Every portfolio stock is higher in Tuesday's market rally. Here's our top performer
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. Markets: The S & P 500 surged 2% on Tuesday after President Donald Trump said he would delay the 50% tariff on the European Union that he threatened Friday. Stocks had dropped last Friday amid concerns that investors had grown too complacent about trade tensions and that high tariffs might soon return. This recent episode served as a reminder that the risk of increased tariffs is always present. However, it's important not to overreact. Tariffs can just as easily be rolled back if meaningful progress is made toward on a trade agreement — or in the case of the EU, progress is made toward scheduling trade talks. Feeling better : Also boosting stocks was a better-than-expected Conference Board reading on consumer confidence for May. The index increased 12.3 points to 98, breaking five straight months of declines. The U.S. and China agreeing on May 12 to reduce tariffs for 90 days looks to be a big driver of the rebound since about half of the responses were collected after that announcement. The cutoff day for these preliminary results was May 19. The encouraging data brought in a wave of buying to consumer discretionary stocks, namely in travel and retail, since their sales tend to be better when the consumer is feeling better about the future. Club names Amazon , Home Depot , Starbucks , TJX Companies , and Texas Roadhouse are the consumer discretionary stocks in the portfolio. For Texas Roadhouse, shares rallied to their highest level of 2025 and were nearing their record-high close of $205.27 back in late November. During last week's Monthly Meeting, Jim said he was pleased with the rally and that we might trim if the stock goes above $200. Biotech deal: Eli Lilly announced Tuesday it bought a private biotech company called SiteOne for up to $1 billion in cash. SiteOne's lead drug candidate is STX-004, a Phase 2-ready, next-generation, non-opioid treatment for patients suffering from chronic pain. It makes sense for Club name Lilly to expand its pipeline into the non-opioid pain field given the success of Vertex Pharmaceuticals' Journavx, which was approved by the FDA earlier this year and was the first in this new class of pain management medicines. On May 1, Eli Lilly delivered better-than-expected quarterly results, with sales of its popular GLP-1 diabetes and obesity medications exceeding estimates. However, a GLP-1 partnership between CVS Health and Novo Nordisk sent Lilly shares tumbling. On May 22, we added to our Lilly position on the dip. Up next: The identity protection firm Okta reports earnings after Tuesday's close. Before Wednesday's opening bell, Macy's , Abercrombie & Fitch , and Capri Holdings report. Dick's Sporting Goods reports, too, but provided preliminary first quarter results two weeks ago after announcing its plans to buy Foot Locker . Wednesday is a light day for economic data, with weekly mortgage applications and the Richmond Fed Manufacturing Index being the only key reports on the schedule. (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.
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.
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The first aircraft to get the designation was a propeller-powered C-54 Skymaster, which ferried Franklin D. Roosevelt to the Yalta Conference in 1945. It featured a conference room with a bulletproof window. Things are a lot more complicated these days. Boeing has spent years stripping down and rebuilding two 747s to replace the versions that have carried presidents for more than three decades. The project is slated to cost more than $5.3 billion and may not be finished before Trump leaves office. A 2021 report made public through the Freedom of Information Act outlines the unclassified requirements for the replacement 747s under construction. At the top of the list — survivability and communications. The government decided more than a decade ago that the new planes had to have four engines so they could remain airborne if one or two fail, said Deborah Lee James, who was Air Force secretary at the time. That creates a challenge because 747s are no longer manufactured, which could make spare parts harder to come by. Air Force One also has to have the highest level of classified communications, anti-jamming capabilities and external protections against foreign surveillance, so the president can securely command military forces and nuclear weapons during a national emergency. It's an extremely sensitive and complex system, including video, voice and data transmissions. James said there are anti-missile measures and shielding against radiation or an electromagnetic pulse that could be caused by a nuclear blast. 'The point is, it remains in flight no matter what,' she said. Will Trump want all the security bells and whistles? If the Qatari plane is retrofitted to presidential standards, it could cost $1.5 billion and take years, according to a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details that aren't publicly available. Testifying before Congress this week, Meink discounted such estimates, arguing that some of the costs associated with retrofitting the Qatari plane would have been spent anyway as the Air Force moves to build the long-delayed new presidential planes, including buying aircraft for training and to have spares available if needed. In response, Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., said that based on the contract costs for the planes that the Air Force is building, it would cost about $1 billion to strip down the Qatar plane, install encrypted communications, harden its defenses and make other required upgrades. James said simply redoing the wiring means 'you'd have to break that whole thing wide open and almost start from scratch." Trump, as commander in chief, could waive some of these requirements. He could decide to skip shielding systems from an electromagnetic pulse, leaving his communications more vulnerable in case of a disaster but shaving time off the project. After all, Boeing has already scaled back its original plans for the new 747s. Their range was trimmed by 1,200 nautical miles, and the ability to refuel while airborne was scrapped. Paul Eckloff, a former leader of protection details at the Secret Service, expects the president would get the final say. 'The Secret Service's job is to plan for and mitigate risk," he said. "It can never eliminate it.' If Trump does waive some requirements, James said that should be kept under wraps because "you don't want to advertise to your potential adversaries what the vulnerabilities of this new aircraft might be.' It's unlikely that Trump will want to skimp on the plane's appearance. He keeps a model of a new Air Force One in the Oval Office, complete with a darker color scheme that echoes his personal jet instead of the light blue design that's been used for decades. What happens next? Trump toured the Qatari plane in February when it was parked at an airport near Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort. Air Force chief of staff Gen. David Allvin was there, too. The U.S. official said the jet needs maintenance but not more than what would be expected of a four-engine plane of its complexity. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said it would be irresponsible to put the president and national security equipment aboard the Qatari plane 'without knowing that the aircraft is fully capable of withstanding a nuclear attack.' 'It's a waste of taxpayer dollars,' she said. Meanwhile, Boeing's project has been hampered by stress corrosion cracks on the planes and excessive noise in the cabins from the decompression system, among other issues that have delayed delivery, according to a Government Accountability Office report released last year. Boeing referred questions to the Air Force, which said in a statement that it's working with the aircraft manufacturer to find ways to accelerate the delivery of at least one of the 747s. Even so, the aircraft will have to be tested and flown in real-world conditions to ensure no other issues. James said it remains to be seen how Trump would handle any of those challenges. 'The normal course of business would say there could be delays in certifications,' she said. 'But things seem to get waived these days when the president wants it.'
