My Top 10 Things to Watch Monday, July 27th 1. Futures are surging this morning and oil prices are falling after the US and Iran halted fighting over the weekend. The Nasdaq is leading the pack with an increase of about 1.4%. WTI crude oil prices fell about 7% to less than $84 a barrel, the fastest pace of decline since May. Rising oil prices have been a problem for the market in the last week, but that’s not the only issue. 2. The decline in many tech stocks showed that the market was no longer willing to tolerate huge spending by public companies on AI infrastructure. Even though Google Cloud showed significant demand, Alphabet remained underperforming. We’re looking for companies that don’t just “meet demand,” but make a profit. I explored this tension in my Sunday column for Investing Club subscribers. 3. Club name Nvidia is considering offering OpenAI a $250 billion backstop to help the ChatGPT creator lease SoftBank’s massive data center project in southern Ohio, the Wall Street Journal reported. This number doesn’t even include chips installed inside data centers. It’s a little awkward. NVIDIA as AI’s central bank?The market will love this deal but ultimately hate it, believing it to be a “lazy susan”. 4. Nvidia and South Korean technology conglomerate SK Group have signed a $500 billion partnership to build AI infrastructure. SK Telecom plans to build a 2 gigawatt data center using Nvidia’s Vera Rubin chips. Additionally, Nvidia and SK Hynix have agreed to a long-term memory supply agreement. Currently, securing enough memory is a major bottleneck. Supply is tight and adding capacity will take time. 5. Look at what happened at memory chip maker Changxin Technology Group’s Shanghai debut. CXMT today surged 466% after its initial public offering, making it China’s most valuable listed company. The U.S. government considers CXMT to be a national security risk. However, in the face of rising memory costs, Apple is reportedly testing CXMT chips for devices sold within China. 6. Samsung and Broadcom announced a $200 billion agreement to expand cooperation in memory and foundry technology. Even as the market grows uncertain about the level of spending on AI infrastructure, companies that design and manufacture chips continue to move forward. We own Broadcom for the Club because it is a leading designer of custom AI chips for big tech companies like Google and Meta Platform. This week we’ll be making money from Meta , Amazon , and Microsoft . 7. Important: The direction of Verizon’s price target reductions over the past few years has been decisively downward. This time, Barclays has raised its share price from $45 to $46, signaling a change of guard. Wells Fargo rose from $43 to $47, showing strong growth through year-end and into 2027. Still, Barclays and Wells maintained their ratings on the stock. Verizon is cashing in on the data center boom, signing a more than $1 billion fiber contract with Google. 8. A devastating phone call to another telecom giant. Wells lowered Charter’s price target to $101 from $160 and reiterated its sell rating. Analysts downgraded their outlook for broadband and said cable remains a tough business area. Barclays also lowered its PT from $130 to $115. Shares fell on Friday after Charter reported another quarterly subscriber decline and missed free cash flow estimates. 9. Barclays raised SLB’s PT from $64 to $67. Analysts cited the rebuilding of the Middle East and data center partnership with Meta as reasons for their bullishness. Bank of America stock rose from $56 to $57. If you think the cease-fire between the U.S. and Iran is a chimera, it’s the only oil services company worth joining. 10. SAP’s price target was lowered to $242 from Barclays’ $255. The German software company said rising demand for AI would strengthen its confidence in its outlook for the second half of the year, but analysts said short-term cost enforcement could be difficult to predict. That’s my concern with Palantir. Sign up for free for my Top 10 Morning Thoughts on the Markets email newsletter (See here for a complete list of Jim Cramer Charitable Trust stocks.) As a subscriber to Jim Cramer’s CNBC Investment Club, you’ll 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.
