Here are our top 4 stocks and worst 4 stocks to start the second half of 2023
Two weeks into the second half of the year, we put together a quick look at the top three performers and the bottom three in Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust, the stock portfolio we use for the Investing Club. The first full trading week of July saw Wall Street under some pressure Friday after a multisession winning streak. Gains month-to-date of roughly 2.4% for the Nasdaq add to the tech-heavy index’s best first half (up nearly 32%) in four decades. There are some new names on both the July leaders and July laggards list since we did this exercise looking at our January to June portfolio performance. July leaders HAL mountain 2023-06-30 Halliburton stock performance since June 30 close Oilfield services giant Halliburton (HAL) flips from a first-half loser (down 16%) to top our second-half winner. Month-to-date, HAL gained nearly 12%, a recent rally that we took advantage of Friday morning by booking in some profits. During our Monthly Meeting on Wednesday, we told members we were thinking about a HAL trim. We downgraded the stock in anticipation to a 2 rating . The recent HAL rally can be attributed to a feeling that oil and natural gas producers, like Club names, Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD) and Coterra Energy (CTRA), might need to boost production and that means they’d need the help of a Halliburton. We’ll look for more color around production trends in North America when the company reports its second-quarter earnings this coming Wednesday before the opening bell. CRM 1M mountain Salesforce stock performance month-to-date. Salesforce (CRM) advanced 8.6% in July after a 59% first-half advance. The enterprise software giant announced it will be increasing list prices for some of its top-selling products for new and existing customers by an average of 9%. This is the first time the company has raised prices in seven years. The changes will go into effect next month. The company’s latest move should help top-line growth, expand margins, and boost cash flow. So far this year, CRM stock has also benefitted from getting costs down through personnel cuts and reducing office space. It also bought back stock. It looks like CRM’s quarter will come in the latter part of August. META 1M mountain Meta stock performance month-to-date. Meta Platforms (META) remains a top performer in the portfolio to start the second half, rising 7.6% for the first two weeks of July after more than doubling in the first half. The Facebook and Instagram parent made another 52-week high intraday high of $316.24 on Thursday following the launch of its Twitter rival. Meta’s Threads platform surpassed 100 million signups since last week’s debut. However, there are recent signs suggesting activity has cooled off a bit. More broadly, investors have been sticking with Meta for its leadership in generative AI to attract and keep users on its platforms while offering advertisers AI-powered tools to improve monetization. Jim predicts Meta will deliver a strong second quarter on Jul 26. NVDA mountain 2023-06-30 Nvidia stock performance since June 30 close Nvidia (NVDA), one of our leading tech holdings in the portfolio, has continued its momentum to start the second half of the year. Shares of the semi-king are up 7.5% over the last two weeks of July. (Nvidia and Apple (AAPL) are our only own-it, don’t-trade-it stocks.) To start out the first half of 2023, Nvidia was our top-performing stock in the portfolio with nearly a triple. Nvidia, whose market cap now surpasses $1 trillion, has led the tech sector and the broader market rally, convincing investors like us that its infrastructure and technology needed to fuel the market’s artificial intelligence demand is and will be essential to bring the nascent technology to the mainstream. Nvidia is set to release earnings on Aug. 23. July laggards FL mountain 2023-06-30 Foot Locker stock performance since June 30 close Foot Locker (FL) dropped about 6.5% to start the month, and it was our worst first-half loser (down more than 28%). This week, Baird cut its price target on the footwear and athletic apparel retail to $24 per share from $32 and kept its neutral rating. The analysts warned that FL’s high exposure to lower-income consumers could pressure the second half of the year. A tough macro backdrop is an overhang for CEO Mary Dillon as she tries to resurrect poor financials. She did it with Ulta Beauty (ULTA) back in 2013, and we believe she can do it a second time with Foot Locker. When initiating our position in the shoe retailer in March, we knew about the obstacles. However, the turnaround may take longer than initially expected. The difficulties surrounding Foot Locker are why we have not added to our position since its disappointing first quarter, but we still have faith in Dillon’s leadership and want to be in the stock to catch the potential wave when the tide turns. Second quarter results are due mid-August. PANW mountain 2023-06-30 Palo Alto Networks stock performance since June 30 close Palo Alto Networks (PANW) dropped more than 5.5% month-to-date, moving it to the July laggards list after its 83% first-half advance that had landed the leaders list. Earlier this week, Microsoft (MSFT) announced an expansion of its cybersecurity offerings. It’s a space dominated by PANW, so it’s no wonder why the stock sank 7% on Wednesday. It did, however, claw back some of those losses. Palo Alto CEO Nikesh Arora told Jim in a “Mad Money” interview that he wasn’t concerned about Microsoft products because they’re for an area of the cybersecurity market that his company has been in for years. Jim said he was not worried about Wednesday’s sell-off and still sees PANW as the best way to play cybersecurity. PANW is expected to issue earnings late next month. LLY mountain 2023-06-30 Eli Lilly stock performance since June 30 close Eli Lilly (LLY) shares fell 4% in the first two weeks of July. Shares of the pharmaceutical company have recently been pressured after a Reuters report that cited a study that found most patients using weight loss drugs like Novo Nordisk ‘s (NOVO) Ozempic, stop within a year. Another article last week reported that several patients using Ozempic had thoughts of suicide or self-harm. These headlines were negative read-throughs to Club holding Lilly, which makes the diabetes drug Mounjaro that’s being reviewed for obesity by regulators. Although we cannot fault anyone who wants to take profits in Eli Lilly after another stretch of significant outperformance (up 28% in the first half of 2023), we think the selloffs from both stories will prove to be overreactions. Lilly started to claw back some of its recent losses in a good session Friday. Jim maintains that Lilly’s Mounjaro will be the best-selling drug in history and that investors should not sell LLY stock. He also likes the company’s pipeline which includes a potential Alzheimer’s treatment, which would be a huge win for the company long term. Lilly is due to report its quarter Aug. 8. JNJ mountain 2023-06-30 Johnson & Johnson stock performance since June 30 close Johnson & Johnson was under pressure to kick off the second half, falling nearly 3.5% month to date and there are a couple of reasons for that. Health care is an out-of-favor defensive sector in a market attracting high-growth tech names. The other headwind : The company is awaiting the outcome of a pivotal talc trial. The verdict, which is expected any day now, could determine whether the many plaintiffs suing the company elsewhere will accept or reject J & J’s settlement offer of $8.9 billion. The ongoing legal disputes have been an overhang on J & J all year as the stock fell more than 6% in the first half. Given the uncertainty, we have held off on buying more of the drug maker. The talc trials have someone dimmed the light on the separation of its consumer products division from its pharmaceutical and medical technology units, which we viewed as a positive for shareholders. J & J reports earnings this coming Thursday. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long HAL, META, CRM, LLY, PANW, FL, PXD, CTRA, MSFT, NVDA, JNJ, AAPL. See here for a full list of the stocks.) 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Two weeks into the second half of the year, we put together a quick look at the top three performers and the bottom three in Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust, the stock portfolio we use for the Investing Club.
