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: Stocks continued their recent decline on Tuesday as mega-cap tech stocks lagged on concerns about valuations in the artificial intelligence industry. The S&P 500 index neared its fourth straight loss, marking its worst losing streak since August. Club stocks Amazon and Microsoft weighed on the market, falling 4% and 2.7%, respectively, in the afternoon. A 1.5% drop in Club Holding Nvidia didn’t help the mood either, with the release of its long-awaited earnings report on Wednesday evening. The club also had a busy day with trades. We bought more after Home Depot’s earnings fell, and sold half of our Disney stock after last week’s disappointing quarter. In the second half of the session, we posted a big profit on Eli Lilly while increasing our position on Nike. The club also initiated a position at Procter & Gamble, the consumer giant with household brands such as Tide, Crest and Gillette. Deal Closed: Salesforce completed its $8.3 billion acquisition of AI-powered data management company Informatica ahead of schedule. Both companies were aiming for completion early next year. “The market wasn’t too concerned about this deal when it was announced in May,” Jeff Marks, the club’s director of portfolio analysis, said Tuesday afternoon, noting that Salesforce stock fell on the deal and its announcement days later. Marks added that the early completion of the acquisition is a “good sign of confidence in the combination, with Salesforce expecting this transaction to be accretive to non-GAAP operating margins and non-GAAP earnings per share one year earlier than originally anticipated.” Despite these positive developments, Marks said Salesforce is still a “show me” story. Salesforce has yet to convince investors that AI does not threaten the software giant’s core business, which operates using a seat-based model. Shares fell more than 1.5% in Tuesday trading. Big win: Meta Platforms won a big victory Tuesday afternoon in an important antitrust case against the Federal Trade Commission. A federal judge ruled that the FTC has not proven Meta’s claims that it holds a monopoly in the social networking space or that Meta should not have been allowed to acquire Instagram and WhatsApp in 2012 and 2014, respectively. Officials who wanted to sell these two divisions argued that major apps like Facebook and Instagram do not exist. But the judge said there were plenty of competitors, citing TikTok and YouTube as examples, and argued that the social media landscape has fundamentally changed since Meta’s acquisition more than a decade ago. Shares in the club’s name, Meta, turned positive late Tuesday. The ruling in Meta’s favor comes 10 weeks after Alphabet Inc.’s Google avoided the stiffest fine in an antitrust case it lost last year. Good news: iPhone sales in China soared in October, increasing Apple’s dominance of the country’s smartphone market to one in every four phones sold, according to the latest data from Counterpoint Research. The last time Apple achieved this milestone was in 2022. Overall, sales of Apple’s flagship devices in China rose 37% year over year last month. Analysts at Counterpoint pointed to solid demand for the iPhone 17, especially its growing market share. According to Counterpoint, all three iPhone 17 models outsold the iPhone 16 model in sales and posted mid-to-high double-digit growth rates year over year. The base model of iPhone 17 continued to grow at the fastest pace. Apple stock rose slightly on Tuesday. Jim Cramer has been working hard on the new iPhone since its release in September. He previously described the debut as “huge” and claimed Apple’s latest device is a “bargain” compared to past versions. The club maintains its long-held stance regarding Apple stock: “Own it, don’t trade it.” What’s next: The club that owns TJX, along with other retailers such as Target and Lowe’s, is scheduled to report quarterly results on Wednesday morning. Then, the club names Nvidia and Palo Alto Networks will report their results after the market closes on Wednesday. Investors will also be able to obtain minutes from the October Fed meeting on Wednesday at 2pm ET. (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.
