Here are our top 10 things to watch in the stock market Friday
Here are our top 10 things to watch Friday, Sept. 4 — Club portfolio director Jeff Marks wrote today’s newsletter. 1. Bond yields jumped and stocks dipped after a strong August jobs report. Non-farm payrolls increased 162,000, compared to expectations of 53,000. There were also positive combined revisions of 55,000 for June and July. The unemployment rate for last month was unchanged at 4.1%. 2. The numbers are aligned with the Federal Reserve’s view of a stable labor market. Next week’s inflation numbers will be key in determining whether central bankers raise interest rates at their September meeting. Market odds on rates have recently been a coin flip. 3. OpenAI introduces GPT‑6 Astra, which they are calling the world’s most intelligent and aligned model. Great ad. Reuters also reported that the company’s AI agents hacked a German website in the spring. More reasons to call CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks . 4. Lululemon is down more than 20% after reporting a weak quarter and slashing its full-year outlook. Comparable sales fell 10% in constant currency. Full-year net revenue was cut to $10.35 billion to $10.5 billion from $11 billion to $11.15 billion. Earnings per share (EPS) are expected to be $9.48 and $9.73 from $10.95 to $11.15. The company said product launches have been inconsistent. Too hard when numbers keep going lower. 5. Mizuho lowered its Intel price target to $92 from $109. The analysts actually like the agentic AI server tailwinds extending into 2028 and are positive on foundry/advanced packaging. But they are neutral on valuation and reduced their price target due to multiple compression in the group. 6. Adobe finally tapped a new CEO. Anil Chakravarthy will succeed Shantanu Narayen in December. Chakravarthy joined Adobe as a top executive nearly seven years ago. Before that, he was CEO of cloud data management company Informatica, which was bought by Salesforce last November. 7. Zscaler shares were higher but have given back the gains after posting a strong quarter and upbeat outlook, following many other cybersecurity companies with good results. The stock is down roughly 4% this morning. Maybe another case of good results not being good enough in this market. 8. The business news outlet Nikkei is reporting that the early production of Apple ‘s upcoming foldable iPhone has been limited to a few hundred units per day due to quality control reasons. Apple is hosting its product event Wednesday after the holiday. It’s the company’s first fall launch event with John Ternus as CEO 9. Stifel raised its Microsoft price target to $530 from $450 after meetings with management but maintains a hold. The analysts are seeing momentum in M365 copilot. We hiked our price target on Microsoft yesterday to to $550 from $500. We also bumped up our Salesforce price target to $290 from $250. 10. Wells Fargo raised its price targets on Merck to $170 from $150 and Amgen from $435 to $400. The analysts raised their peak sales estimate for Merck’s oral Lipfendra and increased the revenue consensus on Amgen’s injectable Repatha. Both drugs are used to lower so-called bad LDL cholesterol. Sign up for my Top 10 Morning Thoughts on the Market email newsletter for free (See here for a full list of the stocks at Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust, including INTC, AAPL, MSFT, CRM, CRWD, PANW.) 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.
