Here’s our April update on all 31 portfolio stocks, including 3 buys
The CNBC Investing Club held its April Monthly Meeting on Thursday, with Jim Cramer and Jeff Marks, director of portfolio analysis, hashing it out on each stock in the portfolio. The confab came a day after the S & P 500 closed at its first record high since late January, punctuating its dramatic comeback from the Iran war sell-off. The broad index’s war-driven bottom actually fell one trading after our March Monthly Meeting . We convened on March 27, a Friday, and the following Monday brought one more day of selling. It’s been off to the races ever since. Throughout the war, Jim has urged investors to stay calm and stay invested. The speed and magnitude of this rebound reinforces the pitfalls of throwing in the towel. Honestly, who would’ve seen this rally coming on the day of our March call? The war isn’t officially over, of course. But the market is doing its best to refocus on what companies are doing and saying as first-quarter earnings season ramps up. That’s the backdrop for Thursday’s meeting. Who knows what May will have in store? Now, let’s get into what Jim and Jeff had to say, going in the order they discussed them. The big mistake Nike : We have a huge case of buyer’s remorse, but we don’t want to compound it with seller’s remorse. Turning around the sportswear giant is a much taller task for CEO Elliott Hill than we anticipated. It was wrong to buy more shares in December in response to a wave of insider buying. We’re encouraged by another round this week, though we’re not buying alongside Hill and Apple CEO Tim Cook, who’s a director on the company’s board. We’re giving Hill one more at bat. If next quarter is another swing-and-miss, we’ll bail on the sneaker and apparel maker. The tech heavyweights Apple : Smartphone momentum in China appears to be continuing, and the forthcoming launch of a Google Gemini-infused Siri is a powerful combo. It’s a real competitive advantage. Plus, the foldable iPhone is coming out. No reason to trade this stock. Just own it. Amazon : The stock’s comeback rally is a lesson on patience. The emperor had clothes all along. It just took the market time to realize the strength of the cloud unit, AWS, and its online retail business. We aren’t sleeping on its satellite ambitions either. Broadcom : We trimmed our position in the red-hot chipmaker twice this week. Not because we’ve soured on CEO Hock Tan or its AI business spanning custom chips and networking solutions. The stock had simply gone on a parabolic run since the March lows, and we wanted room to buy some shares back in the case of a pullback. Alphabet : We had seller’s remorse, but we bit the bullet and got back in the stock late last year. We’re glad we did. From Google Cloud to YouTube to search to the promising Waymo robotaxi services, these businesses are booming. Alphabet probably has more ways to win than any of the big guns in this market. Meta Platforms : Owning the Instagram parent here is partially a bet that CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s massive spending spree on AI talent will bear tremendous fruit. And we don’t like to bet against Zuckerberg when it comes to making money. Its Ray-Ban AI glasses are just gravy. Nvidia : Our patience with the leading AI chip stock is paying off. The world is short compute, and while there’s a lot of talk about competition from hyperscalers’ in-house chips, our view is that Nvidia is still best in class. It deserves to be the largest company in the universe (which it is). Microsoft : The software and cloud giant is showing renewed urgency after a period of underperformance. It trailed rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic in launching exciting and effective AI tools. We want to see the company increase compute spending and allocate more of its available capacity to Azure rather than internal research and Copilot, its AI assistant. The data center plays GE Vernova : Before the AI boom, the gas turbine business was a miserable place to be. Now it’s magical. Electricity demand is off the charts, turbines are in short supply, and competition is scarce. That means plenty of pricing power. Not to be overlooked: If you want to play the nuclear power trend, GE Vernova has a real business, not a science project. Corning : JPMorgan downgraded the maker of glass fiber optic cables Thursday, essentially saying it’s run too far, too fast. No doubt, it’s been a major winner. Our desire to keep riding it stems from the idea that glass fiber is poised to replace more and more copper wire inside data centers. Eaton : Its electrical equipment is in high demand for data centers, and we love that it went a step further by buying the liquid-cooling company Boyd Thermal. It’s an adjacent business that expands Eaton’s total addressable market within the AI buildout. AI servers throw off a lot of heat, and Boyd helps keep them cool. Qnity Electronics : This is another situation where we’re tempted to take the gain. But it’s just now being noticed by more and more investors, having been spun off from the DuPont conglomerate last fall. You can’t make and package semiconductors without the kinds of advanced materials that Qnity supplies to companies like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Korea’s SK Hynix. The industrials Boeing : The planemaker’s order book is brimming and ready to reclaim market share from its only real competitor, Airbus. Boeing was an unbelievably good company and stock before management got sloppy. With CEO Kelly Ortberg at the