An unusual suspect is leading Wednesday's market while the AI trade takes a breather
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An unusual suspect is leading Wednesday's market while the AI trade takes a breather

Why This Matters

Every weekday, the Investing Club releases the Homestretch; an actionable afternoon update just in time for the last hour of trading.

August 13, 2025
06:32 PM
4 min read
AI Enhanced

Every weekday, the CNBC with Jim Cramer releases the stretch — an actionable afternoon , time for the last hour of trading on Wall Street.

: Stocks are muted on Wednesday but clinging to modest gains in afternoon trading. If the S & P 500 finishes in positive territory, it would market another record close.

Tuesday's rally, which was driven by a benign consumer price index report, was all the comeback in cyclicals and the financials.

What's different in Wednesday's session is that the gains are being driven by the unloved, down-and-out health-care sector thanks to bounce backs in UnitedHealth Group , Eli Lilly and many others.

It's been a brutal year for the sector, which is down more than 3.5% in 2025 even when including Wednesday's more than 1% advance.

The gains in Eli Lilly on Wednesday are notable because it s a string of insider buy transactions filed late Tuesday.

The level of confidence by the executive team — including CEO David Ricks and Chief Scientific Officer Dan Skovronsky — to buy stock after last week's nasty selloff on disappointing trial data gave us the confidence to upgrade our rating back to a buy-equivalent 1 rating.

Our trading restrictions, which hibit us from buying or selling stocks that Jim Cramer mentions on TV for the next 72 hours, kept us from repurchasing some of Lilly s we sold much higher back in late July.

AI infrastructure : One group pulling back on Wednesday is the AI trade.

Chip stocks such as names Nvidia and Broadcom — as well as data center infrastructure and power companies Eaton and GE Vernova — are moving lower.

The group has had a great run this year, so there's nothing wrong with the periodic pullback.

But the group may also be reacting to the earnings outlook by CoreWeave, the newly public company that builds data centers using Nvidia's hardware then rents out AI-level computing power to its customers, including some of the largest players in .

Un all the major hyperscalers this earnings season, CoreWeave left its full-year capital expenditure range unchanged at $20 billion to $23 billion.

The thing the CoreWeave outlook is that it implies a significant fourth-quarter ramp, meaning capital expenditures in its final quarter of the year are expected to substantially increase from the pace seen over the first three.

This year-end weighted outlook is driven primarily by power availability — the company's main constraint — rather than demand, which still exceeds supply.

The unchanged capex outlook shouldn't be seen as a sign of flattening AI demand; it's a direct result of capacity limitations.

Up next: Cisco Systems is the big earnings report after the closing bell on Wednesday, and we expect to see that momentum in the holding's AI infrastructure orders continued.

Deere , Advance Auto Parts and Birkenstock report before the opening bell on Thursday. On the data side, we will see the July ducer price index and weekly jobless claims.

(See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust.) As a r to the CNBC 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 a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade.

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FinancialBooklet Analysis

AI-powered insights based on this specific article

Key Insights

  • Earnings performance can signal broader sector health and future investment opportunities
  • Financial sector news can impact lending conditions and capital availability for businesses
  • Consumer sector trends provide insights into economic health and discretionary spending patterns

Questions to Consider

  • Could this earnings performance indicate broader sector trends or company-specific factors?
  • Could this financial sector news affect lending conditions and capital availability?
  • What does this consumer sector news reveal about economic health and spending patterns?

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