Every weekday the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer holds a “Morning Meeting” livestream at 10:20 a.m. ET. Here’s a recap of Thursday’s key moments. 1. U.S. stocks declined Thursday after initially brushing off December’s hotter-than-expected consumer price index . The Dow , the S & P 500 and the Nasdaq turned lower following a reversal to the upside in bond yields. The market should not have shrugged off the CPI. If investors are buying up stocks based solely on upcoming expected Fed interest rate cuts, Jim Cramer said Thursday they should consider selling. The CPI reading does not help the case for a March rate reduction. But Jim said if investors are like us at the Club and looking to buy shares of great companies for the long term, there are still good things ahead. 2. Baird upgraded Salesforce to outperform from a neutral (buy from hold) rating. Analysts argued Salesforce’s “price increases, the potential return of front office spend, and crisper sales execution should drive upside.” However, Jim said this was a call made too late, noting the stock’s near double in 2023. He said he would hold off buying more Salesforce shares until we get new news, not just analyst notes. Oppenheimer on Wednesday named Salesforce a top pick. JPMorgan was positive on Tuesday. Wolfe Research boosted its rating on the stock last month. 3. Tech layoffs continued, with Alphabet ‘s Google confirming to CNBC Thursday that it conducted a round of job cuts. The news follows this week’s disclosure of layoffs at Amazon ‘s MGM Studios and Prime Video businesses. Amazon management’s focus on efficiency and cost-cutting is great, but this is not the time to buy more shares of the e-commerce and cloud giant. Following last year’s climb in Magnificent Seven names, we expect these high-quality stocks to continue to take a breather. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long CRM, AMZN, GOOGL. See here for a full list of the stocks.) 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.
Read the full article here