Posted on 10/30/2026 8:11:28 AM PDT by Miami Rebel
1. Nasdaq in crash mode? Futures say yes: down more than 2.5%. Intel dashes hopes of a quick turn. Alphabet’s Gemini falls behind. Election Day data center fears. Plus, we are still far from a base. Crescendo of selling? Or getting ahead of Black Monday? Flight to safety stocks.
2. Intel is cratering more than 25% premarket. The chipmaker should have preannounced this terrible guidance, like what IBM did this summer. The story last night wasn’t about data center demand. Instead, Club name Intel positioned its PC business as a casualty of high memory prices, the same week as SK Hynix said high-bandwidth memory shortage will last until 2030, effectively taking it out of the running for multiple years. Bank of America downgraded to hold from buy.
3. The nearly 7% drop in Amazon this morning is excessive. This is one where you needed to listen to the call. Totally changes your perception of the top- and bottom-line misses. If not for Prime Day moving into the second quarter, the third-quarter numbers look way better. Also more guidance than ever: CEO Andy Jassy said cloud unit AWS can grow north of 40% in each of the next two years. Leaning into its own silicon. More capex coming in 2027.
4. Yesterday was the worst day ever for Alphabet’s stock, and shares are down modestly again this morning. The problem is Gemini is falling behind the leading AI chatbots and now Google Search monetization fears are back. Perhaps it’s time for a radical incision that scraps Google Search and combines with Gemini. Hit at first and then competitive. Not competitive now.
5. Time to reevaluate Meta Platforms ? The performance of Meta’s core advertising business looks a whole lot better now that we’ve seen the Google Search number and the disaster that is Reddit , which is down more than 21% premarket after providing weak fourth-quarter guidance and talking about the decline of traffic from Google thanks to AI mode.
6. Baird raised its price target on Starbucks to $120 from $115 after last night’s earnings beat and good guidance. This was an excellent, misunderstood call, as the coffee chain is no longer in turnaround mode under CEO Brian Niccol. It is in growth mode, share-take mode, and margin-expansion mode, which justifies the multiple. Continue to like this one for the Club.
7. Marvell shares are down another 6% this morning after closing off more than 13%. The chipmaker and networking provider must dominate the fiber in the data center as connections move away from copper. Scale up, scale out. The only way Marvell can do that is to buy either Lumentum or Coherent . Judging by Marvell stock, investors are not too keen on the idea.
8. BofA removed Apple from its list of best investment ideas right around all-time highs. Analysts see gross margin risks. They did maintain their buy rating on the Club stock. Kept their $370 price target, which implies just over 6% upside to yesterday’s record-high close. Apple keeps the tech earnings going next week, reporting after Monday’s close.
9. Wells Fargo raised its Centene price target to $75 from $69, citing a pretty good quarter and solid guidance. The important part here: The stock is not correlated to tech. The health insurance company that specializes in government programs will work in this market. Same goes for our Club healthcare stocks like Eli Lilly , which closed at a record high yesterday after a beat-and-raise quarter. We’ll hear from Cardinal Health next week.
10. Speaking of classic places to hide: AstraZeneca . The U.K. drug giant beat on quarterly earnings and revenue. Oncology strength. AstraZeneca has lots of products in front of the FDA. Presenting at two recent oncology conferences, the company said it has 27 approved and potential new cancer medicines. The stock is up 6% this morning, which will flip it positive year-to-date.
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There are market traders who follow an Inverse Cramer strategy and trade the opposite of his recommendations. Overall it's been very profitable. Today I sold November 20 puts on INTC with a $65 strike price for $3.55.
I figure all signs will point to the Apocalypse between now and election day. Then on Wednesday everything will suddenly be back to normal.
“...top 10 things to watch in the stock market Friday,”
Jim Cramer isn’t one of them.................
Many years ago, some clever guy set up an internet stock picking contest.
Jim Cramer’s picks were compared to those of Leonard the Wonder Monkey. Leonard was actually a computer program that picked stocks completely at random.
Leonard won the contest. He didn’t win by much. But he won.
I’m no finance guru, but even I know Cramer is a clown.
“ There are market traders who follow an Inverse Cramer strategy and trade the opposite of his recommendations. Overall it’s been very profitable.”
There’s a website somewhere that did this with a hypothetical $1 mil ten (maybe 20) years ago, updates weekly. I think it hit $200 billion or something recently.
I met him during a tour of the floor of NYSE when a company I was an officer on rang the bell. Complete dismissive asshole.
>> I figure all signs will point to the Apocalypse between now and election day. Then on Wednesday everything will suddenly be back to normal.
ROFLMAO!!! YOU BROKE THE CYPHER!!!
>> Jim Cramer isn’t one of [top 10 things to watch in the stock market]....
I respectfully disagree! Watch Cramer carefully, take good notes, and do the opposite...
I sold INTC puts a few weeks ago when it was at a much higher level,,,sigh,,,not comfortable enough to double down now to make up for it.
I sold the Jan 65 puts.
It’s October.
Fun fact - and this is EXACTLY why I never let my politics influence my investing...
The market has ALWAYS had an up year the year following a midterm. ALWAYS. Doesn’t matter who controls, doesn’t matter if trifecta, doesn’t matter if it’s a wave or a ripple.
Now, a pure statistician would point out that the up/down year ratio generally runs 3:1 up:down, so a weird historical anomaly where every fourth year is an up year isn’t actually *that* weird.
And as I said - it’s why I keep the two separate (not to mention, correlation isn’t causality).
I actually think this is the correct move:
“BofA removed Apple from its list of best investment ideas right around all-time highs.”
Apple has not had a new product in awhile.
IF you own it, there is nothing wrong with taking a profit.
As my first boss used to tell us on the trading floor.
“kid, there is nothing wrong with taking a profit”
I also SOLD all of my TRowe Price Science and Technology fund shares in my 401K because NVIDIA and many other tech stocks have flattened out. Plus, it went up 60% in two months.
Again, there is nothing wrong with taking a profit.
I am currently about 95% Money Markets and TBills making 3.8-4.2% until we have the next BLACK SWAN EVENT. I was 95% stocks until June 1st. I am been 90% stocks since 1985.
Watching the T rates over the past few days. Flight to safety is evident. Remember, when they all try to get through the door at once, it gets real messy.
LOL!
he looks like Lenin ...
Cramer knows a crash is coming.
Paul Begala and Robert B. Reich told him.
Current Rate: 5.51%
This is the current rate for an I bond.
What is your opinion on these?
Locked in for six months at this rate.
I do think it’s important to distinguish between a “trader” and an “investor”.
I don’t say that to mean either is *better*; merely *different*. And I’m the latter.
I will say this - everybody waiting for the AI bubble to pop... and I look at Google (down more than 30%), Meta (down more than 20%), NVDA (coming up on 20% down), TSLA (20%)... etc.
I do believe there IS more bloodletting to come - don’t get me wrong. In particular? The negative EBITDA pikers have yet to really be culled.
‘Never try to catch a falling knife’ is the cliche - so I’m not bargain hunting.... YET.
But I think I can see the bargain bins coming in the next month or 3.
Same Jim Cramer that ran a boiler room operation?
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