Aniket PujariEvery 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. Market update: The stock market got a little bit of a boost after the Federal Reserve on Wednesday afternoon left interest rates unchanged in the range of 4.25% to 4.50%. The vote was unanimous. In a move initially seen as dovish, the Fed also announced it will slow its monthly balance sheet runoff of Treasury securities to $5 billion from $25 billion beginning in April. This decision was not unanimous. One member, Fed Governor Christopher Waller, preferred to continue the current pace of decline in securities holding. The March meeting included an update to the monetary policymakers’ Summary of Economic Projections — including the excessively analyzed “dot plots,” which provide a glimpse into where Fed members expect rates to be over the next three years and the longer term. The dot plots showed a median forecast of 50 basis points of easing, or two 25-basis-point rate cuts, in 2025. This suggests the Fed anticipates same number of cuts this year as they did in December. However, the number of policymakers who expect one to zero cuts this year increased to eight from four members in December and this could be interpreted as slightly hawkish. The AI rush continues: What do Club holdings Nvidia , Microsoft and BlackRock all have in common? As of Wednesday, they’re partners in a multi-billion artificial intelligence infrastructure fund. Microsoft, BlackRock and others first announced the initiative in September, and now Nvidia is coming aboard alongside Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI. As companies race to build the data centers and energy projects needed to power AI, this fund aims to raise up to $100 billion, including debt financing. It’s starting with an initial $30 billion in capital. The ambitious initiative — known as the AI Infrastructure Partnership — shows the optimism that companies have about the long-term demand for AI computing power. That bodes well not only for chipmaker Nvidia’s sales, but also Microsoft’s cloud computing business and BlackRock’s broader portfolio of data center investments. Shares of each portfolio name are up Wednesday, in a positive day for stocks overall. The news comes one day after Nvidia announced a slew of fresh hardware and software products at its highly anticipated GTC event that showcased its technology leadership position in the AI industry. Jim interviewed Nvidia’s Jensen Huang on Wednesday from GTC, with the CEO saying does not expect higher tariffs to hurt the chipmaker’s business. Meta: JPMorgan says Meta Platforms is the best megacap tech stock to buy after the market’s recent downturn. Although no consumer-facing company is immune to a pullback in spending and a slowdown in the economy, the analyst said in a note to clients that Meta Platforms “will remain relatively more resilient” to the uncertain macro. JPMorgan thinks Meta’s business will hold up better because of its diversified advertiser base (in the tens of millions) and high exposure to performance and direct response ad accounts. The quality of Meta’s advertising platform — with the strong return on ad spend it offers as well as its broad reach with 3.35 billion daily active users — were factors JPMorgan cited as well. On AI, JPMorgan also pointed to the launch of Meta’s latest open-source Llama 4 large language model as a positive. The firm reiterated its outperform buy rating and price target of $725 a share. Tech stocks have been among the hardest hit groups during the market’s recent swoon, which drove the Nasdaq into correction territory. For its part, Meta stock fell 21% from its all-time closing high of $736.67 a share on Feb. 14, which was the last day of the stock’s incredible 20-session win streak. We sold some Meta shares near $720 per share when it was going for its 18th straight day of gains on Feb. 12. And yet, it has been the most resilient of the “Magnificent Seven” so far this year, down roughly 1%; in fact, it had been in positive territory until Tuesday. Shares were slightly lower Wednesday, potentially providing an opportunity as we agree with JPMorgan’s long-term optimism. Up next: Five Below reports after the closing bell. Some companies reporting before the market opens Thursday are Pinduoduo , Jabil , Accenture , and Darden Restaurants . Of these four, Darden is the most interesting to us and we’ll be looking to see what management says about March restaurant trends. As we saw from Texas Roadhouse , January was difficult for the restaurant industry due to the weather and February was even worse. But as the weather becomes milder and eventually warms up across the country, we should see trends recover. (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.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms Inc., wears Orion augmented reality glasses during the Meta Connect event in Menlo Park, California, on Sept. 25, 2024.
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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.
