The Club’s 10 things to watch Friday, Aug. 22 — Today’s newsletter was written by Portfolio Analyst Zev Fima and Director of Portfolio Analysis Jeff Marks. 1. It’s Fed day. Wall Street will be hyper-focused on what Fed Chair Jerome Powell has to say today during his speech at the central bank’s annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. In a piece yesterday afternoon , we looked at how this week’s market scrambled conventional wisdom on what a Fed rate cut would mean for tech stocks. 2. Lots of Nvidia headlines swirling this morning: CEO Jensen Huang said the AI chipmaker is in talks with the U.S. government to ship a chip more advanced than the H20 to China. However, The Information reported that Club name Nvidia told suppliers to stop production of components for the H20 chip due to China’s security concerns. 3. Off-price retail chain Ross Stores reports a mixed quarter with a slight revenue miss and earnings per share above the Street. Comparable store sales increased 2%. Club name TJX Companies’ earnings this week were far cleaner and stronger. 4. TJX was highlighted by The Wall Street Journal alongside Walmart and fellow Club stock Amazon as three relative retail winners during the trade war. The WSJ’s reasoning: They can keep costs down and “ease the burden on stressed-out consumers.” While we couldn’t agree more, we’d add Club name Costco to the list too. Retailers need scale and value to thrive right now. 5. Intuit shares fell 6% this morning despite the TurboTax and QuickBooks owner reporting better-than-expected quarterly results. The board also approved a new $3.2 billion share repurchase program and increased the dividend. 6. Workday was also unable to shake off the negative sentiment around enterprise software. The HR management software provider beat quarterly expectations, but analysts say the subscription guidance raise was due to an acquisition, not strengthening results. Club stock Salesforce has also been a victim of the AI-related overhang on enterprise software. 7. Piper Sandler raised its price target on Club name Broadcom to $315 a share from $300 and reiterated its overweight buy rating on the custom AI chipmaker. Analysts continue to see Broadcom as an AI winner and well-positioned into the October quarter on both its chip business and software unit led by VMWare. 8. Alphabet’s Google Cloud won a six-year, $10 billion contract from Meta Platforms to help support its AI infrastructure. Meta, which we’ve long owned for the Club, previously relied on Amazon’s AWS and Microsoft’s Azure for cloud services, in addition to its own data centers. 9. More Meta news: The Instagram parent has poached Apple AI executive Frank Chu for its Superintelligence Labs even as it slows the pace of AI hiring, Bloomberg News reported . Chu is at least the sixth AI-focused Apple employee to bolt for Meta, Bloomberg said. While Apple share have perked up lately, investors still crave better AI strategy and implementation. 10. Barclays upgraded Ulta Beauty to an overweight buy rating from equal weight and raised its PT to $589 from $518. Analysts see upward earnings revision coming over next few quarters as the company’s turnaround efforts take hold under new CEO Kecia Steelman. Sign up for my Top 10 Morning Thoughts on the Market email newsletter for free (See here for a full list of the stocks at 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. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
