My top 10 things to watch Thursday, Dec. 18 1. Stocks were bouncing this morning after a cooler-than-expected reading on consumer inflation. Bond yields were sliding on the print. The Dow , S & P 500 , and Nasdaq all fell sharply yesterday as the AI trade got slammed. The tech-heavy Nasdaq, not surprisingly, was hit the hardest, dropping 1.8% in its worst session in about a month. On tap tonight: Club name and Dow stock Nike reports earnings. We looked at what Nike needs to do tonight and going forward to revive its fortunes. 2. Can Micron save the artificial intelligence trade? Or is it a tax on the system because of demand elasticity? Shares of the company, which makes memory and storage used in data centers, jumped 14% after beating Wall Street estimates and raising its forward guidance. Is the company sold out and can raise prices at will? The complex of success: Micron, Sandisk , Seagate , Western Digital — all because not enough money was spent on Applied Materials , Lam Research , and KLA Corp . 3. Micron reignites Magical Year of Investing one last time. Participants: data center makers ( Iren , CoreWeave , Nebius ); quantum ( D-Wave Quantum , Rigetti ); nuclear ( Oklo is about the only one left, as Nuscale has blown up); Palantir , Bloom Energy , and all the bitcoin junk that they have managed to bring to fleece you, which has been most effective. These stocks have all broken down as predicted. They can bounce, but no more than that. Notice, no more battery stocks as that “trade” is over. 4. The Information says that OpenAI can raise tens of billions of dollars at a valuation of about $750 billion. Even as it is striking deals with partners at $500 billion. Incredible hubris: you pay us at a $500 billion level to take your wares, we will reward you with a $750 billion exit when we come public. If OpenAI can pull this off, even Oracle gets saved, meaning it can keep building out data centers and even get paid for them by OpenAI. Will Oracle pay OpenAI so it can get stock in the deal and then blow it out? 5. Tesla reasserting itself has nothing to do with cars and everything to do with self-driving and robots, which allows Waymo to raise fortunes. The regret trade for the Club is selling Google parent Alphabet , which is back on as Gemini is going to pass OpenAI soon, according to the excellent work of HundredX, a research firm we use to infuse “Mad Money.” 6. ServiceNow completed a 5-for-1 stock split. Hasn’t come back since KeyBanc analysts downgraded the stock earlier this week, citing the threat of AI to software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies. 7. Homebuilder Lennar was downgraded to a sell from a buy at Bank of America. The price of a house has now finally returned to 2019 levels. It’s one place where inflation is in control, although not included in the CPI. Deteriorating margins. 8. Jefferies upgraded GE Vernova to a buy from a hold with a price target of $815, up from $736. The stock should go higher, but it ran out of gas in the $700s. It’s hard to keep raising prices. 9. Citi upgraded Dow stock Sherwin-Williams to a buy from hold, seeing a better set-up in 2026. If that’s the case, then buy Club name Home Depot , also among the Dow-30. Citi analysts trimmed their Sherwin-Williams price target by $2 to $390. 10. Morgan Stanley downgraded PayPal to a sell from hold, predicting sluggish growth ahead. The analysts cut their price target to $51 from $74. It’s an important call because the fintech complex needs this stock to be stronger. Sign up for my Top 10 Morning Thoughts on the Market email newsletter for free . (See here for a complete 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.
