Wall Street fought through a pair of inflation reports and more tariff headlines to post a strong week of gains. On Valentine’s Day, the S & P 500 even flirted with a fresh all-time high before ending Friday’s session with a tiny loss. For the week, the S & P 500 advanced 1.47%, the Nasdaq Composite added 2.58% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.55%. Stocks had a mostly solid start to the week before the hotter-than-expected consumer inflation report Wednesday dinged the S & P 500 and Dow. The major averages bounced back in a big way Thursday thanks to a one-two punch of encouraging news. (The stock market was closed Monday for the Presidents’ Day holiday.) First, last week’s wholesale inflation data suggested the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of price pressures in the U.S. economy — known as the PCE index — may come in softer than feared later this month . The rally gained steam during the session after President Donald Trump announced that reciprocal tariffs on U.S. trading partners would not take effect immediately. Within the Club’s portfolio, DuPont separated from the pack with a 9.9% advance for the week. The bulk of the gains came Tuesday after the maker of Tyvek construction materials and chemicals used in semiconductor manufacturing reported strong quarterly results . But encouragingly, shares of DuPont added two more winning days afterward. It also spent a good chunk of Friday higher before fading. Still, the stock finished the week at its highest levels since November. Another winning Club stock was Apple , which advanced 7.46% and rose in all five sessions. The iPhone maker owes its best weekly performance since July to bullish developments around Apple Intelligence in China, where the company is partnering with Alibaba to roll out its suite of artificial intelligence features. The news was first reported Tuesday by the tech publication The Information and later confirmed Thursday by Alibaba Chairman Joe Tsai . In addition to Alibaba, Apple also will work with Chinese search engine provider Baidu on AI features, Bloomberg News reported Thursday . Officially launching Apple Intelligence in China could help Apple get back on track in the key smartphone market. Our cybersecurity stocks both turned in strong weeks, though for a while on Friday, Palo Alto Networks had relinquished its weekly gains as shares tumbled more than 6% in response to its earnings report. We argued Thursday night that the market wasn’t giving the company enough credit for the numbers. The way that buyers stepped in and the stock pared steep losses Friday suggests we were not alone in that view. Shares ultimately closed lower by 0.9% on Friday but held onto a 3% weekly advance. CrowdStrike , meanwhile, gained 7.15% for the week and landed a few price-target hikes in recent days, too. The stock posted a record close Thursday, at $453.77 a share, before falling modestly Friday. CrowdStrike’s weekly win streak now stands at five. GE Healthcare was the only other earnings-related mover in the portfolio in the past week. Shares surged 8.8% on Thursday — and set a new intraday all-time high — thanks to a big profit beat and prudent 2025 guidance. However, that was the stock’s only positive day out of five, including a 1.4% decline on Friday. For the week, GE Healthcare shares gained more than 5%. We’d be remiss not to mention that Meta Platforms on Friday extended its winning streak to an extraordinary 20 sessions, closing at an all-time high of $736.67 a share. As impressive as Meta’s run has been, our investment discipline called for us to book some profits, and we did so on Wednesday . That was our last trade of the week. Last Monday, we bought the dip in Bristol Myers Squibb and took profits in Starbucks and followed that up Tuesday with a small purchase of Disney on the belief the entertainment giant wasn’t getting enough credit for its quarterly results . Bristol Myers Squibb and our other drug stock, Eli Lilly , were the biggest laggards in the portfolio last week, followed by Constellation Brands , which continued to struggle in the wake of an ugly January earnings report . The Corona and Modelo brewer got a lift shortly after the market closed Friday, though, when Warren Buffett ‘s Berkshire Hathaway disclosed that it owned a small stake in the company at the end of the 2024, sending shares up more than 6% in extended trading. The regulatory filing that revealed Berkshire ‘s position is backward-looking, and it’s unclear how the firm has approached the stock during its difficult start to the year. In the holiday-shortened week ahead, the earnings and economic calendars will be a bit lighter than what we’ve seen in recent weeks. But in some sense, it may be the calm before the following week’s storm of Nvidia earnings and the Fed’s favorite inflation measure. Economy Housing will be a major theme this week, with new residential construction and building permits data out before Wednesday’s opening bell. New residential construction, more commonly called housing starts, is expected to drop nearly 10% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.39 million units in January versus a robust gain of almost 16% in December. Building permits, an indication of future activity, are expected dip month over month to 1.46 million. Existing home sales numbers are out Friday morning, with a month-over-month decline to 4.08 million previously owned homes expected. Despite the Fed’s three interest rate cuts last year, bond yields have remained stubbornly high, which has held back housing. That’s because mortgage rates follow the 10-year Treasury yield , so the cost of home loans has stayed elevated, too. A stronger overall economy and inflation creeping higher have put the lid on much more than one Fed rate cut this year. Earnings Texas Roadhouse , our newest Club name, reports earnings after Thursday’s closing bell. The restaurant company behind its namesake steakhouse and casual dining chains Bubba’s 33 and Jaggers has been able to keep inflation-weary customers coming through its doors. With its largely domestic footprint, Texas Roadhouse’s tariff exposure should be limited. We bought more shares on Feb. 7 — a few days after calling the stock up from our Bullpen and adding it to the portfolio . We like Texas Roadhouse because it offers customers a good deal, serving quality food at low prices. Same-store sales growth has been constantly in the high-single digits, and we’ll look to see if the company’s 8.3% growth in the first four weeks of the fourth quarter continued. However, poor weather across the country may have created some noisy around first-quarter commentary. Since this is a new position and earnings are near, we intentionally kept a small position to give us room in case there’s volatility. Week ahead Monday, Feb. 17 U.S. stock market closed for Presidents’ Day Tuesday, Feb. 18 8:30 a.m. ET: Empire State Index 10 a.m. ET: NAHB housing market index Wednesday, Feb 19 8:30 a.m. ET: Housing starts and building permits 2 p.m. ET: Minutes from January’s Fed meeting Before the bell earnings: Etsy (ETSY) After the bell: Carvana (CVNA) Thursday, Feb. 20 8:30 a.m. ET: Weekly jobless claims 8:30 a.m. ET: Philadelphia Fed index 10 a.m. ET: Leading indicators index Before the bell: Walmart (WMT), Shake Shack (SHAK), Hasbro (HAS) After the bell: Texas Roadhouse (TXRH) , Rivian Automotive (RIVN), Block (XYZ) Friday, Feb 21 9:45 a.m. ET: Markit manufacturing and services PMIs 10 a.m. ET: Existing home sales 10 a.m. ET: University of Michigan consumer sentiment ( 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.
People walk past the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street in New York City on May 17, 2024.
Angela Weiss | AFP | Getty Images
Wall Street fought through a pair of inflation reports and more tariff headlines to post a strong week of gains. On Valentine’s Day, the S&P 500 even flirted with a fresh all-time high before ending Friday’s session with a tiny loss.
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