Jim Cramer’s top 10 things to watch in the stock market Monday
Top 10 things to watch on Monday, July 27 1. Futures are up this morning and oil prices are falling after the US and Iran took a break from fighting over the weekend. Nasdaq leads the way, up about 1.4%. WTI crude fell nearly 7% to below $84 a barrel, its biggest decline since May. Rising oil prices last week were a problem for the market, but that wasn’t the only problem. 2. The sell-off in many tech stocks has shown that the market is no longer willing to tolerate massive spending by public companies on AI infrastructure. Even though there was tremendous demand for Google Cloud, Alphabet was still weak. We look for companies to make money, not just to “meet demand”. I explored this tension in the column I wrote on Sunday for Investment Club subscribers. 3. Club name Nvidia is considering a $250 billion boost to OpenAI to help the ChatGPT creator lease Softbank’s massive data center project in southern Ohio, the Wall Street Journal reports. This figure does not even include the chips that will enter the data center. It’s a little weird. Will Nvidia become the central bank of artificial intelligence? The market will love this deal and eventually hate it, believing it to be a “Lazy Susan.” 4. Nvidia and South Korean technology conglomerate SK Group signed a $500 billion partnership to create artificial intelligence infrastructure. SK Telecom plans to build a 2 gigawatt data center using Nvidia’s Vera Rubin chips. Additionally, Nvidia and SK Hynix agreed on a long-term memory supply agreement. Securing enough memory is currently a major bottleneck. Supply is limited and increasing production capacity takes time. 5. Check out what happened at memory chip maker Changxin Technology Group’s debut in Shanghai. CXMT has surged 466% today following its initial public offering, making it the most valuable company listed in China. The US government considers CXMT a national security risk. However, faced with increasing memory costs, Apple, named Club, is reportedly testing CXMT chips for devices sold in China. 6. Samsung and Broadcom announced a $200 billion deal to expand their collaboration on memory and casting technologies. Even though the market is nervous about AI infrastructure spending levels, companies that design and manufacture the chips are moving forward. We own Broadcom for the Club because it is a leading designer of custom AI chips for tech giants like Google and Meta Platforms. This week we’re seeing gains from Meta, Amazon and Microsoft. 7. Important: The direction of Verizon price target cuts has been strictly downward over the years. This time, Barclays increased the stock from $45 to $46, signaling a change of guard. Wells Fargo rose from $43 to $47, indicating strong growth toward the end of the year and into 2027. Still, both Barclays and Wells continued to maintain their rating on the shares. Verizon is tapping into a $1 billion-plus fiber deal with Google, capitalizing on the data center boom. 8. Disruptive call from another telecom giant. Wells lowered his price target on Charter to $101 from $160 and reiterated his sell rating. Analysts downgraded their broadband outlook and noted that cable remains a challenging operating area. Barclays also reduced its PT from $130 to $115. The stock fell on Friday after Charter reported another quarter of subscriber declines and missed free cash flow estimates. 9. Barclays increased its PT on SLB from $64 to $67. Analysts said the rebuilding of the Middle East and the data center partnership with Meta are reasons for bullishness. Bank of America increased the stock from $56 to $57. If you think the pause in the fight between the US and Iran is imaginary, this is the only oil service company worth betting on. 10. SAP’s price target was lowered to $242 from $255 at Barclays. While the German software company sees demand for artificial intelligence rising, bolstering confidence in its second-half outlook, analysts said cost execution may be less predictable in the short term. This is something I worry about with Palantir. Sign up for free for my Top 10 Morning Thoughts on the Market email newsletter (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 ARE RESULTING FROM YOUR RECEIVING ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTMENT CLUB. NO SPECIFIC RESULT OR PROFIT CAN BE GUARANTEED.
