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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. Markets: Stocks are ending the four-day trading week on a positive note, though the S & P 500 is still on pace for a slight weekly loss. The week began with a rally, fueled by optimism over the Trump administration’s decision to exempt smartphones, laptops, and other electronics from the steep 125% “reciprocal” tariffs on Chinese imports. However, that momentum quickly faded as mixed signals from the White House and growing concerns over potential Section 232 investigations — which could empower President Donald Trump to restrict imports viewed as national security threats — tempered investor enthusiasm. The market’s concerns about how the administration is restricting trade with China intensified late Wednesday into Thursday after Nvidia disclosed it plans to take a $5.5 billion charge for inventory , purchase commitments, and related reserves tied to shipments of its made-for-China H20 chips, which now require a license to ship into the country. On Thursday afternoon, the market is making another attempt to rally, driven by renewed optimism that the U.S. may soon start announcing new trade agreements. On Thursday, Trump expressed confidence that a trade deal with the European Union will eventually be reached, though he emphasized there’s no rush to make a deal. Alphabet ruling: Shares of Alphabet dipped in early trading Thursday after it partially lost its U.S. ad technology antitrust case. Former U.S. Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division Jonathan Kanter, who brought this case in 2023, will be on “Mad Money” on Thursday night to discuss the ruling, which could allow prosecutors to push for a breakup of Google’s advertising products. This is now the second antitrust case Google has lost in as many years. In August , a federa judge ruled that Google illegally held a monopoly in search and text advertising. We trimmed our Alphabet position multiple times in 2024 as antitrust concerns piled up. At the end of March, we exited the position entirely over fears that large language model chatbots like ChatGPT will eat into the market share of Alphabet’s lucrative Google Search business, especially as they become more sophisticated and ingrained in society. In the months and years ahead, it will be interesting to see what actions, if any, Alphabet will make to remedy these lawsuits. Analysts at Citi wrote Thursday that it wouldn’t be surprised if Google spun off its ad network. In a most extreme case study, there’s an argument in the market that the sum of Alphabet’s different businesses — mainly Search, YouTube, and Google Cloud — are worth more than the current stock price. However, we’re not second guessing our sales after the latest antitrust news. It only adds pressure to our already worried outlook for Google Search. Alphabet is the first of the megacap tech stocks to report earnings, which are due out next Thursday after the closing bell. Dealmaking: The investment banking boom expected with Trump’s return to the White House hasn’t gone as planned — a fact clearly on display in Goldman Sachs’ earnings earlier this week. However, there was a huge deal announced Thursday. Payment technology provider Global Payments announced a slew of moves to acquire its rival WorldPay for $24.3 billion. There’s no direct impact on the stocks in the portfolio from this deal, but it’s worth a call out because Wells Fargo acted as the financial advisor to Worldpay. One deal isn’t enough to make a quarter, even one of this size. So, we are hardly suggesting Wells Fargo’s earnings estimates will go up if this transaction closes. However, we look at Wells Fargo’s involvement as a validation of the work CEO Charlie Scharf has done to bring in talent and expand its investment banking business to become a bigger player on Wall Street. Shares of Wells Fargo have bounced about 4% since reporting earnings last Friday. The results had a lukewarm reception at the time, but we thought the sellers missed the bigger picture . Up next and looking ahead: Netflix reports after the closing bell Thursday. The market is closed on Friday. Earnings season kicks into high gear next week with more than 100 companies in the S & P 500 scheduled to report. Within the portfolio, we’ll hear from Danaher on Tuesday before the opening bell, followed by Capital One Financial after the closing bell. And then on Thursday, Dover and Bristol Myers Squibb report before the opening bell. (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.
