How this week's avalanche of news from Washington to Wall Street kept investors guessing

CNBC

2 days ago

It was a dizzying week on Wall Street. The S & P 500 closed this past Monday at a record high and then went on a four-session losing streak. Friday was particularly unsettling as terrible jobs data slammed the market and triggered President Donald Trump . Trump started the day by slamming Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell for not cutting interest rates on Wednesday. He accused the Fed of cutting rates at the end of last year to help elect Kamala Harris. Later in the day , the president used similar reasoning when firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which puts out the employment report. Trump accused BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, a Biden appointee, of negatively manipulating the numbers during his presidency and inflating them before Election Day to help Harris. Also on Friday afternoon, Fed Governor Adriana Kugler resigned . The Biden appointee didn't give a reason. As if all that were not enough, just before his self-imposed Aug. 1 deadline, Trump set new "reciprocal" tariff rates to go into effect on Aug. 7. The president also on Friday ordered two nuclear submarines "to be positioned in the appropriate regions" after a warning to the U.S. from Russian official Dmitry Medvedev. On Monday, Medvedev said that "each new ultimatum" about the Ukraine conflict is a "threat and a step towards war" between Russia and the U.S. .SPX .IXIC 5D mountain S & P 500 and Nasdaq performance this week It was no wonder the S & P 500 lost more than 1.5% on Friday, in a session even further pressured by a drop in tech stocks following Amazon 's post-earnings stock decline of more than 8%. For the week, the broad market index lost nearly 1%, ending a two-week win streak. The tech-heavy Nasdaq was the big loser Friday, dropping more than 2.2% on the session and more than 2% for the week. It, too, snapped two straight weekly gains. As bad as the calendar page turn to August was on Friday, the S & P 500 and the Nasdaq wrapped July on Thursday with gains of 2.2% and 3.7%, respectively. The S & P 500 completed a three-month winning streak, while the Nasdaq extended its monthly run to four straight. It was certainly a busy week, jam-packed with macroeconomic updates, trade negotiations, a Fed rate decision — and, of course, an earnings onslaught, with four of the Magnificent Seven reporting. Trump trade The week started out with the U.S. on Sunday striking a trade deal with the European Union. South Korea slipped in under the wire before the president's Friday deadline. Both trade partners are now subject to a 15% tariff on exports to the U.S., down from the respective 30% and 25% rates in place prior to the agreements. The deal with the EU will also see the trading bloc purchase $750 billion in U.S. energy, while investing an additional $600 billion into the U.S. The deal with South Korea included an agreement for $350 billion in U.S. investments. Negotiations with China remain ongoing, with the tariff deadline being pushed to Aug. 12. Mexico was granted a 90-day extension of current 25% rates following a discussion with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. Canada, however, was slapped with a 35% tariff rate . As for the trade partners that have yet to strike a deal, new rates were announced last Thursday evening and are set to take effect this coming Thursday. Weak jobs Just hours after the new tariff rates were announced, the Friday jobs report was released. The July nonfarm payroll growth of 73,000 positions fell way short of the 100,000 additions economists had expected. Worse yet, the June and May readings were both revised significantly lower for a combined 258,000 less jobs than originally reported for those two months. All of that, besides setting Trump off, put a September rate cut back on the table, according to the CME FedWatch tool. The market odds of a cut flipped from about 38% on Thursday to nearly 83% on Friday. Shortly after the weak jobs report, Jim Cramer said that while he has been a big backer of Powell, this number says: "You didn't need to wait" to cut rates. Warmer inflation The day after the Fed held rates steady, the central bank's preferred measure of inflation — the personal consumption expenditure (PCE) price index — was released Thursday morning. Both the headline PCE reading, as well as the core rate excluding food and energy prices, came in one-tenth hotter than expected on a year over year basis, seemingly supportive of the Fed's decision to leave rates unchanged. However, the negative jobs data clouds the picture a bit and will force the Fed to weigh the importance of both parts of its dual mandate — maintaining price stability, around their target 2% inflation rate, and fostering maximum employment. The former currently requires more restrictive or higher rates, given that inflation remains above target, while the latter points to less