My top 10 things to watch Wednesday, April 15 1. Stock futures are basically flat this morning as the S & P 500 sits within spitting distance of a new record close. We’ve had a remarkable comeback rally from the late March lows, leading to an extremely overbought market. Some consolidation may be in order. Our next Monthly Meeting for Investing Club subscribers is tomorrow at noon ET. Not too late to sign up here . 2. ASML blew away with the numbers in the first quarter. The Dutch maker of lithography machines used in making semiconductors also hiked its 2026 guidance. But is it enough to justify the continued record climb of Lam Research, KLA Corp and Applied Materials? The scramble to build more chipmaking capacity is a boon to these semicap names. 3. Morgan Stanley turned in a great quarter this morning , sending shares up over 2%. Massive beats on equities and fixed-income trading. Investment banking fees were also better than expected, as was wealth management. Has CEO Ted Pick made Morgan Stanley the new star of the banking show? Bank of America also beat expectations . 4. Wells Fargo reported good but not good enough quarterly numbers. The bank also detailed its private credit portfolio, including $36 billion in corporate debt financing, with 17% software exposure that could get hurt by Anthropic. BofA analysts cut their Wells Fargo price target and removed it from their best ideas list. Wells shares are steady this morning after yesterday’s 5.7% decline. 5. Handful of price target hikes on Johnson & Johnson after earnings yesterday. Barclays went to $255 from $234. Stifel went to $250 from $220. Both shops kept their hold ratings. We’re more optimistic on this Club name. Growth is picking up thanks to its strong pharma portfolio led by cancer and Tremfya. J & J is also shedding its slower-growing orthopedics unit. Could its vision franchise be next? 6. Baird upped its price target on CVS to $94 from $92 and reiterated its buy rating. This is one of my favorites within health care. CEO David Joyner has changed the narrative and laid out a path for mid-teens earnings growth. CVS is essentially the last man standing in retail drug stores, and it has insurer Aetna and pharmacy benefit manager Caremark to go with it. 7. Cloudflare got an upgrade at Piper Sandler to buy from hold, with a $222 price target that has room to run. The stock closed yesterday at $178. Analysts said the landscape of website security and speed is changing to edge distribution, which is terrific for this one. Cloudflare has servers around the world at the “edge,” or closer to where users are located, to boost speed while also acting like a centralized cloud. 8. Disappointing earnings from Gucci parent Kering and Hermes . Both luxury stocks are getting clobbered in European trading. Paris-based Hermes, in particular, is more dependent on the Middle East than we thought. Only analogue here in the U.S. would be Estee Lauder as our luxury goods are less intense. Citi lowered its Estee Lauder price target to $92 from $120. 9. Barclays raised its price target on Sempra to $105 from $95. Kept its buy rating. This is my favorite utility stock. People are looking for new ways to play the data center buildout, and Sempra fits the bill. It not only benefits from rising electricity demand, but it has an liquified natural gas (LNG) and pipeline business too. 10. Microsoft’s price target was lowered to $500 from $540 at Baird. Analysts said they’re expecting Club name Microsoft to report solid earnings in the coming weeks despite investors’ sour attitudes toward the name. My patience has been tested by this one. As much as I’ve admired CEO Satya Nadella and CFO Amy Hood, I need to see a better AI strategy. Sign up for my Top 10 Morning Thoughts on the Market email newsletter for free (See here for a full list of the stocks at 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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