The stock market has continued to rise since the last CNBC Investment Club monthly meeting, but behind the scenes there has been a change of leadership. The Dow Jones Industrial Average led the way, gaining 2.3% from June 17 to Wednesday’s close. The 30-stock average closed at a record high on July 6, but has declined slightly in recent days. The S&P 500 is up 2.1% since its June meeting, while the Nasdaq is up a more modest 1%. As Thursday morning’s losses further evidence, investors are becoming increasingly selective about their exposure to artificial intelligence. Cybersecurity stocks rose another notch last month as Wall Street’s latest AI winners continued their recovery from a late-2025 decline into this spring. Companies that offered a clearer path to monetizing large AI investments also attracted buyers. At the same time, investors shifted to more defensive areas of the market as renewed concerns about war with Iran created further uncertainty. (We excluded Honeywell Aerospace from the list because it wasn’t spun off until June 29.) Ahead of the July monthly meeting livestream starting at noon ET, let’s take a look at what the top three and bottom three companies have moved since their last meeting. Top performers Palo Alto Networks up 25.5%, CrowdStrike up 21.7% Both of these cybersecurity companies hit their highest since their last monthly meeting as the AI industry solidified its position as a winner rather than a loser. Earlier this year, investors worried that artificial intelligence would disrupt the industry. They are now betting that AI will only increase the demand for cybersecurity. The subject first gained attention after Anthropic’s Mythos model reignited concerns about AI-powered cyber threats in April. The latest bull run began after the Wall Street Journal reported that Chinese AI models are becoming nearly as capable as major U.S. platforms at identifying software vulnerabilities. Rather than seeing that as a threat, investors saw another reason why companies needed to spend more to protect their systems. IBM CEO Arvind Krishna gave another boost to Palo Alto and CrowdStrike this week by pre-announcement of disappointing second-quarter results ahead of next week’s scheduled earnings release. He said cybersecurity is one of three areas where companies are increasingly prioritizing their IT spending. We capitalized on the surge in both stocks to reduce our positions and lock in gains of nearly 150% in Palo Alto and 105% in CrowdStrike while maintaining our long-term confidence in both companies. Both stocks are near all-time highs. Meta rises 20% The parent company of Facebook and Instagram went from being one of the worst performing companies heading into June’s monthly meeting to being one of the best performing companies heading into July’s meeting. The turnaround comes as Meta finally gives investors greater confidence in its plans to monetize its massive artificial intelligence investment. Meta recently announced plans to launch a cloud business that would lease excess computing power to external customers, something Jim has spent weeks advocating for. The company also introduced new AI products for developers and advertisers and signaled a broader shift to charging for AI capabilities, rather than relying primarily on open source releases. Reuters also reported that Meta plans to start manufacturing custom AI chips later this year, aiming to increase computing power. In response to the report, Bank of America analysts said Meta’s custom chip efforts could lead to meaningful cost savings. The company estimated that Meta would spend about $45 billion per gigawatt of computing power, but now believes that number could be closer to $22 billion. This announcement sent Meta’s stock price up 15% last week, making it the best-performing stock in our portfolio. Apple up 10.7% The iPhone maker recovered during the period as investors gained confidence in the company’s artificial intelligence strategy. Earlier this year, Apple announced a multi-year partnership with Alphabet to integrate Google’s Gemini into Apple Intelligence, allaying concerns that Siri was lagging behind rival AI assistants. That optimism continued after the company unveiled a revamped AI platform at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June, reinforcing the view that Apple may not need to build an industry-leading AI model if it can deliver the best user experience across its installed base of roughly 1.5 billion iPhones. The Street also came up with the idea that Apple could get into the AI race without spending all of its free cash flow. The stock soared in late June after Apple announced price hikes across its MacBook and iPad lineups, as rising memory prices rippled through the tech industry. Analysts at KeyBanc warned that the price hikes, combined with reduced subsidies for wireless carriers, could delay device upgrades and weigh on future growth, while analysts at Citi argued that the price increases would have a limited impact on demand and largely offset the rise in memory costs. We continue to see improvements in Apple’s AI roadmap as a larger long-term catalyst, especially ahead of the broader rollout of Apple Intelligence later this year. The stock closed at a record high on Wednesday. Intel, the lowest ranked company, has fallen by 15% The semiconductor giant has fallen from its peak during the period as investors switched from multiple semiconductor stocks due to the group’s strong performance. We took advantage of that weakness to add to our position on Wednesday, viewing this decline as a buying opportunity rather than a sign that AI trading is losing momentum. Intel remains Jim’s favorite stock in the portfolio due to the growing central processing unit (CPU) opportunity in the company’s AI and foundry businesses. “I want Inter, but there are too many ways to win,” he said in a Wednesday morning meeting. Despite having had a tough month and coming under pressure again on Thursday, Inter is still up more than 170% year-to-date. FedEx Freight Drops 12.4% Less-than-truckload (LTL) leader FedEx has struggled since becoming independent in early June, but we believe this weakness reflects a common post-spinoff pattern rather than deteriorating fundamentals. Many of the shareholders who received shares in the spin-off are likely to have chosen to sell, creating short-term pressure. The company’s first earnings report as a standalone business after transitioning to calendar-year reporting was somewhat unusual, but both sales and operating profit exceeded expectations. But Margin faced the same fuel surcharge headwinds that weighed on its former parent. We continue to view FedEx Freight as a long-term winner and are using the recent decline as a buying opportunity. As the largest LTL player in North America, FedEx Freight is well-positioned to benefit as the freight cycle recovers. Qnity Electronics falls 10.5% Similar to Intel’s struggles, the DuPont spinoff has also regained some of its recent gains as semiconductor stocks have retreated after strong gains earlier this year. The weakness was further exacerbated by Qnity’s largest customer, Samsung Electronics, which delivered results that Jim described as “excellent but not good enough.” The results raised new questions about demand for Samsung products, and Qnity shares fell about 4% in subsequent trading. We believe this decline is a short-term reaction rather than a change in long-term theme. However, like Intel, Qnity had a strong but not very strong 2026, increasing by about 70%. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long PANW, CRWD, META, JNJ, INTC, FDXF, Q. See here for a complete list of 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.
