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.
Stocks fell on Monday as the market continued to struggle with rising oil prices and surging interest rates. WTI crude briefly rebounded to $95 per barrel after President Donald Trump rejected an Iranian proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, although Reuters reported that the two sides are expected to hold separate talks with Qatari mediators either Monday or Tuesday. The climb in oil prices also moderated on reports that Trump is open to easing sanctions against Iran if progress is made on Tehran's nuclear program.
Turning to bonds, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note hit a new high of 5.27%, extending last week's sell-off that sent the yield to its highest level since 2007. Bond prices move inversely to yields.
As we reviewed our market indicators to help us navigate through this volatile time in the market, we found the market has been oversold dating back to Sept. 10, according to the S & P Oscillator , our trusted momentum gauge. The date is notable simply because it was one of the last few trading sessions before the 10-year Treasury yield broke above a 5% for the first time since 2023. While the S & P 500 has rebounded 1% over this stretch, the gains have been very narrow and mostly limited to AI stocks. Any broad-based oversold rally has proved temporary, and the megacap techs stocks have fared much better than cyclicals, the banks, and stocks tied to discretionary consumer spending.
In a note to clients Friday, Goldman Sachs strategists said that, "while AI strength has kept the headline S & P 500 relatively resilient, the median stock in the index trades 16% below its 52-week high, dragging market breadth to its lowest level since the dot-com bubble." Goldman believes the combination of weak market breadth with investor positioning matching its lowest levels since March is a recipe for a "catch up" in recent laggards "if macro uncertainty declines." While that is a big "if," we do agree with Goldman that less macro uncertainty — if it brings with it lower oil prices and Treasury yields — would trigger a broad-based rally. For that reason, we don't want to be too negative on the market because a lot of the move in oil and inflation (like in March) is self-inflected. However, figuring out when these macro pressures will ease is tricky, which is why we will continue to maintain an elevated cash position and be gradual and selective when adding to positions.
The Department of Justice has closed its investigation into deals CrowdStrike made with Carahsoft Technology, a distributor of enterprise software to government agencies, without taking further action, Bloomberg News reported on Friday . The news closes the loop on an issue that was first raised in October 2024 and resurfaced in June 2025 after a securities filing that said the company is cooperating with government inquiries. Shares of the cybersecurity vendor fell both times, despite CEO George Kurtz's defense of the company's accounting, and our urge to focus on the fundamentals and block out the noise. Those who have done so have been rewarded over the past two years, with shares rallying from $75 in October 2024 to $259 on Monday. The company has benefited from secular growth in enterprise cybersecurity spending, as well as turbocharged dealmaking from companies needing to add protection against the growing risk of AI-related threats.
Jefferies reports after the closing bell on Monday, and the investment bank's results will set the stage for the broader bank earnings season in a couple of weeks. Carnival and CarMax report before the opening bell on Tuesday. On the data side, we'll see The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index and the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for the month of August.