restrictive or lower rates, because central bankers don't want to see any material increases in joblessness. Economic growth Part of the rationale for holding rates steady came from a strong advance second quarter reading on the economy, which was released Wednesday morning just hours before the Fed's July meeting wrapped up. The seasonally adjusted annual GDP growth rate of 3% was much better than the 2.3% advance that was expected. While the economy managed to chug along during the April to June period, despite all the fear and uncertainty caused by trade disputes, it's already August. The GDP is a backwards looking data set. That's why more weight is put on the monthly updates noted above, relating to inflation and the labor market — and of course, the most real-time source of data we can get, earnings. Club earnings So, with that, let's take a look at how earnings went this week for the Club. We heard from Starbucks on Tuesday evening, Meta Platforms and Microsoft on Wednesday evening, Bristol Myers Squibb on Thursday morning, Amazon and Apple on Thursday evening, and Linde on Friday morning. Starbucks : Though the coffee giant reported mixed quarterly results, we heard enough positives to confirm that CEO Brian Niccol's turnaround remains firmly on track. Meta Platforms : The social media powerhouse delivered an absolute blow out quarter, with the only thing better than the results being the guidance. Bristol Myers : The drugmaker delivered a solid quarterly beat and outlook raise. However, with the Cobenfy narrative — at the core of our investment thesis— going from being pretty straightforward to a show-me story, investors aren't giving the company the benefit of the doubt. We trimmed our price target following the release. There are also the added questions marks around Trump push this week for lower prescription prices from Bristol and 16 other major drugmakers, including Club name Eli Lilly, which reports earnings next week. The threat of sector-specific pharma tariffs remains in play. Amazon : Overall the tech giant reported a solid quarter. However, shares sold off as investors took issue with Amazon Web Services (AWS) failing to deliver the same type of cloud revenue upside as rivals Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. Operating income guidance for the current quarter was also a bit lower than expected, though that has historically proven conservative. Ultimately, we think the concerns are overblown and think the pullback represents a buying opportunity . Apple : The iPhone maker reported a very respectable quarter. However, when taking into account the price action of the stock this year alongside the reaction to the results, it's clear that investors are not ready to give management much credit until they deliver more clarity about the company's AI strategy. It was encouraging to hear CEO Tim Cook say he's open to M & A to help with that. Linde : The industrial gas stalwart delivered solid quarterly results in a difficult operating environment, demonstrating the company's resiliency no matter the backdrop. Moreover, management raised the low end of its full-year earnings guidance, despite noting that the high end of the range already assumes an economic contraction. It's another important week of corporate earnings ahead, with about a quarter of S & P 500 companies set to report. Six companies in the Club portfolio are on the docket: Coterra Energy , DuPont , Eaton , Disney , Eli Lilly , and Texas Roadhouse . Week in trades It was also a busy week of trades for the portfolio. Kicking off the week, we added to our positions in Cisco Systems and Honeywell . That was followed up by a small trim of Eaton as the stock hit new high. On Tuesday, we locked in a nice profit on Eli Lilly following disappointing news from Novo Nordisk , its main competitor in the GLP-1 market. We also trimmed our position in Wells Fargo as shares finally recovered from their post-earnings decline. On Wednesday, we added to our position in Dover and called out that we would also be adding to our stakes in Starbucks and Palo Alto Networks , we were not restricted. We'll be keeping a close eye on both in the week to come for an opportunity to step in. Palo Alto finished the week down nearly 15% on a four-session losing streak after reports of talks and its confirmation of a $25 billion deal to buy CyberArk were not well received by investors. We, however, feel that bundling CybarArk's identity security platform will accelerate Palo Alto's platformization strategy. Rounding out the week , on Thursday, we cut our position in Abbott , in line with prior commentary in which we highlighted our concerns about the company's exposure to China. We took the raised capital and redeployed it in Capital One Financial as the move we were seeing in the stock didn't reflect the fundamentals we saw when it reported second quarter earnings. (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. 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