Can the S&P 500 hold on for a 7th weekly gain? Plus, Friday's best and worst stocks
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CNBC Finance
4 min read
Every weekday, the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer releases the Homestretch â an actionable afternoon update, just in time for the last hour of trading on Wall Street. Stocks pulled back on Friday, but the S & P 500 is still on pace for its seventh straight positive week. The market moved lower in response to a huge bond selloff, which pushed the 10-year Treasury yield to roughly 4.6%. The 30-year Treasury yield topped 5.1%, its highest level since last May. Bond prices and yields move inversely. Oil climbed, with West Texas Intermediate crude pushing back above $105 per barrel. The rise in market interest rates, reflected in bond yields, and rising oil prices was a catalyst for profit-taking across the red-hot AI trade, with stocks like portfolio names Arm Holdings , Nvidia, Qnity Electronics, Broadcom , Corning, and Eaton giving back recent gains. The five biggest gainers in the portfolio this week were Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike , Qnity, Nvidia , and Cardinal Health . Our cybersecurity names were big winners after the market realized AI is an accelerant to their industry, not a replacement. A blog post published by Palo Alto Networks on Wednesday estimated that organizations have three to five months to take action now before AI-driven exploits become the new norm. Qnity had a great week after reporting a strong beat and raise . Nvidia made a new record high on Thursday due to enthusiasm for AI spending. Plus, investors viewed CEO Jensen Huang joining President Donald Trump on his trip to China as a positive sign for the likelihood that Chinese companies could resume purchasing chips. Cardinal Health finally put together a positive week on some encouraging prescription medication volume data. The five biggest losers in the portfolio this week were Boeing , Home Depot, Dover , Salesforce, and Amazon . Boeing rallied ahead of the China meeting in anticipation of a big order, but the 200 jet deal Trump announced lacked details and was below the expectation of 500. Many consumer discretionary stocks sold off this week on renewed inflation concerns, but Home Depot was hit especially hard as rising mortgage rates threaten to keep the housing market frozen. Dover fell for unclear reasons. It was actually a little surprising to see the industrial stock so low on the list. But higher rates could slow industrial activity, and short-cycle industrial companies are usually the first to feel the impact. Dover is coming off a quarter in which orders surged, and management said that demand continued in April, so we're not making any decisions on the stock yet. Salesforce 's strong Friday couldn't make up for its bad start to the week. In the current environment, traditional software stocks tend to have an inverse relationship with the AI trade. Finally, Amazon slipped from its record high made last Thursday. Even though its Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud continues to perform exceptionally well, concerns about weaker consumer spending weighing on the retail side of its business pressured the stock. A big week of earnings is ahead, with several consumer names and Nvidia scheduled to report. Within the portfolio, Home Depot reports Tuesday before the open, off-price retailer TJX reports Wednesday morning, and Nvidia reports after Wednesday's closing bell. Other key names reporting are Walmart, Target, Toll Brothers, Cava Group, Analog Devices, VF Corp, Intuit, Deere, Take-Two Interactive, Workday, BJ's Wholesale, and Ralph Lauren. On the data side, we get weekly jobless claims, April pending home sales, housing starts, and building permits, S & P Global U.S. Manufacturing and Services PMIs (purchasing managers' indexes), and the latest University of Michigan survey of consumer sentiment and 1-year inflation expectations. (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.
