The S&P 500 index had its best week since November after the United States and Iran agreed to a temporary ceasefire. President Donald Trump announced late Tuesday that he would halt attacks on Iran for two weeks, sending stocks soaring. On Wednesday, the S&P 500 rose 2.5% and the Nasdaq rose 2.8%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average had its best day since April 2025. “We have a barn burner, and I would say it’s pretty widespread,” Jim Cramer said of Wednesday’s market action. This session reminded us how important diversification is. If the club had exited stocks hit hard by overseas wars, such as energy stocks, it would have missed out on the rally in economically sensitive stocks. Jim pointed to Home Depot, which soared 5.5% on Wednesday and is up 4.8% since the start of the week. Market gains subsided on Friday, but the S&P 500 index still ended the week up 3.6%. The Dow and Nasdaq rose more than 3% and 4.7%, respectively. All three benchmarks had their best week since November. It wasn’t just the easing of tensions in the Middle East that boosted stock prices. Here are three more factors that have impacted the market. Inflation Wall Street received its first update on inflation since the Iran war broke out on February 28th. Investors are concerned that rising oil prices will spill over into the U.S. economy. The consumer price index rose a seasonally adjusted 0.9% in March, pushing annual inflation to 3.3%, both in line with analysts’ expectations. This gain was driven by a 10.9% increase in energy costs. However, core prices excluding energy and food were better than expected, suggesting that underlying inflation is under control. Markets remain uncertain given the fragile status of the ceasefire. One wild card for stocks is the peace talks between the US and Iran scheduled for this weekend in Pakistan. “I don’t think it’s been given enough consideration,” he said at a Friday morning assembly. Software Sales Hardware purchase and software sales transactions are back in full swing this week. Investors flocked to companies that helped build data centers and AI infrastructure, while fleeing companies they perceived as under threat. “When you’re in the software camp, you’re treated like you’re ready to be embalmed,” Jim said on Thursday’s “Mad Money.” “If you’re in the hardware and AI camp, you’re going to the great temple.” Jim said stocks that are “underperforming” are semiconductor companies, pointing to Marvell Technology and Intel, which ended the week up 20% and 23%, respectively. Corning, which makes optical fiber for AI data centers, rose 15.7%. The other side of the deal was software. Salesforce fell for the fifth consecutive session in Friday trading and is down nearly 12% for the week. It was also the club’s worst weekly result. Adobe fell 7.2%. The IGV Software ETF, a benchmark software index, fell about 7%. Jim said that because “this ETF is the primary vehicle by which large institutions bet on and bet on software,” its performance will be an important measure of Wall Street sentiment. Cyber and other non-traditional software names in the fund become collateral damage. CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks are down 5% and 4.5%, respectively, since the start of the week. Meta ramps up AI efforts More good news for the portfolio. Meta announced a new AI model on Wednesday, sending its stock price plummeting. It’s called Muse Spark and is the first in the company’s new Muse series, developed by Meta Superintelligence Labs. Meta leverages AI to benefit its advertising business, but it lags behind in building its own popular AI models. Rama’s debut film was not well received. The company is now entering a market dominated by Google Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, and OpenAI’s ChatGPT. If Meta is successful, Wall Street will have more confidence in its aggressive AI spending plans. Management previously expected fiscal 2026 capital spending to be between $115 billion and $135 billion, up from nearly $70 billion last year. Meta stock rose 9.6% last week, driven in part by the broader market rally. (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.
