Here’s a rapid-fire update on all the stocks in Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust, the portfolio we use for the CNBC Investing Club. Jim broke down each holding on Wednesday during the October Monthly Meeting. 1. Apple: Don’t worry about Wall Street’s bearish commentary on this stock ahead of quarterly earnings. If the tech giant doesn’t post stellar results on Oct. 31, there’s still a long-term catalyst coming its way thanks to the impending rollout of Apple Intelligence. As the Club has long argued, integration of AI features in the iPhone will propel an upgrade cycle. Still, investors should be patient. Own, don’t trade this stock. 2. Abbott Laboratories: The diversified health-care company reported a terrific quarter Wednesday , raising the midpoint of its earnings guidance for the third straight time and announcing a $7 billion buyback program to boot. The litigation risk tied to its premature infant formula hasn’t completely dissipated, though it has eased somewhat , so we’re being patient before adding to our position. 3. Advanced Micro Devices: AMD is a distant No. 2 in the AI chip market to fellow Club holding Nvidia, but the industry needs a No. 2. It’s frustrating that AMD shares have lagged peers this year considering CEO Lisa Su has steadily upped her forecast for AI chip sales. At the least that gave us an opportunity to add to the position Tuesday . 4. Amazon.com: Amazon is a best-of-breed company worth owning for the long haul. It got hit with a downgrade earlier this month by Wells Fargo, but that didn’t shake our view on the stock. The company has been forced to contend with multiple headwinds for pretty much its entire existence and exiting the stock out of fear has proven to be a mistake. 5. Broadcom: Of course, we love the company’s AI business — both its custom silicon solutions for companies such as Alphabet and its networking chips that help stitch data centers together. But its exposure to smartphones as a supplier to Apple and the personal computer market is poised to turn into a tailwind after a period of weakness. That’s another reason to like the stock here. 6. Best Buy: Sales for this electronics retailer should improve as the Federal Reserve delivers more interest rate cuts. Lower borrowing costs means a pickup in housing, which is good news for demand of Best Buy’s appliances and televisions. Jim reiterated his stance that PC sales also will eventually improve on the back of AI adoption. To be sure, that seems more like a 2025 catalyst than initially hoped. 7. BlackRock : We initiated a position Wednesday in the asset manager after it posted a blowout quarterly earnings report last week. It’s one of our two new positions and the Club’s third financial name in the portfolio. 8. Costco Wholesale: Shares have stalled after a big run, but that’s hardly unusual considering that in the past year the company has delivered both a special dividend payment and hiked membership fees. Jim said Costco is trading at an excellent level to start a position, though he added that investors should leave enough room to buy more if the stock is dinged on tangential headlines that don’t impact its business. 9. Salesforce: The enterprise software provider has emerged as Jim’s favorite non-hardware AI play thanks to its enhanced chatbot tools known as Agentforce . Other investors are bullish on the story, too, evidenced by Salesforce being one of our top-performing stocks since the September Monthly Meeting. 10. CrowdStrike : We also called up this cybersecurity company from the Bullpen on Wednesday. Jim believes cloud-native CrowdStrike has a solid position in the market when it comes to attracting customers that have recently migrated to the cloud. 11. Coterra Energy: We’re grateful this is our only oil-and-gas position because it has been weighed down by depressed natural gas prices. The potential for the company to be acquired — like we saw with former Club holding Pioneer Natural Resources — is still something we’re watching, but it’s not the reason we own it. We view the stock as a hedge on geopolitics and it’s a small position. 12. DuPont: Lower interest rates are an interesting wrinkle to the company’s forthcoming split into three companies, which we’ve repeatedly championed as a win for shareholders . If any companies wanted to make a bid for the soon-to-be-standalone DuPont divisions — most notably its water business — they would likely need to use some debt to fund the purchase. In general, that debt is cheaper when the Fed’s benchmark lending rate is lower. 13. Danaher: The life-sciences company has pulled back from its 2024 highs of about $280 a share in early August. To get back there and climb even higher to, say, $300, Danaher will need to see an increase in initial public offerings from biotech startups, which generally use some of the money raised in the transaction to purchase its equipment. 14. Walt Disney: If shares of Disney slide below the $90 level — roughly 4% lower than the stock’s Tuesday close — then the Club would purchase more shares. That’s because the entertainment giant has more upside in store if management is able to hone in and successfully grow its theme park business. Plus, we have seen some profits in its previously unprofitable streaming division, which encompasses Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu. The overall recovery in Disney, however, is not going as fast as we hoped. 15. Dover: This is an industrial stock that benefits from generative AI adoption. That’s because of its exposure to end markets like data centers. Dover’s thermal connectors used to in the liquid cooling of servers should see increased demand as data center spending continues to grow. 16. Eaton: Shares of Eaton also are perfectly positioned to benefit from the fast growth of data centers. The energy consumption required to operate these facilities continues to increase on the back of AI adoption. In turn, sales for Eaton’s power management offerings should rise. There’s little negative to say about this stock. 17. GE Healthcare: China has been a thorn on its side, and it turned out that elevated interest rates were a bigger headwind to sales of the company’s expensive medical machines than we initially realized. China may improve next year, while the rate reduction is underway now. At around $90 a share, we’re not eager to buy more. But the stock should be able to climb higher over time. 18. Alphabet: This is Jim’s least favorite stock among megacap tech if Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, wins the election in November. That is because if Harris leaves the same Biden-appointed antitrust officials in their roles, the Google parent will probably remain under regulatory fire . For now, we’re taking a wait-and-see approach due to the antitrust overhang. 