Every weekday, Jim Cramer’s CNBC Investment Club releases the Homestretch, a practical afternoon update to coincide with the last hour of trading on Wall Street. Market Action: Stocks rose solidly Friday afternoon, with gains in the S&P 500 pushing the index into positive territory this week. Technology and AI stocks were volatile as data center construction delays and financing concerns plagued the group early in the week. But in recent days, that pressure has eased. There are concerns about whether OpenAI will be able to meet its financial obligations, and that risk could surface if several reports indicating that the AI startup behind ChatGPT is in the process of raising a new round of funding are true. Cybersecurity: Palo Alto Networks and Google Cloud on Friday announced an expansion of their strategic partnership. The new collaboration combines Google Cloud’s AI and infrastructure capabilities with Palo Alto’s AI security platform, Prisma AIRS. Cowen analysts on Friday called it a “full platforming deal” that provides Google Cloud customers with “the full power of Prisma AIRS.” But sometimes you can’t give without getting. As part of the deal, Palo Alto Networks will pay Google’s parent company Alphabet nearly $10 billion over several years, according to Reuters. As organizations increasingly adopt agent AI, cloud security will become even more important. We believe that CrowdStrike, the same club name as Palo Alto Networks, is a leader. Palo Alto CEO Nikesh Arora is no stranger to Google. He worked for the company for 10 years, rising to the position of chief executive officer and leaving in 2014. Next week: It will be a quiet week with no big earnings reports and a shortened holiday. On the data side, third-quarter economic growth and consumer confidence statistics will be released on Tuesday morning, as well as weekly new jobless claims numbers before the opening bell on Wednesday. The U.S. stock market will close early on Christmas Eve at 1:00 pm (Eastern time) on Wednesday, and will be closed on Thursday for Christmas Day. (See here for a complete list of Jim Cramer Charitable Trust stocks.) As a subscriber to Jim Cramer’s CNBC Investment Club, you will receive trade alerts before Jim makes a trade. After Jim sends a trade alert, he waits 45 minutes before buying or selling stocks in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim talks about a stock on CNBC TV, he will issue a trade alert and then wait 72 hours before executing the trade. The above investment club information is subject to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, along with our disclaimer. No fiduciary duties or obligations exist or arise from your receipt of information provided in connection with the Investment Club. No specific results or benefits are guaranteed.
