Why the stock rally fizzled — plus, our latest thinking on Goldman and Bristol Myers
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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. Markets: Stocks rose modestly Thursday but were well off their highest levels of the session. The strong quarter from Club name Nvidia is lifting the broader artificial intelligence trade. As we explained in our earnings commentary Wednesday night, four positive developments have gone Nvidia’s way since its annual GTC event in March, fueling additional momentum in its business. The market also got a brief boost after the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled President Donald Trump doesn’t have the authority to impose “reciprocal” tariffs on virtually every nation. However, the path forward for this case is unclear, which is why the market’s initial gains on the news didn’t last. The Trump administration plans to take the case to the Supreme Court on Friday. Tariffs can still be imposed through alternative ways. For example, sector-specific tariffs remain an option, and the president can still invoke Section 232 to impose trade restrictions on the grounds of national security. Bank update: Goldman Sachs President and Chief Operating Officer John Waldron spoke at the Bernstein Strategic Decision Conference on Thursday. Shares were down on the session, underperforming the broader financial sector. The line that may have hit the stock was Waldron explaining that investment banking activity in the second quarter has not been as strong as in the first quarter. It’s hard to get deals over the finish line in a highly volatile, uncertain environment like the market dealt with in April. “When you have this kind of volatility, you just fundamentally have a harder time prosecuting transactions that may be in your pipeline, but they don’t happen as quickly as you might otherwise expect,” Waldron said at the conference. Nobody should have been surprised by Waldron’s comments. Peers have said similar things. For example, on May 19, we pointed out that JPMorgan said it expected investment banking fees in the second quarter to be down by a mid-teen percentage year over year. There are two other things to keep in mind: While volatility is bad for mergers-and-acquisitions activity, as well as initial public offerings, it is a great thing for Goldman’s trading desk. Waldron said Thursday that equity trading client activity has “remained robust” throughout the year, though levels for fixed income, currencies, and commodities (FICC) are now “slightly softer” than the company’s strong results this time last year. FICC revenue increased 17% year-over-year in the second quarter of 2024. There has also been a significant pickup in capital markets activity over the past few weeks. We recently highlighted fresh signs of life in the initial public offering (IPO) market. More companies are filing to go public, including Omada Health, expected next week , targeting a market cap of slightly more than $1 billion. Goldman is involved in the Omada deal. This follows last week’s IPOs of Hinge Health and MNTN . We’re also starting to see more mergers and acquisitions (M & A), with a notable one this week from Club name Salesforce , which agreed to buy Informatica for $8 billion. With one month remaining in the second quarter, we expect muted investment bank fee growth when the banks report earnings in mid-July. However, a stronger second half for Goldman Sachs should be in store, provided the current pause in high tariffs remains in place. One more to go : Wells Fargo said Thursday the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s (OCC) terminated a 2015 consent order , “relating to the company’s previously held financial subsidiaries.” It’s the 13th order closed since 2019, the year Charlie Scharf took over as Club name Wells Fargo CEO. It’s the seventh one closed this year. Wells Fargo said the only one left is a 2018 order with the Federal Reserve. In Wednesday’s Homestretch , we covered comments that Scharf made at the Bernstein Strategic Decisions conference about the $1.95 trillion asset cap that the Fed imposed on the bank in 2018. Scharf said he is “very, very confident” that the cap would be lifted but refused to speculate on timing. The CEO added, “We’ve had this asset cap for a long time now. We’ve been working extremely diligently to fulfill all the requirements that exist in the consent order, both to lift the asset cap and, ultimately, lift the ultimate order. Those are two different decision points for the Federal Reserve.” Cobenfy comments: Bristol Myers Squibb CEO Chris Boerner tried to assuage investor concerns about the company’s key schizophrenia drug, Cobenfy, on Thursday. During the Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything conference, Boerner came to Cobenfy’s defense after it failed a key late-stage trial in April that evaluated how it worked when used as an add-on treatment. He argued Thursday that the results “don’t have really any impact on the long-term potential” of Cobenfy, explaining the focus has always been to use the drug as a primary treatment. “What we like about Cobenfy is we’re seeing efficacy on par with, if not better than, all the existing therapies, but without some of the really onerous side effects,” Boerner added, citing impacts from other treatments like significant weight gain. While this was welcomed commentary, the company argued a similar case when it reported earnings in late April. The surprising adjunctive trial result turned what we thought was a straightforward story of a drug with underappreciated potential into a more complicated “show me” situation. And what we need to be shown is better Cobenfy data in future trial readouts. That’s why we haven’t bought back any of the stock we sold in the low $60s a share earlier this year, as Jim Cramer explained on the Monthly Meeting last week. The stock was up about 1% to around $47 per share Thursday. Asked about the potential for pharmaceutical-specific tariffs, Boerner said that Bristol Myers would prefer the Trump administration take a different direction. But he added he’s tried to communicate ways to “do it without messing things up.” Whatever the Trump administration does, they have to recognize the “reality of the dynamics of biopharmaceutical manufacturing,” he offered. “If you don’t get that right, you will end up with supply constraints, and that’s something nobody wants, including the administration. Incidentally, it’s also why typically when you’ve had tariffs, pharmaceutical and biotech products have been excluded.” Up next: It’s another big night of earnings ahead with Club name Costco , Marvell Technology and Dell Technologies scheduled to report. Other companies reporting are Gap , American Eagle Outfitters , Ulta Beauty and Zscaler . There are no major earnings reports after Friday’s close. On the data side Friday morning, we get the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge — the personal consumption expenditures price (PCE) index. According to FactSet, PCE is expected to have risen 0.15% month over month in April and 0.12% on a core basis, which excludes volatile food and energy prices. That would mean increases in the headline index and the core of 2.5% and 2.2% year over year, respectively, marking slightly cooler readings than in March. (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust.) 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