Jim Cramer's top 10 things to watch in the stock market Thursday

Top 10 things to watch on Thursday, December 18th 1. Stocks are on the rise this morning after a cooler-than-expected reading on consumer inflation. Bond yields were slipping under pressure. The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq fell sharply yesterday as AI trading took a hard hit. The tech-heavy Nasdaq was unsurprisingly hit the hardest, losing 1.8% in its worst session in nearly a month. On the agenda tonight: Club name and Dow stock Nike reports earnings. We look at what Nike needs to do tonight and move forward to revive its chances. 2. Can Micron save the AI business? Or is it a tax imposed on the system due to elasticity of demand? Shares of the company, which makes memory and storage used in data centers, rose 14 percent after it beat Wall Street forecasts and raised its forward expectations. Has the company been sold and can it raise prices whenever it wants? Success complex: Micron, Sandisk, Seagate, Western Digital — all due to not enough money being spent on Applied Materials, Lam Research and KLA Corp. 3. Micron re-enacts the Magic Year of Investing for the last time. Participants: data center manufacturers (Iren, CoreWeave, Nebius); quantum (D-Wave Quantum, Rigetti); nuclear (with Nuscale blown up, all that remains is Oklo); Palantir, Bloom Energy and all the Bitcoin garbage they brought to trick you, which has been the most effective. All of these stocks broke down as predicted. They can jump, but nothing more than that. Mind you, there are no more batteries in stock as this "trade" has ended. 4. Information says OpenAI could raise tens of billions of dollars at a valuation of around $750 billion. Despite agreements worth $500 billion with partners. Incredible arrogance: You pay us $500 billion to buy your goods, we'll reward you with a $750 billion exit when we go public. If OpenAI can pull this off, even Oracle will be spared, meaning it can continue to build data centers and even get paid for them by OpenAI. Will Oracle get a piece of the deal by paying OpenAI and then screw it up? 5. Tesla's reassertion has nothing to do with cars and everything to do with self-driving and robots that have allowed Waymo to make its fortune. The club's regret is that it sold Google parent Alphabet because Gemini will soon surpass OpenAI, according to excellent work by HundredX, a research firm we used to indoctrinate "Mad Money." 6. ServiceNow completes a 5-for-1 stock split. It hasn't bounced back since KeyBanc analysts downgraded the stock earlier this week, citing artificial intelligence's threat to software as a service (SaaS) companies. 7. Home builder Lennar's rating was downgraded from buy to sell at Bank of America. House prices have finally returned to 2019 levels. Even though it is not included in the CPI, this is the only place where inflation is under control. Deteriorating margins. 8. Jefferies upgraded GE Vernova to buy from hold with a price target of $736 to $815. The stock needs to move higher, but it ran out of gas at $700. It's hard to keep raising prices. 9. Citi upgraded Dow stock Sherwin-Williams to buy from hold, seeing better structure in 2026. If that's the case, buy Club name Home Depot, which is also among the Dow-30. Citi analysts cut their Sherwin-Williams price target by $2 to $390. 10. Morgan Stanley unexpectedly downgraded PayPal to sell, predicting that growth would slow down. Analysts lowered the price target to $51 from $74. This is an important call because the fintech complex needs this stock to be stronger. Sign up for my free email newsletter The 10 Best Morning Thoughts on the Market. (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.