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. Markets were mixed on Friday as Wall Street ends another volatile week. The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average rose nearly 200 points, or 0.4%, while the S&P 500 was almost flat. The tech-heavy Nasdaq was a laggard, dropping about 0.5% due to further declines in semiconductor stocks. After a great second quarter for chipmakers, July was very different as the market questioned the sustainability of building artificial intelligence. Micron fell more than 7%, SanDisk fell more than 10% and Marvell Technology fell 7%. Within our portfolio, shares of club name Inter fell almost 6% despite strong second quarter results on Thursday night. As we pointed out in our Friday morning meeting, were it not for our restrictions (prohibiting trading stocks mentioned by Jim Cramer on TV for 72 hours), we would buy this decline in Intel’s position. But we cut our Starbucks position and bought more FedEx freight. One group that stood out in technology on Friday was software. Not that surprising considering the hardware weaknesses. We’ve seen this pattern play out many times recently. Sell the hardware winners and buy the losing software names. Money isn’t necessarily leaving the market all at once; it’s moving around. Salesforce, the club’s name, was one of the best-performing companies on Friday, with Workday, Intuit and Adobe also having strong days. We’ll talk more about the software later. Rising oil prices have been a headwind for stocks this week, but there is at least some relief on Friday. The US benchmark WTI crude oil and international standard Brent crude oil are being withdrawn after Reuters reported that Pakistan is pushing to renegotiate peace talks between the US and Iran. I’ve seen so many headlines like this over the nearly five-month-long Middle East conflict that I don’t want to place too much weight on any single report. And as we’ve seen this month, even if we agree to an interim peace deal, that doesn’t mean it won’t fall apart soon. Certainly, we cannot ignore the impact of rising oil prices on bond yields, Federal Reserve policy, and the global economy as a whole. But we also know we can’t day trade headlines, so we won’t try. Traders are also reviving President Donald Trump’s tariff campaign, threatening “substantial” penalties over the European Union’s treatment of U.S. tech giants. Early Friday morning, the Trump administration imposed new tariffs on 60 trading partners over allegations of forced labor in global supply chains. Now, back to the software. Salesforce stock rose more than 4% on Friday after the company announced it had won a three-year, $1.6 billion contract from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The contract will provide Veterans Affairs employees with Agent AI-based tools aimed at improving efficiency. Salesforce is seeing growth in its government business, announcing in its May earnings call that annual recurring revenue (ARR) in public sector cloud exceeded $2 billion for the first time. This was a 23% increase over the previous year. DA Davidson analyst Gil Luria told us the new contract appears to be “significant” given its size and importance to the Department of Veterans Affairs. But he cautioned that “one deal doesn’t change the fact that Salesforce has struggled to maintain growth in recent years.” He added: “It’s also worth noting that participating in big government deals does not necessarily guarantee meaningful returns.” Salesforce stock rose more than 6% last month, but is still down nearly 40% in 2026. The company’s stock has tumbled on concerns that AI will erode the company’s seat-based enterprise software model. CEO Marc Benioff has repeatedly pushed back against this claim, but Wall Street isn’t buying it. We intend to continue to hold onto the minority stake we still own and give Benioff time to right the ship based on past success. Next week is the busiest week of the summer earnings season, with about a third of the S&P 500 stock index expected to be announced. Within the portfolio, Corning and Boeing report on Tuesday, Procter & Gamble, Meta Platforms, Microsoft and Starbucks on Wednesday, Apple and Amazon on Thursday, and Eaton and Linde on Friday. We’ll break down all of these upcoming reports, along with consensus earnings and revenue forecasts, in our regular Week Ahead column published on Sundays. Other notable companies scheduled to report next week include Coca-Cola, Qualcomm, Arm Holdings, Seagate, Chipotle, Yum, Visa and Mastercard, Bristol-Myers, UPS and Robinhood. With the announcement of the FOMC meeting on Wednesday, it is becoming increasingly unclear whether the Fed will raise or leave interest rates unchanged over the next few meetings. (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.
