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LivestreamMenuEvery 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. The market is a mixed bag Friday as Wall Street wraps up another volatile week. The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average added nearly 200 points, or 0.4%, while the S & P 500 was roughly flat. The tech-heavy Nasdaq is the laggard, falling about 0.5%, thanks to additional weakness in semiconductor stocks. After an incredible second quarter for chipmakers, July has been a much different story as the market questions the sustainability of artificial intelligence buildout. Micron slid over 7%, Sandisk dropped over 10%, and Marvell Technology fell 7%. Within our portfolio, shares of Club name Intel dropped almost 6% despite its strong second-quarter results on Thursday night. As we noted on Friday’s Morning Meeting, we would buy this dip in Intel position if not for our restrictions (which prevent us from trading a stock that Jim Cramer mentions on TV for 72 hours). We did, however, trim our Starbucks position and buy more FedEx Freight . One standout group within technology on Friday is software — not exactly a surprise considering the weakness in hardware. We’ve seen this pattern play out on numerous occasions recently: sell the hardware winners, buy the beaten-up software names. Money isn’t necessarily leaving the market en masse, it’s being shifted around. Club name Salesforce is one of our best performers on Friday, while Workday , Intuit and Adobe also turned in strong days. More on software in a bit. Surging oil prices have been a headwind for stocks this week, but on Friday at least, we’re seeing some relief. U.S. benchmark WTI crude and international standard Brent are pulling back after Reuters reported that Pakistan is pushing for another round of peace talks between the U.S. and Iran. We’ve seen plenty of headlines like this over the nearly five-month Middle East conflict, so we don’t want to put too much weight on a single report. And, as we’ve seen this month, even agreeing to an interim peace deal doesn’t mean it will not soon fall apart. To be sure, we cannot ignore the impact that elevated oil prices has on bond yields, Federal Reserve policy, and the global economy writ large. But we also know we cannot day trade the headlines, so we don’t try. Traders are also grappling with President Donald Trump’s renewing his tariff campaign, threatening a “substantial” round of levies on the European Union over the bloc’s treatment of American tech giants. Earlier Friday, the Trump administration imposed fresh tariffs on 60 trade partners , citing alleged forced labor in global supply chains. Now, back to software. Salesforce shares climbed more than 4% on Friday after the company announced it received a three-year, $1.6 billion contract from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The agreement gives VA employees agentic AI-based tools aimd at improving efficiency. Salesforce has been seeing an increase in government business, saying in its earnings release back in May that annual recurring revenue (ARR) in its public sector cloud exceeded $2 billion for the first time ever. That was up 23% year over year. D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria told us that the new contract appears to be “significant,” given its size and the importance of the Veterans Affairs department. But he cautioned that “one deal does not change the fact that Salesforce has been struggling to hold on to growth over the last few years.” He added, “It is also worth noting that being part of a big government deal does not always guarantee meaningful profits.” While up more than 6% over the past month, Salesforce shares are still down nearly 40% in 2026. The stock has been crushed on worries that AI will erode its seat-based enterprise software model. CEO Marc Benioff has repeatedly pushed back against the narrative, but Wall Street is not buying it. We’re still going to hold onto the few shares we still own, giving Benioff some time based on past success to right the ship. Next week is the busiest of the summer earnings season, with about a third of the S & P 500 scheduled to report. Within the portfolio, Corning and Boeing report on Tuesday, Procter & Gamble , Meta Platforms , Microsoft , and Starbucks on Wednesday, Apple and Amazon on Thursday, and Eaton and Linde on Friday. We will provide a closer look at all these upcoming reports, along with consensus earnings and revenue estimates, in our usual “week ahead” column published on Sunday. Other notable companies scheduled to report next week include Coca-Cola , Qualcomm , Arm Holdings , Seagate , Chipotle , Yum , Visa and Mastercard , Bristol Myers , UPS , and Robinhood . There’s also a FOMC meeting announcement Wednesday, and it’s becoming increasingly uncertain whether the Fed will hike rates or leave them unchanged at their next few meetings. (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. 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