19. Home Depot: Easing monetary policy means more housing market activity, which should boost Home Depot’s sales. Jim described the company as the No. 1 retailer in a lower rate environment. Damage caused by storms in the southern U.S. — which we wished never happened — is also likely to increase sales during the rebuilding process. We’ll likely learn more on Home Depot’s next earnings call. 20. Honeywell International: Investor sentiment on the conglomerate improved after management on Oct. 8 announced a plan to spin off its advanced materials business. The stock made a move higher, but not enough to catch up with its industrial peers. Jim’s not itching to sell. We’re waiting to see the benefits of Honeywell divesting this non-core business before we make our next move. 21. Linde: We remain impressed with this stock because it continues to deliver for shareholders, regardless of what the Fed does. Just look at the industrial gas supplier’s quarterly earnings. Linde has beat earnings per share estimates each quarter for the past five years. That is partly due to Linde’s pricing power. The company’s very high up in the supply chain, which allows it to pass down costs to customers. 22. Eli Lilly: For the world’s most valuable pharmaceutical firm, it’s currently all about GLP-1s drugs for weight loss and diabetes. And business is booming. We hope that over time the same becomes true for its new Alzheimer’s drug Kisunla. Lilly isn’t promoting it aggressively just yet because there’s a lot of moving pieces required to get patients screened and started with treatment. That’s a wise decision. 23. Meta Platforms: Investors just received another reason to stay long this stock. There may be more upside in store for Meta’s advertising business after Adobe launched its new AI-powered video tool for marketing. This, in theory, makes creating content easier, which is good news for the Instagram parent’s social media platforms. 24. Morgan Stanley: This bank stock is finally out of the doghouse. While the Club previously debated exiting Morgan Stanley for peer Goldman Sachs , quarterly earnings on Wednesday showed that the bank’s recovery story remains intact. Growth in its investment banking division looks promising, especially given loosening monetary policy. 25. Microsoft: Jim dismissed concerns around the company’s AI prospects after recent downbeat headlines about Microsoft’s virtual assistant Copilot. D.A. Davidson analysts, for example, cut the stock’s rating to neutral from buy last month, arguing Microsoft has lost its edge in the heated AI arms race. We’re holding out hope for the return on investment in its AI strategy, though, especially given CEO Satya Nadella’s track record of delivering for shareholders. 26. Nvidia: The leading AI chipmaker cannot make its processors fast enough to satisfy all the demand from customers — the very definition of a high-quality problem. Plus, Nvidia is wisely building out its software ecosystem to widen its competitive moat. Shares pulled back sharply Tuesday, which Jim described as an opportunity for investors without a position to start one . 27. Nextracker: When we took a stake in the solar company this summer, it was done as a more speculative long-term play. Unfortunately, the short term has been painful due to various factors including some project delays and election risk. Lower rates should help, though, because large-scale solar projects are expensive and typically require financing. 28. Palo Alto Networks: We’re happy with this cybersecurity leader. Palo Alto rewarded us for our patience with a recent big jump for the stock. Shares are up 7% in the past month, outperforming the S & P 500 ‘s roughly 3% gain. We battled the stock for months after volatile trading earlier in 2024. Jim said cybersecurity is among the fastest-growing end markets in tech, second only to AI. 29. Starbucks: This is not a particularly rate-sensitive stock. It is leadership sensitive, though, and thankfully it is now being run by the stellar Brian Niccol, formerly of Chipotle . We don’t know his full strategy just yet, but we do know he cares about execution. We’re committed to giving Niccol time to implement his turnaround vision and await more details during its upcoming earnings call. 30. Constellation Brands: We added to our position Monday on a belief that its post-earnings decline is overdone. While the quarter contained a blemish on its beer business, that is a short term problem and the declining Hispanic unemployment seen in the September jobs report helps support that view. The Modelo and Corona parent has excellent cash flow and is wisely using some of it to repurchase stock. 31. Stanley Black & Decker: Jim said that this stock is the “most significant beneficiary” from lower rates in the entire portfolio. Lower borrowing costs means more housing market activity, and in turn, more renovations. This can spur demand for the toolmaker’s products. Plus, it pays to wait it out in the stock, with its roughly 3% dividend yield. 32. TJX Companies: We’re happy with the off-price retailer’s standing in the portfolio. TJX has posted sales and earnings beats in each of the past four consecutive quarters. In fact, we raised our price target on shares after the earnings release in August. The stock has found some momentum. Shares are up nearly 3% in the past five sessions while the S & P 500 has advanced less than 1%. 33. Wells Fargo: Regardless of how fast the Fed lowers rates, CEO Charlie Scharf has positioned the firm to succeed. Wells Fargo’s great quarter Wednesday showed management has made strides to build out its divisions that don’t rely so heavily on the central bank’s next move. Just look at the growth last quarter in the more durable fee-based income, which jumped nearly 12% year over year, surpassing analysts’ expectations. (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.
Here’s a rapid-fire update on all the stocks in Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust, the portfolio we use for the CNBC Investing Club. Jim broke down each holding on Wednesday during the October Monthly Meeting.
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