This industrial play has been a quiet winner in 2026. Why the stock has more room to go
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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. The S & P 500 and Nasdaq on Wednesday are struggling to snap their two-day losing streaks. The S & P 500 climbed as much as 0.86% before reversing course and erasing its gains. The S & P 500 is slightly lower. The tech-heavy Nasdaq , meanwhile, is solidly in the red. The indexes are struggling despite oil prices continuing to drop, with U.S. benchmark WTI crude briefly dipping below $70 per barrel. The decline in energy prices is easing inflation concerns, which has helped push the 10-year Treasury yield down roughly 9 basis points. Falling oil prices and lower interest rates make for a good recipe for travel, leisure and housing-related stocks, which are leading the market in the session. We're seeing the strength reflected in Club name Home Depot's shares, which have climbed back to their highest level since April. Technology stocks were mostly lower with profit taking in semiconductors and other AI names ahead of Micron's earnings report after the bell. Club name Corning was an outlier for unclear reasons. The stock is surging roughly 7%, making it the top-performing tech name in the S & P 500 despite weakness in the theme. Linde shares are on the rise after analysts at Citi raised their price target on the industrial gas supplier to $600 from $585 and initiated a "90-day positive short-term view." In a note to clients, analysts wrote that their call is "driven by a potentially more constructive setup for estimate revisions on incremental upside from volume growth in North America from broad-based strength in manufacturing, metals, refining, and electronics and Asia industrial activity possibly inflecting." Citi also called out the company's high-quality backlog, which is becoming more exposed to faster growing verticals like electronics and the space industry . Notably, Citi reminded investors that Linde has not baked any benefit from higher helium prices into its guidance. That matters because helium prices rose after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz created a supply shortage. As we've explained before , we do not believe management is chasing a one-time earnings benefit by selling into the spot market. Rather, we suspect Linde is leveraging its excess supply to win new long-term contracts, a strategy that should support stronger volumes and earnings growth over time. Linde is quietly having a strong 2026, with shares up over 21% year to date. That is ahead of the S & P 500's 7.5% advance and the index's materials sector, which is up 13%. Micron's earnings report after the closing bell will be closely watched across Wall Street, with expectations running high after the stock's more than 250% rally this year. The company exceeded analysts' earnings-per-share estimates by roughly 30% last quarter and 25% the quarter before that. We'll be interested in seeing how the market reacts to what's expected to be another strong quarter, as well as management's commentary about supply and demand dynamics for high bandwidth memory (HBM), the memory chips used in AI servers. Before the opening bell on Thursday, we'll see earnings from spice maker McCormick and Olive Garden parent Darden Restaurants . On the data side, we'll see the Fed's preferred inflation gauge in the PCE price index. Other economic reports of interest are the final read on first-quarter U.S. gross domestic product, weekly jobless claims, and durable goods orders. (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.
