Why Wall Street kept sending the S&P 500, Nasdaq to fresh records this week

The stock market the week higher as Wall Street speculated on how a spate of economic releases would impact the Federal Reserve's next interest rate decision

The -heavy Nasdaq closed at record highs on Tuesday and Wednesday

Both indexes hit all-time intraday highs on Friday but closed the session modestly lower

Inflation data Stocks were pushed much higher on Tuesday, which carried the week, after the July consumer price index showed inflation had cooled more than expected

This caused Fed rate cut expectations for September to rise

The stock market's run continued into Wednesday's session

On Thursday, however, stocks lost some momentum after July's ducer price index indicated that wholesale inflation rose more than expected last month

Despite higher inflation figures, though, the market odds of a rate cut at the Fed's meeting next month didn't decrease by much, according to the CME FedWatch tool

A second Fed rate cut by the end of the year is also expected

Cisco's quarter Our focus was also on quarterly earnings Wednesday evening from Cisco Systems , the addition to the 's portfolio

The company experienced strong revenue growth within its networking thanks to the boom in AI infrastructure spending

That's double management's goal for the year

Still, s slipped after the release due to the significant revenue miss in Cisco's security division

That didn't shake our conviction in the stock, though

The reiterated our buy equivalent 1 rating , and maintained our price target of $78. "In a market that rewards AI-exposed companies with lofty valuations, Cisco trades at a very reasonable high teens price-to-earnings multiple

That valuation is too cheap to us," Jeff Marks, director of portfolio analysis for the , wrote in his earnings analysis

Analysts viewed Cisco's quarterly report as lackluster and said more stock gains would be hard to come by. "Though the company reported more than USD2bn of AI infrastructure orders in FY25, strength seems to be getting offset by weakness elsewhere," HSBC wrote in a Thursday note to clients

Record highs Although Cisco stock had a tough week, many other portfolio names experienced big runs

In fact, five holdings reached record highs since Monday

In no particular order, here's a breakdown of each

Portfolio moves We executed three trades last week, including exiting one position entirely

First, we bought more s of Starbucks and Palo Alto Networks on Monday after unreasonable sell-offs

On Thursday, we sold the rest of our small Coterra Energy position

It no longer made sense to invest in Coterra in the current economic environment

Jim Cramer talked this at length during the 's August Monthly Meeting

We didn't just buy and sell, though

The changed ratings on two portfolio names as well

A new piece of Wall Street re led us to downgrade Salesforce on Monday to a hold-equivalent 2 rating

That renewed bets that activists will push for change again, as they did with success a couple of years ago

Two sessions later, the double upgraded Eli Lilly s to a buy-equivalent 1 rating after CEO David Ricks and other company insiders bought a significant amount of the slumping stock

Health-care stocks, which had been struggling as a sector, have gotten a boost over the past week or so

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

THE ABOVE 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 VIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE

NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR FIT IS GUARANTEED.