What had been adapted to a relatively mild week on Friday quickly became unstable following Israel’s overnight strike in Iran. Let’s take a closer look at the three biggest themes that defined the market this week. 1. Geopolitics: Attacks on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure spill over financial markets on Friday. US stocks were sold due to rising tensions abroad. The S&P 500 and NASDAQ composites fell 1.13% and 1.3% on Friday, respectively. Meanwhile, Brent crude futures and West Texas intermediate crude futures added around 7% and 7.5% respectively. Gold rose to two months’ height as investors view it as a safe haven from all volatility. Before the attack, the stock benchmark was on track to close the positive week. Instead, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq lost 0.4% and 0.6% on that stretch, snapping their winning streak every week. Despite the modest profits on Friday, the US Dollar Index was a tough week despite being part of safe haven trade. On Thursday we wrote about how weak dollars should be seen by long-term basic investors. Another major geopolitical event for investors was the announcement by US and Chinese delegations that both parties agreed to a trade deal framework, focusing specifically on rare earth minerals. 2. Economic Data: Investors received good news on the inflation front on Wednesday and Thursday. On Wednesday, the C Onsumer Price Index, a measure of goods and services inflation across the US economy, showed that core prices last month were lower than expected. The producer price index for May, a gauge of domestic wholesale inflation, also fell below expectations on Thursday. The labour market continued to show that it had been soft, but not broken. The weekly unemployment claims for the week ending June 7th remained unchanged, but the continuing claims were still at multi-year highs. Overall, as inflation rates remained calm and unemployment rates remained low, the batch of economic data was encouraging and provided more purchasing power to consumers. 3. AI Update: It was also packed with a week of chock full of specific news and events from companies within the generative artificial intelligence race. AI continues to be one of the most, if not most important, drivers in the financial market. On Monday, we heard from Apple, where the company held its annual Worldwide Developer Conference. It was as restrained as we had ever seen, but with no AI updates, this event could still be a disappointment. Meanwhile, the meta platform has thrilled investors this week. The company has made a massive investment in scale AI and has put the startup CEO onboard to start the startup CEO in-house with the goal of achieving artificial general information. Early on Wednesday morning we heard from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who spoke at the company’s GTC event in Paris. There weren’t many new updates, but Huang reaffirmed that there is still more accelerated computing power than it needs to be built, highlighting demand from hyperscale customers and sovereign entities. He argued that Europe is likely to be ten times its calculation capacity over the next two years. Outside of the portfolio, Oracle and Advanced Micro Devices also created news about AI. Oracle stock jumped Thursday after reporting better quarterly results than expected the previous evening. Impressively, since 2021, stock prices have skyrocketed once again despite wider market sales, despite wider market selling. BMO Capital has upgraded Oracle to a purchase rating. Oracle CEO Safra Catz’s comments on the cloud infrastructure business confirmed the growing demand for AI computing power. In fact, Oracle said revenue from its business should skyrocket 70% year-on-year in 2026. Elsewhere, Advanced Micro Devices unveiled its new AI server chip for 2026 at a company event on Thursday, part of an attempt to rival Nvidia’s market lead products. AMD has also announced that it has landed new, well-known customer Openai, the startup behind ChatGPT and Club Holding Microsoft’s AI partners. However, the chips are not scheduled to be released until 2026. (Jim Kramer’s Charitable Trust is the long AAPL, Meta, and NVDA. See here for a full list of stocks.) As a CNBC Investing Club subscriber with Jim Kramer, you will receive trade alerts before Jim makes any transactions. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before purchasing or selling stocks in the Charitable Trust portfolio. If Jim talks about stocks on CNBC TV, he will wait 72 hours after issuing a trade alert before running the trade. The above investment club information is subject to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, along with the disclaimer. Due to receiving information provided in connection with the Investment Club, there is no obligation or obligation of the fiduciary. No specific outcomes or benefits are guaranteed.
