Can the S&P 500 hold on for a 7th weekly gain? Plus, Friday’s best and worst stocks

Every weekday, CNBC Investment Club with Jim Cramer publishes Homestretch, an actionable afternoon update just in time for the final hour of trading on Wall Street. Stocks fell on Friday, but the S&P 500 continues to trend toward its seventh consecutive positive week. The market fell in response to the massive bond selloff that pushed the 10-year Treasury yield to roughly 4.6%. The 30-year Treasury bond yield reached 5.1%, its highest level since last May. Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions. Oil climbed as West Texas Intermediate crude rose above $105 a barrel. The rise in market interest rates reflected in bond yields and rising oil prices has been a catalyst for profit-taking in heated AI trading, with portfolio names such as Arm Holdings, Nvidia, Qnity Electronics, Broadcom, Corning and Eaton giving back recent gains. The top five gainers in the portfolio this week were Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike, Qnity, Nvidia and Cardinal Health. Our cybersecurity names became big winners after the market realized that AI was an accelerator, not a replacement, for their industry. A blog post published by Palo Alto Networks on Wednesday estimates that organizations have three to five months to take action before AI-driven exploits become the new norm. Qnity has had a great week after reporting a strong rise and rise. Nvidia set a new record on Thursday due to interest in artificial intelligence spending. Additionally, investors saw CEO Jensen Huang joining President Donald Trump on his visit to China as a positive sign that Chinese companies are likely to continue purchasing chips. Cardinal Health finally put together a positive week with some encouraging prescription drug volume data. The portfolio’s five biggest losers this week were Boeing, Home Depot, Dover, Salesforce and Amazon. Boeing rallied ahead of the China meeting on expectations of a big order, but details of the 200-jet deal Trump announced were lacking and below expectations for 500. Most consumer discretionary stocks sold off this week amid renewed inflation concerns, but Home Depot has been hit particularly hard as rising mortgage rates threaten to freeze the housing market. Dover fell for unclear reasons. It was actually a bit surprising that industrial stocks were so low on the list. But higher rates can slow industrial activity, and short-cycle industrial companies are often the first to feel the impact. Dover is coming off a quarter of increased orders and management said demand continued into April, so we’re not making any decisions on stock yet. Salesforce’s strong Friday couldn’t make up for its poor start to the week. In the current environment, traditional software stocks tend to have an inverse relationship with AI trading. Finally, Amazon fell from the record high it reached last Thursday. Although Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud continues to perform exceptionally well, concerns about weak consumer spending weighing on the retail side have weighed on the stock. We have a big earnings week ahead with many consumer names and Nvidia reporting. Across the portfolio, Home Depot is reporting ahead of the open on Tuesday, discount retailer TJX is reporting Wednesday morning, and Nvidia is reporting after the closing bell on Wednesday. Other notable names reporting include Walmart, Target, Toll Brothers, Cava Group, Analog Devices, VF Corp, Intuit, Deere, Take-Two Interactive, Workday, BJ’s Wholesale and Ralph Lauren. On the data side, we get weekly jobless claims, April pending home sales, housing starts and building permits, S&P Global US Manufacturing and Services PMIs (purchasing managers indexes), and the University of Michigan’s latest survey of consumer sentiment and 1-year inflation expectations. (See here for a complete list of stocks in Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust.) When you subscribe 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 trading alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable foundation’s portfolio. If Jim talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trading alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTMENT CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY, TOGETHER WITH THE DISCLAIMERS. NO CIVIL OBLIGATIONS OR DUTIES EXIST OR SHALL BE RESULTING FROM YOUR RECEIVING ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTMENT CLUB. NO SPECIFIC RESULT OR PROFIT CAN BE GUARANTEED.




