Every weekday, the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer releases the Homestretch — an actionable afternoon update, just in time for the last hour of trading on Wall Street. Markets: Stocks are mostly lower on Thursday, with the S & P 500 and Nasdaq pulling back from their record highs. The decline in the S & P 500 would wipe out most of this week’s gains. The AI trade is mostly lower, although megacap tech names like Nvidia and Oracle pushed higher. Nvidia received a new Street high price target of $300 by analysts at Cantor Fitzgerald, which had a meeting with the chipmaker’s management team this week. Defensive groups like consumer staples and health care outperformed in the session, while the materials, industrials, energy, and consumer discretionary led the market lower. Turning around : On Thursday, we received one of our favorite sell-side research reports of the year: the fall 2025 edition of Piper Sandler’s “Taking Stock with Teens” survey. The latest version was the result of a survey of nearly 11,000 teens across 47 states. This twice-a-year survey offers valuable insight into the opinion of this notoriously fickle demographic and gives their view on many household brands. The survey touches on just about everything, from spending trends and views on the economy to favorite celebrities and social media personalities. It also spans a wide range of sectors, including beauty and fashion, hardlines and broadline retail, food, beverages, restaurants, internet and software, and even orthodontics. There’s a lot to digest in this report, but we’re going to skip to our two consumer-oriented companies that are working hard to turn around their business: Nike and Starbucks . Nike scored well in the survey. It remained the No. 1 favorite footwear brand for all teens. Notably, Piper’s analyst pointed out that Nike grew mind share — basically, how much kids are thinking about the brand — amongst upper-income teens sequentially for the first time since the fall of 2022. These signs of stabilization made Piper more bullish on Nike following the survey. That milestone probably wouldn’t be happening unless the company was making tangible strides in improving innovation, and it’s another positive data point that shows CEO Elliott Hill’s plan is working. As for Starbucks, the coffee retailer retained the top spot in the survey’s coffee, tea or beverage chain. For the third consecutive survey, 51% of respondents named it their preferred brand in the category. That shows some resilience in a space has become increasingly competitive, though it’s down from 57% in the spring of 2024. Starbucks shares have been clobbered this week — it’s not alone among coffee and restaurant stocks — and while the turnaround may be taking longer than anticipated, we still have faith in CEO Brian Niccol. Strong standing : Microsoft is poised to win an incremental share of generative AI spending and IT budgets as more workloads shift to cloud, Morgan Stanley said in a note to clients, following its third-quarter AlphaWise survey of chief information officers. Expectations for IT budget growth are stable, the analysts noted, and CIOs are still prioritizing artificial intelligence. Microsoft’s alignment with CIO priorities puts it in prime position to gain share of IT budgets over one- and three-year time horizons. Analysts said Microsoft is also leading due to being deeply integrated across the software ecosystem; its vast scope of available products for generative AI monetization; and increased AI infrastructure spending. Microsoft is “the clearest beneficiary of GenAI spend,” the firm wrote, adding that the company’s recent decision to forgo a $300 billion cloud contract with OpenAI is “likely to be proven correct” in the long-term. That contract instead went to Oracle. Morgan Stanley reiterated its buy-equivalent rating on Microsoft and reaffirmed its top-pick designation in large-cap software, given its valuation discount relative to peers. Up next: Levi Strauss r eports after the closing bell on Thursday. There are no major earning reports before the opening bell on Friday. Most economic data is delayed due to the government shutdown, but on Friday morning, we should see the University of Michigan sentiment and one-year inflation expectations (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. 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Nike, Starbucks score well among teen shoppers — and Microsoft has fans in the C-suite
