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. Note: This article has been updated since its original publication to include new information about Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s social media posts. Stocks recovered from early losses and oil fell to the low $80s after the International Energy Agency announced it was meeting G7 energy ministers in Paris to share views on global oil and gas markets. In light of the current situation, the IEA announced that it will hold an extraordinary meeting with member governments later on Tuesday to assess security of supply and market conditions and decide whether to make emergency stocks available to the market. The IEA said member countries have more than 1.2 billion barrels of public emergency oil reserves, plus a further 600 million barrels of industry stocks held under government obligations, providing short-term firepower to offset supply disruptions. The stock market rally initially gained momentum as oil prices fell below $80 a barrel shortly after 1 p.m. ET after U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s post on X claiming the U.S. had successfully escorted an oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz was later deleted. Later, the White House said the United States was not escorting ships through the critical oil shipping route. As traders digested the confusion, oil prices pulled back from their trading lows, eventually settling at $83.45, down 12%. Meanwhile, as of 2:40 p.m. ET, the S&P 500 had cut its high for the day and was only slightly up. We downgrade Microsoft’s rating as the stock price has found stable footing. A few weeks ago, at the February monthly meeting, Jim expressed his concerns about Microsoft and regretted not selling Microsoft last year. “This is what I’m worried about,” he said. “I fell asleep on this company and wasn’t paying enough attention. It has the weakest AI business, Copilot, and a cloud computing division, Azure, that is now the envy of the industry. Frankly, they should have sold Microsoft.” To better align Jim’s view with our rating system, we are changing the rating on Microsoft stock from 1 to 2, which is equivalent to a hold. Why not sell here? There are several reasons. Stocks are cheap relative to history. The company’s stock is currently trading at about 21 times expected fiscal year 2027 earnings per share, below the 10-year average of 23.5 times, according to a recent report by Jefferies analysts. The company is also expected to generate more than $70 billion in free cash flow in both fiscal years 2026 and 2027, meaning it does not intend to grow its balance sheet to invest in AI. Finally, Jim said the company’s reluctance to sell is due to fears that the company will figure out a way to solve the AI problem. As business owners allocate more compute to Azure and less compute to Copilot, they will generate a better ROI on their investment. Quality control is the best thing Boeing can do to avoid the headlines. Unfortunately, there was a step-down negative update on Tuesday, sending the stock down slightly. The aircraft manufacturer announced that deliveries of some 737 MAX aircraft have been delayed after wiring issues were discovered. These delays may impact first quarter delivery times, but the issues are not long-term. Boeing said the fix could be completed in a matter of days and would not affect current 737 MAX production rates. The fewer mistakes a company makes, the more confident the market is that past problems are behind them, and the more confidence investors have in the company’s ability to generate $10 billion in free cash flow by 2028. As confidence increases, the market should reward stocks with higher multiples. This latest issue isn’t a minor event that would change our broader thinking about Boeing, but it’s still disappointing to see. Next up: Oracle will report earnings after its earnings release, but what the company says about capital spending and its backlog could influence sentiment around demand for AI computing. AeroVironment also reported results. Before the opening bell on Wednesday, Campbell’s will report earnings and the Consumer Price Index report for February will be released. The latter does not take into account the recent oil crisis, but remains important for the broader inflation picture. (See here for a complete list of Jim Cramer Charitable Trust stocks.) 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