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Skip NavigationMarketsBusinessInvestingTechPolitics & PolicyVideoWatchlistInvesting ClubPROLivestreamMenuEvery weekday, the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer releases the Homestretch — an actionable afternoon update, just in time for the last hour of trading on Wall Street. Stocks fell on Wednesday, putting the S & P 500 on track for its third straight down session. The market is running into the same issue that has capped gains for weeks — rising oil prices and bond yields. Due to the latest escalation of fighting between the U.S. and Iran, international benchmark Brent crude futures crossed above $101 a barrel for the first time since July, and U.S. standard WTI crude briefly crossed $96 and traded at its highest level since the beginning of June. Rising energy prices create a difficult environment for consumer and retail stocks. As prices rise at the pump, consumers have less money left to spend on discretionary purchases. The State Street SPDR S & P Retail ETF , commonly referred to by its ticker XRT, has dropped 8.5% in a near-straight line from the high it made on Aug. 4. What happened right before that peak? Oil plummeted after President Donald Trump called off a planned strike on Iran in hopes of reaching a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The connection is notable: the drop in consumer stocks has coincided with the ratcheting up of tensions in the Middle East. This suggests another break in the war may be needed for consumer stocks to begin recovering. Until that happens, we recognize there could be more pain ahead, but we are hesitant to sell a high-quality retailer, such as TJX Companies , simply because of what could prove to be a temporary spike in oil. We’ll give our updates on all the stocks in the Club portfolio during our September Monthly Meeting livestream, starting at noon ET on Thursday. Apple officially entered the foldable smartphone market on Wednesday, unveiling the iPhone Duo at its annual fall product launch event. Starting at $1,999, the Duo is priced in line with competitors but lower than Wall Street expected. When folded, the Duo is passport-shaped with a 5.4-inch outer display. When unfolded, the big seamless inner display is 7.6 inches, but it can also act as two separate screens. Pre-orders for the Duo, which comes in Star White and Night Sky, start on Oct. 16, with availability on Oct. 23. The tech giant also unveiled the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, which seemed more evolutionary than revolutionary, with all the expected upgrades from a better camera to more editing functionality to a new A20 chipset, and so on. Notably, the starting price for each is going up by $100 to $1,199 and $1,299, respectively. That was expected due to the memory crunch, which already boosted prices on Macs and iPads. Pre-orders of the 18 models start Saturday, with availability on Sept. 18. Kicking off the presentation, John Ternus, Apple’s new CEO, opened up his keynote touching on all the reasons the iPhone is the perfect device for personal AI, describing it as an “intelligent personal hub,” rather than simply a phone. He certainly has a point; what better way to host an AI-powered personal assistant than something always with you, deeply personal, and capable of local data processing. Perhaps, Ternus felt the need to defend the iPhone form factor because it’s not the device on you. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said smartglasses are the best way to use AI on the go. With more than 300,000 apps already accessible by the new AI-powered Siri, Apple is now in a prime position to compete for the top spot in consumer AI. With SpaceX’s Grok Bot and Meta’s Muse agent now in the market, the timing couldn’t be better. Apple shares were basically flat in late afternoon trading. Kimberly-Clark shares moved lower after the Huggies, Scott and Kleenex maker provided a disappointing third-quarter update at the Barclays Global Consumer Staples Conference. Management said it now expects third-quarter sales to fall by a low-single-digit percentage year over year, versus consensus expectations for 0.6% growth. Earnings per share are expected to decline by a low-teens percentage, compared with consensus expectations for an 8% decline. Kimberly-Clark cited three new developments since last quarter that have caused results to track below expectations. One was a postponed innovation launch due to production issues. The second was inventory de-loading by distributors in the “professional” channel — think selling directly to offices, manufacturing plants, and other businesses in bulk. That segment previously grew volumes seven quarters in a row. The combined impact from these two headwinds is expected to be a 2% hit to growth in North America. The third negative impact was an incremental $30 million to $40 million in freight and logistics costs during the third quarter, which could total $35 million to $40 million over the balance of the year; this suggests a smaller impact in the fourth quarter. Retaliatory tariffs with Canada could add another $10 million in headwinds over the balance of the year. The update means analysts will need to lower their earnings estimate for the third quarter and 2026, explaining the pressure on Kimberly-Clark’s stock. In a note Wednesday after the event, TD Cowen lowered its EPS estimate by 7 cents to $7.32. It’s not a major cut and always good to get the bad news out of the way before the next earnings report. With shares falling below $100 in Wednesday’s session, this isn’t the start we anticipated when we added KMB to the portfolio last Wednesday. But that’s why we generally start positions on the smaller side and leave plenty of room to buy more if the stock falls. Part of the idea behind the trade was to beef up the portfolio’s defensive exposure with a low price-to-earnings multiple, high-dividend-yielding stock. The main reason and largest catalyst event behind the idea was the upcoming Kenvue acquisition, which is on track to close in the fourth quarter. The deal adds scale and consumer health products, including products like Band-Aid and Motrin, to a tissue paper business. The good news from management’s Barclays presentation is that synergy planning is running ahead of expectations, and executives expressed confidence in the integration. Given this balance of short-term headwinds and our more positive longer-term view of the Kenvue acquisition, our plan is to make our second purchase and average down our cost basis at this 5.2% dividend yield. But we’re going to wait a day to let investors digest the profit warning and give the bad news more time to be fully priced into the stock before making our next buy. After the closing bell Wednesday, drone maker AeroVironment and retailer American Eagle Outfitters report. Macy’s reports before the opening bell on Thursday. On the economic data side, we’ll see the wholesale producer price index for August, kicking off back-to-back days of key inflation reports ahead of next week’s Federal Reserve policy meeting. The August consumer price index is out Friday. (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.Read More