Good news sends 2 non-tech stocks higher in Thursday’s down market
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. The S & P 500 and Nasdaq were sinking for the third straight session as the rotation out of tech and into the less flashy areas of the market persisted. The S & P 500 ‘s 1% decline on Thursday put the index in the red year to date. The Nasdaq ‘s 1.4% drop put the index deeper in negative territory in 2026. Very little was working — bitcoin and silver were cratering and investors were buying bonds for safety. For the Club, stocks tied to the consumer and health care were working in our diversified portfolio. Bristol Myers Squibb , which reported a nice beat and raise , led the way for us with a nearly 3.5% stock advance. Procter & Gamble was also among Club gainers again, up 1% on the session. Not surprisingly, Salesforce was down another 4.5%. Enterprise software stocks have been crushed recently on worries that companies will be able to use artificial intelligence tools to create platforms that they previously paid an enterprise software like Salesforce to do. They had tried to make a recovery until Anthropic launched its latest AI model, which is shown to be good at coding. Alphabet shares were still down more than 1.5% in afternoon trading, but were way off the day’s lows. That stock should never have been punished like it was earlier Thursday because the company Wednesday evening delivered on pretty much everything that we care about — namely, a great quarter, with strong cloud growth, showing its massive AI spending is making a difference. Boeing shares were higher in Thursday’s down market after Bloomberg reported that the aircraft maker and rival Airbus have been in talks with Saudi Arabia’s flagship carrier for a record-breaking jet order. The airline wants to purchase at least 150 widebody and narrowbody jets from the two. Saudia is still studying models from both Boeing and Airbus, but hasn’t made any final decisions on types or quantities. Boeing shares rose nearly 2% on the day. The report follows a bullish call from Citi analysts, who put an “upside 30-day catalyst watch” on Boeing and reiterated their buy rating. Citi argued that Boeing’s deliveries have “dramatically improved,” starting late last month, and have “suddenly caught up” to meet first-quarter estimates. More good news: Jefferies forecasted that Boeing could see its first new orders from China since 2017 after President Donald Trump , in a social media post Wednesday, touted his “extremely good” relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping . The analysts made the jump because aircraft deliveries have been used as bargaining chips in trade negotiations. Jim has been saying the same thing for months and has been very bullish on Boeing, whose stock has gained more than 10.5% year to date. Costco stock continued to rebound this year — shares advanced more than 1% on Thursday, contributing to a 15% gain in 2026. This came one day after the retailer posted another strong month of sales growth in January. Costco ‘s total core comparable sales, excluding fuel and foreign exchange, increased 6.4%, beating the consensus of 5.1%. Non-food items reaccelerated growth, followed by food & sundries and fresh foods. Top-line drivers included weather tailwinds from the winter storm, in addition to last month’s run-up in gold prices. That’s a benefit to Costco, which sells gold bars. The positive monthly print was followed by a series of price target raises on Wall Street. A healthy January on top of stronger-than-expected December results further signaled a turn to momentum, which has been boosting market confidence in a company that was perceived as a laggard just a few months ago. Up next: Amazon’s earnings after the bell . The Club published an analysis earlier in the day on how the cloud and e-commerce giant is aiming to make AI cheaper. It’s something that could determine the next move in Amazon ‘s lagging stock. Fortinet also releases earnings this evening. The results and stock reaction could serve as a read-through for our own cyber stocks Palo Alto Networks and CrowdStrike — both of which have been unfairly caught up in the enterprise software rout. Cybersecurity in this day and age is a must-have for companies. (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.
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