strong third quarter, the announcement worried shareholders as Tesla has faced increased market pressure from automakers domestically and in China.

4. Lilly research buds

Eli Lilly will invest $4.5 billion to build a medicine research and manufacturing center following the success of two obesity and weight loss drugs. The facility will be called the Lilly Medicine Foundry and will be the site of new and more efficient drug manufacturing methods, the company said. The investment is meant to build off of the success of Mounjaro and Zepbound, which are expected to bring in $50 billion by 2028. The company said the foundry will be the first of its kind to bring together research and production, and will help develop more drugs for Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative conditions like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS.

5. Wanna bet?

Americans might soon be able to bet on the outcome of the 2024 congressional elections — and potentially other federal elections. A federal appeals court rejected an effort by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to bar the commodities exchange KalshiEx from offering "Congressional Control Contracts." A district court ruled last month that the commission — which argued the contracts might cast doubt on the integrity of elections — failed to prove the congressional contracts involved betting or gambling. After the commission appealed the decision, the federal appeals court unanimously voted in favor of KalshiEx, which said contracts on U.S. presidential elections could come about in the future.

— CNBC's Alex Harring, Hayden Field, Lora Kolodny, Michael Wayland, Angelica Peebles and Dan Mangan contributed to this report.