Jim Cramer's top 10 things to watch in the stock market Thursday

My top 10 things to watch Thursday, Oct. 15

1. Fulcrum day. Is it too early for a crescendo sell-off? Seeing a huge flight to quality this morning. But the AI trade is under pressure again after yesterday's brutal sell-off. Inflation is still running hot, with this morning's wholesale producer price index coming in way above expectations. The geopolitical problems in the Middle East and with the Russia-Ukraine war also haven't abated at all.

2. If you want real-time analysis of what's happening in this fast-moving market, with real money on the line, sign up to join the Investing Club before our October Monthly Meeting today. Kicks off at noon ET. Hourlong program. I will talk about the big forces driving the action, and then my partner Jeff Marks and I will cover each stock in our portfolio and debate whether we need to make any moves.

3. South Korea's Kospi remains the epicenter of the AI hardware problems, plunging over 7% today. SK Hynix is down another 6% in the U.S. premarket. Shares of the South Korean memory giant closed yesterday back under their $149 July initial public offering price. These Kospi moves overnight have been the tail wagging the U.S. artificial intelligence trade dog.

4. CoreWeave shares continue to deteriorate — down roughly 4% this morning after yesterday's nearly 15.5% decline. CoreWeave's bonds are also selling off, pushing yields into the stratosphere. This is the nexus of bond/financing cost fears. CoreWeave stock is approaching its Situational Awareness blow-up lows of just above $60 in late July. Battleground: Deutsche Bank said buy the dip, while Bernstein doubled down on its sell call.

5. Anthropic disclosed a roughly 45% sequential increase in third-quarter revenue to $16.8 billion, according to CNBC sources. Healthy growth. But much slower than the 146% revenue gain from Q1 to Q2. Still, some investors expect Anthropic to hit an annualized revenue rate north of $100 billion by year-end, per The Wall Street Journal. So, maybe we should not overstate the slowdown?

6. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. sees no end in sight for chip demand. Sixth straight quarter of record net profit for TMSC, paired with strong guidance. In this anti-AI market, however, maybe it's not strong enough. Shares of the world's largest chip fabricator are down this morning following declines in six of the past seven sessions.

7. Microsoft is now loved again (along with many other software stocks). UBS issued a big price target hike: $675 from $525. Expectations are rising for its Azure cloud unit and M365 software suite into earnings, but analysts said they still expect Microsoft to clear these higher bars. There are important investing lessons to learn from Microsoft's road back to its first record close in almost a year. We covered them yesterday in a piece for the Club.

8. Top and bottom line beat for Club name Bank of New York, sending shares up almost 2% premarket. Will the move hold? Been a chilly reception to bank earnings this week, even when the prints were good. BNY's numbers certainly look good and better than rival State Street, with both net interest income and fee revenue topping consensus. Conference call kicks off at 11 a.m. ET.

9. Penske Automotive Group agreed to be taken private by its two biggest shareholders — Penske Corp and Mitsui — at an enterprise valuation of $16.3 billion. Notable because Wells Fargo was one of the financial advisors on the deal. CEO Charlie Scharf has been building up its investment banking business, strategy we love for this Club holding. We upgraded our rating on Wells after earnings Tuesday.

10. Mizuho Securities cut its price target on Honeywell Technologies to $255 from $265 ahead of earnings. Kept its buy rating on the stock. We had owned this one for the Club for years, but yesterday we decided we'd had enough and sold the rest of our stake, which we had cut in half last month.