Tech gets crushed, defensive stocks shine. How we’re making sense of it all

Every weekday, the Investing Club releases the Homestretch; an actionable afternoon update just in time for the last hour of trading.

Skip NavigationJoin ICJoin ProLivestreamMenuEvery 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 are sharply lower on the last trading day of a rough month of October, with tech stocks under severe pressure as the market continues to push back on AI-related names. The S & P 500 is down more than 2% on Friday, while the Nasdaq is down over 3.5%. Gains on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday seem like a distant memory against back-to-back days of selling. Amazon , Alphabet , and Microsoft fell over the past few days, and each stock was lower in the sessions after their earnings. The declines in Amazon and Microsoft were less warranted as Amazon CEO Andy Jassy outlined a bullish multiyear outlook for Amazon Web Services, with operating margins at their highest in company history — and Microsoft showed that Azure cloud revenue growth continued to accelerate even as the company didn’t spend all its cash flow on AI infrastructure. But the market’s reaction suggests investors’ appetite is waning for the increasingly capital-intensive part of the AI buildout. Jim Cramer said Friday morning that the Amazon dip is buyable . Amazon already has our 1 rating. We’re also getting closer to upgrading Microsoft to a buy-equivalent 1 if its slide continues. We’re keeping our hold-equivalent 2 rating on Alphabet until its price-to-earnings multiple becomes too cheap to ignore and management acknowledges the weakness in Gemini and Search. Semiconductors are getting hammered after Intel gave a disappointing outlook that we covered Thursday night and on Friday’s Morning Meeting . Intel is down over 30% on Friday. The data center story at Intel is still mostly intact, but what we got wrong was the sharp drop in personal computer CPU demand due to the high cost of memory and some execution hiccups. To make matters worse, Sandisk failed to impress with earnings Thursday evening, sending that stock down 15% on Friday. The last few days have been a win for diversification — keeping powder dry and owning several non-AI stocks that may not have the same revenue and earnings upside as faster-growing tech names but are far more predictable with their results and cash flow. All three of our healthcare stocks outperformed this week, led by Eli Lilly after a strong beat and raise quarter. Lilly shares surged to another all-time high Friday. Gains in those names have provided some relief from sharp losses in Intel, Alphabet, Salesforce, and Boeing. We still want to add more shares to our Boeing position. It’s another big week of earnings ahead , with over 100 companies in the S & P 500 scheduled to report. Within the portfolio, It’s Apple on Monday evening, DuPont and Eaton on Tuesday morning, Qnity Electronics before Wednesday’s open, and Cardinal Health and Kimberly-Clark on Thursday morning. Other notable names scheduled are Advanced Micro Devices, Palantir, Amgen, McDonald’s, Qualcomm, Uber, Affirm, CVS Health, Wynn Resorts, and Pfizer. It’s also a busy week of economic data , with ISM manufacturing and services reports, durable goods and factor orders — and, of course, the October nonfarm payrolls report on the docket. Economists polled by FactSet expect a gain of 72,500 jobs in October, with a 0.3% month-over-month increase in average hourly earnings, and an unemployment rate unchanged from 4.2% in September. The midterms are Tuesday . They have been a key date on our radar. Our focus is less on the election results and more on what happens afterward. We want to see whether the elections lead to an easing of anti-data center rhetoric and greater clarity on how the Trump administration plans to approach the conflict in the Middle East. (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

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

About the Author

Easy WordPress Websites Builder: Versatile Demos for Blogs, News, eCommerce and More – One-Click Import, No Coding! 1000+ Ready-made Templates for Stunning Newspaper, Magazine, Blog, and Publishing Websites.

BlockSpare — News, Magazine and Blog Addons for (Gutenberg) Block Editor

Search the Archives

Access over the years of investigative journalism and breaking reports