helm, that’s no longer a concern. Dover : We hear from Dover next week (and Boeing, for that matter). We admit to growing impatient with this one, even if its last earnings results were good. We want to see CEO Richard Tobin take a few more concrete steps to ignite the stock, like selling slower-growing areas and using some of its dry powder for exciting acquisitions. It could be one of our names on the chopping block to be replaced by a promising Bullpen stock. Honeywell : Its long-awaited aerospace spin-off is only a few months away, so we have to stick with the stock. The whole company is worth a tad less than $150 billion right now. Once it’s a separate company, the aerospace business, which makes electronic systems for planes and smaller engines that power them on the ground, could be worth more than that on its own. Linde : Shares have stalled out, but we believe disruptions to helium supply from the Middle East are a tailwind for Linde, which produces gases outside the Persian Gulf. If we finally start to see better economic growth, Linde should see volume increases to complement price increases, a winning combination to beat estimates and raise its guidance. DuPont : We don’t think a reverse stock split is ideal from an optics perspective, but we trust management’s broader strategy. Shareholders will vote on the idea at DuPont’s annual meeting in May. If investors want to dump DuPont, it should be because of concerns about the fundamentals. Right now, they look good for the Qnity-less DuPont, which is now more exposed to global megatrends like water and health care. The rest of ’em Costco and TJX Companies : These two are among the only retailers worth owning. They benefit from inflationary environments, as consumers increasingly seek better value. With consistent store expansion and better merchandise, these are secular growth stories that continue to deliver. No need to sell these stocks here. If anything, TJX could be bought here. Home Depot : Our thesis hasn’t worked, but we haven’t lost all hope. Our worldview is that rates will come down eventually and unlock the housing market, which should turbocharge this languishing stock. But admittedly, if Home Depot is one of only, say, five stocks you own, there will likely be better earnings growth somewhere else for at least the next quarter or two. Eli Lilly : The pharmaceutical giant’s stock may appear stuck, but the long-term story remains firmly intact. Lilly’s leadership in GLP-1 treatments remains a major advantage, and its new GLP-1 pill is a game-changer. As for its competition with Novo Nordisk, it has become a volume play, and Lilly is the clear winner in manufacturing capacity. Cardinal Health : Despite a less-than-ideal entry point, the Cardinal Health story remains strong. The company’s scale in drug distribution, combined with its growing specialty pharmacy business, creates a durable platform for long-term growth. While the stock has yet to reflect that potential, it is our favorite stock to buy right now in the entire portfolio. Johnson & Johnson : Strong results this week justified our recent decision to replace Bristol Myers Squibb with this drug stock. It has a great cancer treatment franchise and opportunities across autoimmune diseases and neuroscience. If not for our trading restrictions, we’d likely be looking to add to our position on Thursday. Goldman Sachs : The bank delivered an excellent quarter on Monday, except for its fixed-income trading desk. We doubt they will make the same mistake twice. The M & A environment is still ripe. Wells Fargo : Unfortunately, we had to send this one to the penalty box after two rough quarters in a row. Have we overstayed our welcome? We still predict that the removal of the Federal Reserve’s asset cap last year will lead to greater profits. Execution needs to improve. Capital One : When the credit card issuer reports next week, we want updates on its Discover and Brex acquisitions and assurances that they’re hitting the brakes on M & A. It’s time to start getting the most out of these deals, not doing more of them. Procter & Gamble : The maker of Tide detergent and Crest toothpaste serves as a key hedge against a potential economic slowdown, even if execution hasn’t been ideal under previous leadership. With a new CEO in place, it’s a name we wish we owned more of. CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks : Investors are afraid these cybersecurity companies will be hurt by AI-built alternatives. However, more advanced AI models should be a major tailwind for these companies. At the same time, we want to free up a slot in the portfolio to own other companies. So, our plan is to eventually sell out of Palo Alto and redeploy at least some of those funds into CrowdStrike. Salesforce : The enterprise software stock still has a path to turn things around, even as skepticism builds around its ability to compete in an AI-disrupted landscape. This upcoming quarter will be make-or-break. We’ll be watching closely for CEO Marc Benioff’s commentary in May to gauge whether momentum is coming back or is further at risk. Starbucks : We like what CEO Brian Niccol is doing. He closed underperforming stores in the U.S. and entered into a joint venture in China, sharpening the company’s focus on the U.S. turnaround. Traffic and comps are improving despite competition, though margins will take time to recover. A pullback to the low $90s would be an attractive level to buy more. (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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