Microsoft, Micron and Meta make news. What it all means for our stakes
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. The S & P 500 is slightly lower , weighed down by technology and consumer discretionary stocks, ahead of the start of third-quarter earnings season. All other sectors were positive, including energy, with the Energy SPDR ETF hitting a new intraday all-time high. Oil is moving higher following more attacks in the Middle East over the weekend. The bond market isn’t reacting to rising oil prices because it’s closed for Columbus Day. In artificial intelligence news, Nvidia shares slid after Microsoft announced it is scaling its Azure Maia family of custom accelerators to multi-gigawatt deployments next year. Some will argue that these chips reduce Microsoft’s reliance on Nvidia GPUs, but customers continue to line up for each new generation of Nvidia chips because they deliver greater computing performance and revenue potential per gigawatt of power. Elsewhere, Meta Platforms introduced its latest AI model, Muse Wonder, which it said achieves state-of-the-art results across key benchmarks for personal and professional agents, memory, and coding. Monthly paid subscribers to the popular Muse personal agent will gain access to the model. The new models are another sign that Meta’s $14.3 billion investment in data-labeling startup Scale AI is starting to pay off through new AI products. Micron’s board authorized an additional $33 billion in share repurchases , bringing its total authorization to $35.16 billion. The expanded plan, disclosed in Micron’s 10-K filing published Friday, takes effect Dec. 9, when buyback restrictions under the CHIPS Act expire. The figure represents about 3% of Micron’s current market capitalization and essentially matches the adjusted free cash flow it generated in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2026, which ended in August. With an estimated $141 billion in free cash flow over the next four quarters, according to FactSet, there’s ample capacity for additional buybacks, making this update likely the start of several incremental authorizations to be announced over time. Micron shares dipped slightly last Friday and are pulling back 3% on Monday alongside other memory and storage providers and AI chip names. There are no major earnings after the closing bell on Monday. Before the opening bell on Tuesday, we’ll see earnings from Club names Goldman Sachs , Wells Fargo , and Johnson & Johnson . The Street is looking for Goldman’s third-quarter earnings per share (EPS) of $13.02 and revenue of $16.71 billion. Analysts forecast Wells’ EPS of $1.85 on revenue of $22.30 billion and J & J earnings of $2.54 on revenue of $25.28 billion. All estimates are from LSEG. JPMorgan , Citigroup , UnitedHealth Group , and Domino’s Pizza are also scheduled to report. On the data side, we’ll see the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index and existing home sales. (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.
