Here is what caused the wild swings in our 34-stock portfolio last week

The S&P 500 closed lower on Friday but closed the week slightly higher. It briefly surpassed 7,000 for the first time on Wednesday. There was no news tanking: Ten portfolio names reported earnings for the week, including three of our megacaps; The Federal Reserve kept interest rates steady on Wednesday; Software stocks fell on Thursday; and President Donald Trump announced Friday that he will replace Jerome Powell as Fed chairman. .SPX .IXIC mountain 2026-01-26 S&P 500 and Nasdaq close since Jan 23 For the week, the S&P 500 is up 0.34% and has gained 1.37% for the month. As our friends at CNBC pro point out, January gains have historically boded well for the rest of the year, according to the January Barometer. The Nasdaq was essentially flat for the week, gaining 0.95% in January. Here's what's driving the market in the last week of the month. 1. Tech-related earnings Meta Platforms and Microsoft posted earnings that sent their shares in opposite directions. Shares of Facebook and Instagram's parent company finished the week up nearly 9% after a report released Wednesday evening that shattered top and bottom line forecasts. The market did not mind wasting this time. Shares of Microsoft are down more than 8% for the week after the company's major cloud computing business failed to impress investors on Wednesday. We're sticking with Microsoft. Apple shares finally broke an eight-week losing streak, but not because of earnings. Management reported a breakout quarter late Thursday, driven by a 23% increase in iPhone sales. However, the stock fell on Friday. Investors still seem concerned about how the memory shortage will affect Apple's costs. We're not too worried. GE Vernova hit an all-time high on Friday, following gains on Wednesday evening. Corning posted better-than-expected results in the same session. Corning shares hit records Tuesday after the company signed a new $6 billion deal to supply fiber optic data center cables to Meta. GE Vernova and Corning were up 10% and 11%, respectively, last week. 2. Outside of tech, Starbucks shares are down more than 6% last week, despite Wednesday's promising quarter and Thursday's bullish Investor Day. Both showed us that CEO Brian Niccol's turnaround play is on track. The stock was initially higher in both sessions but was unable to hold onto those gains at the close. If Starbucks shares continued their decline, we would be tempted to increase our position. Honeywell shares hit an all-time high on Friday following a stellar earnings report on Thursday that included news that aerospace spinoff plans are accelerating. Industrial stocks gained nearly 3% for the week. Dover fell over 2% last week due to profit taking in Thursday's hit-and-raise quarter. We increased our price target from $210 to $220 per piece. Danaher's better-than-expected report failed to boost shares, and Boeing's mixed results caused wide swings in stock prices. Both names closed the week with a decline. 3. Software criticized Club's holding company Salesforce fell 7% in the week after Thursday's sell-off in the massive enterprise software sector. We told members we weren't running out of ideas to add to Salesforce. ServiceNow fell 10% despite better-than-expected results overall and a commitment to aggressively repurchase shares. The weakness comes as software names continue to be affected by AI-related disruption concerns. This sell-off in software was a revaluation of what the market was willing to pay for SaaS companies; This means price-to-earnings multiples are compressed. Microsoft's 10% post-earnings drop on Thursday didn't help. It was unfair that our cybersecurity names fell prey to this weakness. Artificial intelligence helps cyber. Palo Alto Networks and CrowdStrike were down more than 4% and 5%, respectively, on Thursday. We saw these declines as buying opportunities. Both stocks are down more than 2% for the week. 4. Big Fed week "Economic activity is expanding at a solid pace. Employment gains remain low and the unemployment rate has shown some signs of stabilization," Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said Wednesday. he said. For these reasons, central bankers ended their two-day January meeting in the afternoon by keeping interest rates steady after three consecutive interest rate cut meetings. Just two days later, Trump said he would nominate Kevin Warsh to replace Powell, whose term at the Fed ends in May. Warsh, who served as Fed governor from 2006 to 2011, needs Senate confirmation. The stock market reacted little to either event. However, gold and silver, which rose on concerns about the future independence of the Fed, fell on Friday. Warsh is seen as more hawkish than other Fed candidates, and that number is known to be higher given his past tenure at the Fed. We have prepared a video on how to prepare your portfolio for the Fed change. (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 would wait 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.