My Top 10 Things to Watch Tuesday, April 21st 1. Iran ceasefire is scheduled to end tomorrow. Apple has a new CEO. Federal Reserve Chairman candidate Kevin Warsh testifies. There is no shortage of interesting things for investors today. Early on, they’re leaning bullish. Stocks are trending higher after falling yesterday. The Nasdaq ended its session winning streak at 13 on Monday. We will see if this morning’s pre-market gains in futures can be sustained through the close of trading. 2. The end of Apple’s era. On September 1, John Tarnas, senior vice president of hardware engineering, will take over the reins from CEO Tim Cook. Ternus was considered his successor. He spearheads Apple devices that use AI and is a champion of the sold-out MacBook Neo. Although more than qualified, he still has major challenges to meet. 3. Tim has done a great job leading Apple to a $4 trillion market cap. Since I took over in 2011, it has increased more than 20 times. I have learned a lot from him over the years. And the club has been handsomely compensated for owning the shares for most of his tenure. Thankfully, he continues to serve as Executive Chairman. 4. UnitedHealth delivered a beat-and-raise quarter like old times, with the stock up more than 7% this morning. This vast company has really improved with CEO Stephen Hemsley back at the helm. The medical benefit rate, a key industry metric, was 83.9%, well above the consensus of 85.5%. The company also plans to buy back at least $2 billion worth of stock by the end of the second quarter. 5. GE Aerospace’s quarter significantly beat expectations in both defense and commercial. Orders increased by 87% to $23 billion. Sales increased 25% to $12.39 billion. This company is committed to continuous improvement. Defense is the centerpiece and should continue to be, thanks to President Donald Trump’s $1.5 trillion budget proposal. Although there were travel issues to Asia and the US, management maintained previous guidance. Perhaps that’s why the stock fell 5% pre-market. 6. Club Name Amazon is stepping up its investment in Claudemaker Anthropic. An additional $5 billion has now been added, with an option for an additional $20 billion if certain commercial milestones are reached. There is a huge shortage of computing, and Amazon has the capacity to provide it. There will be a lot of discussion about reducing dependence on Nvidia. However, large dogs like Anthropics will want whatever they can get. 7. KeyBanc upgraded club name CrowdStrike to buy from hold, saying Anthropic’s strong Mythos model is actually a tailwind for cybersecurity providers as it encourages companies to spend more on protection. Full of common sense. CrowdStrike has a complete suite of cyber tools to help you win, not be eliminated. 8. Canaccord Genuity initiated coverage of AbbVie with a Buy rating and $262 price target. Analysts argued that AbbVie should tout its best-in-class immunology franchise, centered around Skyrizi and Rinvoq, and become the core of large-cap biopharma/biotech investors. Our newest club holding, Johnson & Johnson, will challenge that title. 9. Citigroup’s price target for optical component supplier Coherent was raised to $420 from $250. This is a tremendous increase, but it shows how important the topic of copper replacement is. More and more optical components will be deployed within data centers to meet the demands of AI workloads. Corning is our way of responding to club trends. 10. Big Tech’s financial results will be released next week. Trust is hoping for a big upside surprise from Alphabet. Analysts are predicting the second-highest revenue growth since 2022, supported by the strength of Google search and the cloud. Analysts are also optimistic about Metaplatform’s earnings, predicting the strongest revenue growth since 2021. Improved monetization through AI integration should help. Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon all reported April 29th. Looks like it’s going to be a busy night. 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.
