My top 10 things to watch Wednesday, Sept. 17 1. It’s Fed day. The central bank is widely expected to announce a quarter-point interest rate cut at 2 p.m. ET. The market gives slim odds to a jumbo half-point reduction. Much attention will be paid to the so-called dot-plot projections on where Fed members think rates will be at year-end, and what Fed Chairman Jerome Powell says at his post-meeting press conference. 2. Full stop for Club name Nvidia in China? That seems to be the case, according to the Financial Times , which reported Beijing banned companies from buying Nvidia’s AI chips. That includes the RTX Pro 6000D, not just the made-for-China H20. Is this just bargaining in trade talks? Perhaps Washington’s 15% cut of Nvidia sales to China is the sticking point. Nvidia shares are down a little over 1% this morning. 3. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told reporters in London he was “disappointed” by the FT report . “They have larger agendas to work out between China and the United States, and I’m understanding of that,” he said. Thus far, Jensen has deftly navigated the U.S.-China geopolitical thicket. He is in London with President Donald Trump alongside other American business titans. 4. Lots of attempts on Wall Street to figure out how sales of the new iPhones are doing both here and in China. They’ll prove futile because Club name Apple makes it very difficult to find out, even as these brokerages keep saying they have a read on it. Waste of time. Make a judgment about the phones and go with it. I say they’re going to do very well thanks to the new selfie camera feature, battery life and the Air model. 5. Workday shares are soaring after revered activist Elliott Management disclosed a stake worth more than $2 billion and the enterprise software maker announced a $4 billion increase to its stock buyback authorization. It sounds like Elliott is OK with CEO Carl Eschenbach right now. Guggenheim and Piper Sandler also upgraded Workday shares to buy and neutral, respectively. 6. Wolfe Research lifted its price target on Micron to $180 a share from $160 and kept its outperform buy rating on the stock. Analysts cited resilient pricing for DRAM memory and expectations for Micron to gain share in the high-bandwidth memory market linked to AI chips. Don’t overlook how important these PT boosts for Micron are. This is a sign of real demand because there is plenty of supply. 7. The pullback in Shake Shack shares has created a compelling entry point, analysts at Raymond James argued. The stock is down almost 30% from late July levels. Still, I say anything with big exposure to beef remains problematic because of tight cattle supplies, causing elevated prices. That has also stung Club name Texas Roadhouse . 8. Big call: Bank of America said it has increased confidence in its outlook for Walmart after meeting with executives. Analysts upped their price target by $5 to $125, implying more than 20% upside, and backed their buy rating on the stock. Shares of Walmart and Club name Costco may have paid their dues, though I still wish Costco’s valuation came in a bit more. I’ll talk more about Costco on our Monthly Meeting for Club members tomorrow. 9. The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage hit 6.13% yesterday, the lowest since late 2022, according to the Mortgage Daily News. Will rates continue to decline once we have the Fed decision in hand? Last September, they strangely started to climb following the cut. The housing market and Club stocks like Home Depot need mortgage rates to cooperate this time around. Mortgage refinance demand spiked nearly 60% last week as rates dropped sharply. 10. E.l.f. Beauty’s price target was raised to $160 from $135 at Bank of America. Analysts are modeling slightly better than expected sales of Hailey Bieber’s beauty brand Rhode in the quarter. CEO Tarang Amin predicted the successful launch on “Mad Money” with me. 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.
