2 portfolio names hike their dividends — plus, we're raising our price target another
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. A relief rally was unfolding across the market, with fears about Anthropic’s Claude disrupting software and AI creating economic mayhem taking a back seat for the day. The artificial intelligence startup hosted an enterprise agents event on Tuesday, with investors watching closely to see which industry it might disrupt next. At the event, Anthropic announced new updates to Claude Cowork that integrate its productivity tool into various enterprise apps. This idea of Anthropic partnering with software companies – and not replacing it outright – sparked the rally. While it’s a nice sigh of relief for now, we caution that this is far from an all-clear signal. Claude Cowork is different from Claude Code, which is viewed as the main disruptor. Two companies in the portfolio announced dividend boosts . Home Depot raised its quarterly dividend by 1.3% to $2.33 per share, or $9.32 over a full year. The stock’s new dividend yield is about 2.4% when factoring in Tuesday’s nearly 2% post-earnings bump. The other was Linde, which increased its quarterly dividend by 7% to $1.60 per share, or $6.40 annually. The move puts the dividend yield at about 1.28%. Shares of this industrial gas giant continued their hot streak. Even with the recent market volatility, Linde was riding a ten-session win streak and on pace Tuesday to make 11 straight. Despite our 1 rating on Linde, we’re not sure we would chase anything that’s been up this many days in a row. Maybe wait for it cool off a bit. However, it’s important to realize the reason for this strength. Linde is the quintessential “HALO” stock, or “Heavy Assets, Low Obsolescence,” which is a newer market theme investors have gravitated toward to reduce the risk of AI disintermediation. Goldman Sachs on Tuesday described HALO as businesses that “pair substantial physical capital (barriers to replication via cost, regulation, time to build or engineering complexity) with long-lived economic relevance.” Some examples the analysts provided were grids, pipelines, critical machinery, and long-cycle industrial capacity. In addition to Linde, other classic examples of HALO stocks in the portfolio include Eaton, GE Vernova, and Honeywell. Corning is continuing its magnificent run . Shares of this optical fiber and specialty glass maker hit another new record high on Tuesday, jumping another 4.5%. Impressively, the stock has now rallied about 15% since we took a little off and trimmed this position last Tuesday. Last Thursday, analysts at UBS raised their Corning price target to $160 from $125 on the potential for more upward earnings revisions from major hyperscalers, increasing their capital expenditures forecasts. We’re moving up our price target to match UBS at $160, which was roughly 5% higher than the $152-per-share level in Tuesday afternoon trading. The Club’s previous Corning PT was $140. Up next, after the closing bell , we get earnings from Axon Enterprise, Cava, Workday, First Solar, and Realty Income. Club name TJX Companies — behind the off-price chains T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, and HomeGoods — reports earnings Wednesday morning. Home Depot rival Lowe’s also delivers its quarter Wednesday morning. On the economic data side Wednesday, it’s weekly mortgage applications and initial jobless claims. After Wednesday’s close, portfolio names Nvidia and Salesforce report earnings. (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. 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.
