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Every weekday, the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer releases the Homestretch — an actionable afternoon update, just in time for the last hour of trading on Wall Street. Market moves: Wall Street is attempting to rebound Friday, but policy uncertainty in Washington continued to get in the way. A midday pullback in stocks occurred in reaction to a fiery conversation in the Oval Office between President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy . However, stocks managed to bounce back. Thursday’s midday jolt came when Trump put firm dates on more tariffs. Meanwhile, we got the highly anticipated update to the Atlanta Federal Reserve’s GDPNow tracker , a running estimate of U.S. gross domestic product. The model’s latest first-quarter estimate for real GDP growth is negative 1.5%. Negative growth means GDPNow sees the economy contracting 1.5% at a seasonally adjusted annual rate in Q1. That estimate is down from 2.3% growth on Feb. 19 and down from 2.9% growth at the start of the month. This sharp decline in economic activity confirms why the stock market has struggled over the past couple of weeks and why investors have rotated out of cyclicals and into stocks with limited economic sensitivity. A positive close for the S & P 500 would mark its first winning Friday since Trump was inaugurated. The recent Friday weakness could be tied to general investor skittishness over what policy announcements will be made over the weekend. On this final day of February, the S & P 500 was tracking for a 3% monthly decline, as of Thursday’s close. Monthly winners and losers: This brings us to our February winners and losers. Going by sectors in the S & P 500, consumer staples shined with a gain of more than 4%. The portfolio’s lone staples position is Costco , which kept pace with the sector with a near 5% gain. The second best sector was real estate. The group is sensitive to moves in interest rates, and therefore stocks in the cohort liked the drop in the 10-year Treasury yield that played out. Energy was the third and final sector to deliver a monthly gain, but Club name Coterra Energy underperformed the group and fell in February alongside other natural gas-focused exploration and production companies. Utilities, health care, financials, and materials fared better than the broader S & P 500 but declined in the month. Some standouts to the upside in the portfolio were Eli Lilly , Abbott Laboratories , DuPont , and Linde . Eli Lilly and Abbott are two of the best growth stories within health care. DuPont and Linde outperformed the materials sector, with DuPont’s potential sum of the parts valuation getting closer to focus ahead of its Nov. 1 electronics business spinoff. Investors bought up Linde because the company has proved time and time again it can grow its earnings despite an economic slowdown. That’s thanks to strong operating performance. On the downside, Club names Danaher in health care and BlackRock in financials were the most disappointing. Danaher has been unable to recover from a disappointing 2025 outlook issued at the end of January. BlackRock sold off due to an asset manager competitor reducing fees across several funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Other alternative manager companies also struggled amid the economic uncertainty. The worst-performing sector by far was consumer discretionary. The sector fell nearly 11% in February. Weak retail sales, consumer sentiment surveys, and other signs of a spending slowdown hit the group. The worst-performing S & P 500 stock in the sector was Tesla . Club name Amazon had a rough month too, but there were some bright spots in the portfolio like Starbucks , which we booked profits on Friday. Communications services was the second worst-performing sector. Alphabet led the portfolio and group to the downside as the Magnificent Seven selloff intensified over the past few weeks. It also had the worst fourth-quarter earnings report in megacap tech. Remarkable, Club name Meta Platforms finished lower despite zero down sessions in the first two weeks of the month. Information technology and industrials had a weak month too, with AI companies like Nvidia and Broadcom on the tech side and electrical equipment and power generation companies like Eaton among industrials still struggling to recover from their Jan. 27 DeepSeek selloff . Next week: It’s a quiet week of earnings but there are still a few heavyweights scheduled to report In the portfolio, we get CrowdStrike after Tuesday’s close, and both Broadcom and Costco on Thursday evening. Some other key earnings reports are Target , former Club holding Best Buy , and Bullpen name Marvell Technology . There is also a ton of economic data next week that could support or dispel the economic slowdown debate. It’s jobs week, with the government’s monthly nonfarm payrolls report out this coming Friday. Before that, the market has to get through ISM manufacturing, factory orders, and ISM services. (See here for a full list of the stocks in 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.
Every weekday, the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer releases the Homestretch — an actionable afternoon update, just in time for the last hour of trading on Wall Street.
