A huge day and week for Corning as the S&P 500 aims for record close
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. Stocks rose on Friday, putting the S & P 500 on pace for a record close thanks to a roughly 3.5% gain for the week. The Nasdaq Composite is still about 1.5% below its June 2 record close. It was a “bad news is good news” session for the broader economy and equities after the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said nonfarm payrolls fell by 23,000 in July. It was the first monthly decline in jobs since February. While there may have been some noise in the data due to employment tied to the FIFA World Cup from mid-June to mid-July, it was a big miss compared with the 83,000 increase expected, according to the Dow Jones consensus. There were also negative revisions of 103,000 jobs over the prior two months. Generally speaking, we prefer a strong labor market to signs of a softening one, but the bounce in equities happened alongside a small dip in Treasury yields as odds of a rate hike in September shifted. There’s now a 55% probability that the Fed holds rates unchanged at its September meeting, up from 45% on Thursday and just 33% one week ago, according to CME Fed Watch . Corning was the biggest gainer in the portfolio Friday after the Trump Administration announced a 15% tariff and minimum import price on imported polysilicon, the raw material used to create silicon wafers used in semiconductors and solar panels. The executive order, which will take effect on Dec. 4, was issued to protect domestic industry from Chinese competition. Corning stands to benefit because its Hemlock Semiconductor joint venture with Japan’s Shin-Etsu Handotai operates one of only two polysilicon plants in the United States. Tariffs aside, Corning was also the portfolio’s big winner for the week, rallying roughly 18% as the AI infrastructure theme continued its rebound from last week’s clearing event . The gains have pushed the stock about 13% above where it traded before last Tuesday’s initially poorly received earnings report . On Tuesday, we bought back a little more than half of the Corning shares we sold above $200 in June. Earnings season slows down next week , with only Cardinal Health in the portfolio scheduled to report. We’ll look to see if the company can follow in the footsteps of fellow drug and medical supply distributors Cencora and McKesson , both of which reported top- and bottom-line beats this past week. Other notable names reporting are Simon Property Group , On Holding , CoreWeave , Super Micro , Lumentum , Nebius , Brinker , Cisco Systems , Tapestry , and Applied Materials . Economic data will be especially important after today’s weak July jobs report. The CPI and PPI reports, due next Wednesday and Thursday, could shape monetary policy expectations ahead of the Federal Reserve’s Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium later this month. Other notable economic releases next week are retail sales and the University of Michigan consumer sentiment and inflation expectations. One more housekeeping note for next week. Our August Monthly Meeting is scheduled for Thursday at noon ET. Please send in your questions, and we’ll answer as many as we can during our livestream. (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.