Since the Investing Club’s October Monthly Meeting, the stock market has been moving higher on largely positive quarterly earnings and optimism around cooler inflation trends. The roughly 2.7% increase in the S & P 500 since the market close on Oct. 11 through Tuesday, the last full trading session before the November Monthly Meeting, really doesn’t reflect just how strong the market has been over the past few weeks. ( Click here to watch the November Monthly Meeting livestream .) From the Oct. 27 to Tuesday’s close, the index has soared 9%. With recent data on consumer and wholesale prices moderating, bond yields have dropped on hope the Federal Reserve might be done hiking interest rates. That dynamic has supported stocks. Here are our five top-performing names from the Club’s 34-stock portfolio since our last Monthly Meeting. SBUX YTD mountain Starbucks (SBUX) year-to-date performance Starbucks (SBUX) was our top performer. Shares of the coffee maker climbed 14.8% since the market close on Oct. 11 through Tuesday on the back of better-than-expected quarterly results and strong forward guidance for 2024. In its Nov. 2 earnings release, the company showed strong comparable-store sales growth and solid margin expansion. Markets cheered the results, which likely restored investor confidence in Starbucks’ ability to meet its long-term targets. MSFT YTD mountain Microsoft (MSFT) year-to-date performance Microsoft (MSFT) was No. 2, jumping 11.4% since our last Monthly Meeting on stellar quarterly earnings , along with a slew of announcements around its artificial intelligence efforts. The Big Tech name reported its biggest earnings beat since July 2021, thanks to an acceleration in revenue from its Azure cloud business, along with increased adoption of its AI offerings. Shares of the company hit all-time highs following product updates and improvements around Microsoft-backed OpenAI, which is behind the ChatGPT viral sensation. AVGO YTD mountain Broadcom (AVGO) year-to-date performance Broadcom ‘s (AVGO) 11.3% increase since the last Monthly Meeting put the stock at No. 3, benefitting from a broader AI-fueled rally across multiple areas of tech. Among Broadcom’s lucrative business with the nascent tech, the company garners part of its AI revenue from co-developing Google’s (GOOGL) tensor processing units. Other chip makers like Club holding Nvidia (NVDA), for example, have surged 6.1% over the period. AMZN YTD mountain Amazon (AMZN) year-to-date performance Amazon (AMZN) was our fourth-best performer, climbing 10.6% since the last Monthly Meeting. The tech giant has its better-than-expected third quarter to thank for the boost. Although the stock seesawed on initial results, the market ultimately saw reason to celebrate remarks regarding several large deals during the quarter that were not reflected in results yet. The Club is optimistic about three major revenue sources for Amazon: the cloud, e-commerce and advertising. DIS YTD mountain Disney (DIS) year-to-date performance Rounding out our top five is Disney (DIS), whose shares gained 7.3% since the last Monthly Meeting. The entertainment giant reported better-than-expected earnings , which showed signs of restoring profitable growth. Results were highlighted by continued strength in theme park attendance, along with a beat on Disney+ core subscriber additions. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long SBUX, MSFT, AVGO, AMZN, DIS, GOOGL, NVDA. See here for a full list of the stocks.) 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.
Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., October 27, 2023.
Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters
Since the Investing Club’s October Monthly Meeting, the stock market has been moving higher on largely positive quarterly earnings and optimism around cooler inflation trends.
