Stock markets hit new records during the holiday-shortened business week. On Friday, the S&P 500 hit a new intraday high, but closed slightly lower. Nevertheless, the index rose 1.4% last week, inflating its year-to-date gain by about 18%. Economic data last week showed a positive outlook for the economy, with weekly jobless claims and third-quarter GDP and inflation data uplifting investors. Last week’s rally also marked the beginning of a historically strong period for stocks known as the Santa Claus Rally, which lasted from the last five trading sessions of the year to the first two trading sessions of the new year. Since 1950, the S&P 500 has typically gained an average of 1.3% over the period, according to data from the Stock Trader’s Almanac. .SPX YTD Mountain S&P 500 (SPX) Year-to-date performance In a week where Wall Street won, we made some changes to our portfolio. On Monday, the club added Alphabet to its bullpen list of stocks to watch. We made the mistake of pulling back in March because we were concerned that Google’s Gemini wasn’t advanced enough to catch up with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. A Justice Department crackdown that required Google to separate its Chrome browser didn’t help either. But a lot has changed since then. Google announced Gemini 3. This quickly became a leading candidate for large-scale language models. Additionally, Google trained and ran Gemini 3 on custom silicon co-developed with club namesake Broadcom. This is attracting interest from other companies and could be a new source of revenue. Headwinds related to Alphabet’s Justice Department lawsuit have largely subsided. On Wednesday, we added to our position in Nike after its stock price fell following a mixed earnings report. We think this weakness is overstated and are encouraged by news that Nike board members Apple CEO Tim Cook and former Intel CEO Bob Swan recently bought more shares. Insider buying is a big sign of confidence in management’s future, and can indicate that people close to the company think the stock is undervalued. Overall, we remain optimistic about Nike’s turnaround story under CEO Elliott Hill. It’s just taking more time than expected. Nike is one of five blue-chip club stocks expected to rise in 2026. Others include Starbucks, Amazon, Palo Alto Networks, and Eaton. Last week, we published an analysis of Amazon. Here’s the breakdown. After a 2025 rocked by concerns about cloud growth and the impact of tariffs on retail, Amazon stock is poised to move higher into next year. We believe there are three potential catalysts for the upside going forward. They are: continued growth in Amazon’s cloud computing division, continued profit growth from advertising, and further momentum in the company’s e-commerce and advertising businesses. Amazon stock is up 6% in 2025, making it the worst performer of the so-called Magnificent Seven stocks. (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.
