Every weekday, the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer releases the Homestretch — an actionable afternoon update, just in time for the last hour of trading on Wall Street. Market surge: The S & P 500 jumped almost 2% to record highs Thursday in a delayed reaction to the Federal Reserve lowering the fed funds rate by 50 basis points on Wednesday. The Dow rose roughly 1.5% on Thursday, topping 42,000 for the first time ever. The Nasdaq , which has been hit the hardest since July records, gained nearly 3% on Thursday and was on pace to close just a few percent away from all-time highs. Good economic data buoyed the gains, with weekly jobless claims falling more than expected and to a four-month low. The market is favoring a 25-basis-point cut at the Fed’s November meeting and another 50 in December. Tech leading: Tech may have lost some leadership in recent months in favor of the broadening-out trade into stocks that benefit from rate cuts. But the sector roared back Thursday. Advanced Micro Devices was one of the top performing stocks in the S & P 500, surging roughly 7%, one day after Jim Cramer’s sit down with CEO Lisa Su on “Mad Money.” Salesforce was having a strong session as well, taking in stride the late-day Wall Street Journal report that Disney will no longer use Salesforce-owned Slack after a data hack. Salesforce seems to be rallying 5% Thursday on the positive reception to this week’s annual Dreamforce conference where management provided more details about its new AI solutions. In a note published Wednesday, Barclays said they think Salesforce’s “emerging AI agent story” could become the stock’s next catalyst —so, monitoring customer adoption in the quarters ahead will be very important to the story. Defensives lag: Only three S & P 500 sectors are in the red: utilities, real estate, and consumer staples. All three benefit in their own ways from lower rates, but these groups are not participating in the rally. Part of this may be due to some selling on the news. Another factor is that while short-term rates are lower, the 10-year Treasury yield has actually increased over the past two days. Additionally, the rally has a much more cyclical tilt on the idea that rate cuts will spur more economic growth. All week, we were debating taking more profits in Procter & Gamble ahead of the Fed announcement. We already sold 25 shares at about $176 two weeks ago, but our thinking was these defensive groups could start to lag if the Fed went big and cut rates by 50 basis points. We decided not to sell more as a hedge in case the Fed went 25. Remember, the size of the cut was heavily debated into the announcement. We have plenty of economically sensitive stocks that could make up for a dip in our now small-sized P & G position. Uncertain events are why we stay diversified. Up next: After Thursday’s closing bell, delivery giant FedEx and Lennar , one of the biggest homebuilders in the country, report quarterly earnings. There are no major earning reports or economic data out Friday. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long AMD, CRM, DIS, PG. See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
Every weekday, the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer releases the Homestretch — an actionable afternoon update, just in time for the last hour of trading on Wall Street.
