Last week ended with stocks slightly lower as the market battled with a series of political headlines and policy news. Earlier this week, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said he was under criminal investigation by the Trump administration in connection with a $2.5 billion renovation of the central bank’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. Markets didn’t like the uncertainty and attacks on the Fed’s independence. Global geopolitical tensions also rattled markets when President Donald Trump threatened to impose 25% tariffs on countries doing business with Iran. Banks have started their earnings season. Despite strong reporting, bank stocks were weak last week on concerns about President Trump’s cap on credit card interest rates. Markets received a positive inflation report mid-week. The consumer price index rose by 0.3% in December, reaching an annual rate of 2.7%. Both figures are in line with expectations and show that the pace of inflation is moving closer to the Fed’s 2% target, but remains high. On a sector basis, the volatility in technology trade was caused by Nvidia’s decline after President Trump said chipmakers would have to meet several new requirements to send their H200 AI chips to China. The US plans to cut 25% of those sales. Other mega-cap companies also came under pressure, including Amazon, Microsoft, Meta Platforms and Broadcom. This led to gains in broad trade in energy, industrial goods and consumer staples last week. .SPX .IXIC 5D Mountain S&P 500 vs. Nasdaq For the week, the S&P 500 was down 0.1% and the Nasdaq was down 0.4%. However, the S&P Short Range Oscillator remained in overbought territory as of Friday’s close. When this happened, our discipline kicked in and we sought to reduce the elevated positions, which we did. We made a series of portfolio trades during a volatile week. On Monday, the company reduced its position in Texas Roadhouse to hedge against the risk that rising beef prices would hurt the company’s profits. We’re optimistic that beef prices will eventually level out and restaurant chain stock prices could rise. In the meantime, we booked some profits to be safe. We downgraded Texas Roadhouse’s rating to a 2, equivalent to a hold. Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo both posted gains on Tuesday ahead of their earnings reports. Wells Fargo reported earnings and revenue shortfalls Wednesday. Goldman had a mixed quarter on Thursday, with sales not growing but profits beating expectations. Both banks’ stocks are rated “2”. On Wednesday, we cashed in some of our Honeywell profits. Despite the difficulty of owning the stock in 2025, we still like the industrial giant after it announced plans to pursue an initial public offering for quantum computing company Quantinum, in which it holds a significant stake. An IPO means Honeywell will monetize assets that are worth more on the public market than they are currently worth. We downgraded the stock’s rating to 2, equivalent to hold. We continued with another trade on Thursday and booked a profit at Dover. This industry name has broken discipline and made cuts as it is down 24% since its last reported earnings in October. We downgraded the rating to 2, equivalent to Hold. (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.
