Bulls push S&P 500 back near records. What drove the market last week
Stock market bulls wrestled back control last week after a brief respite, putting the S & P 500 back on the cusp of another record high. The index has now advanced for eight straight weeks since its Iran wartime bottom on March 30, its longest winning streak since late 2023, when it strung together nine in a row. With a modest gain Friday, the S & P 500 is now less than 0.4% below its May 14 record close of 7,501. It was a big shift from the start of the week, when the good times seemed in jeopardy thanks to the old foes of higher oil prices and bond yields. Oil again traded well above $100 a barrel, and the 30-year Treasury yield on Tuesday reached its highest level since 2007 . Stocks unsurprisingly didn’t like that. The S & P 500 ended Tuesday riding a three-session skid dating back to May 15, a losing streak not seen since March 26, 27, and 30. Just like in the early days of the Iran war, stocks were taking their cues again from the oil and bond markets. Enthusiasm around artificial intelligence wasn’t enough to break through. .SPX 3M mountain S & P 500 3 months The market turned a corner on Wednesday. Oil prices and bond yields retreated, resulting in a positive session for the S & P 500. It kicked off the stock market’s ascent – just like the rally on March 31. Investors were optimistic after President Donald Trump said the U.S. was in the “final stages” of peace talks with Iran. The S & P 500 didn’t stop there and continued its run into Thursday and Friday. It wasn’t just hopes of a resolution that drove last week’s action. Nvidia, the center of the AI trade, reported a strong quarter Wednesday night — but not strong enough to propel its own stock higher. Also on Wednesday, SpaceX filed for its initial public offering, which is expected to be the largest in history. The remarkable comeback in cybersecurity stocks, including Club name CrowdStrike , continued. Overall, the S & P 500 jumped 0.9% over the five-day stretch. The tech-heavy Nasdaq and Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.5% and 2.1%, respectively. The blue-chip Dow ended the week at a record high. Here’s a closer look at the forces that drove last week’s action. Nvidia’s quarter Nvidia posted another blockbuster quarter late Wednesday. The company delivered a beat-and-raise well above analyst forecasts, and CEO Jensen Huang said that “demand has gone parabolic.” It just reinforced our view that Nvidia is a must-own name during the AI race, and we raised our price target to $260 per share from $230. Still, the stock fell 2.6% in the session that followed and another 0.5% on Friday. It’s a frustrating reaction, given shares are incredibly cheap versus peers, and it has plenty of avenues for more growth. The stock’s post-earnings decline isn’t that surprising to us — it’s become a pattern in recent quarters, no matter how good the numbers look. At least shares of fellow Club name Arm jumped on the release. Nvidia highlighted strong demand for its new Arm-based Vera CPUs (central processing units). CFO Colette Kress said Nvidia has visibility to nearly $20 billion in total CPU revenue this year. That’s good news for Arm because the company receives royalty payments. Arm shares jumped over 16% on Nvidia earnings, and gained 46% for the week. It was our top performer. But the stock has been running for some time now – up roughly 81% since we started a position in April. The parabolic move is why we sold some on Monday and will likely trim some again next week, as Director of Portfolio Analysis Jeff Marks wrote in Friday’s Homestretch . Goldman’s deal trifecta Nvidia earnings weren’t the only driver of a Club stock’s weekly gains. SpaceX filed for its highly anticipated initial public offering (IPO) on Wednesday, sending shares of Goldman Sachs higher as the company got a lead role on the deal. Goldman was listed as the highly coveted “lead left” position on SpaceX’s prospectus. By spearheading some of the most crucial parts of the stock’s debut, the investment bank will likely take home the biggest share of fees. It should be especially lucrative for Goldman as SpaceX is expected to be the biggest IPO in history. The offering of Elon Musk’s rocket company, valued at $1.25 trillion, could raise $75 billion or more. That would be more than triple the size of the biggest U.S. offering to date: Alibaba ‘s $25 billion IPO in 2014. Banks on Alibaba’s IPO were paid out more than $300 million in underwriting commissions at the time. That’s roughly 1.2% of the e-commerce giant’s total deal. Applying the same math to SpaceX, participating banks could bring in over $900 million. “This is a huge win for Goldman Sachs and a verification that this Investing Club stock is in pole position for all the big ones,” Jim said. OpenAI might be one of those “big ones” as well. CNBC reported on Wednesday that Goldman and Morgan Stanley are working on the AI startup’s public debut. It’s another monster deal as OpenAI recently announced a record $122 billion raise at a post-money valuation of $852 billion. Goldman could also nab rival Anthropic as the Claude creator weighs plans to go public. In the meantime, Anthropic is in talks with investors to raise money at a $900 billion valuation. Overall, more deals for Goldman means more revenue for its crucial investment banking division — the main reason we’re in the stock. It was great to see investors recognize the value of Goldman’s dealmaking line last week as shares kept hitting records. The bank stock gained around 5% for the week. CrowdStrike’s comeback It was another incredible week for CrowdStrike. Shares climbed almost 12% over the five-day stretch as Wall Street analysts issued bullish calls and the market continued to come around to our idea that cybersecurity names are not threatened by AI adoption and should not be lumped in with general-purpose enterprise software stocks. At least seven Wall Street firms raised their price targets on CrowdStrike last week. Some of the most notable include KeyBanc, which went to $700 from $525. While more of a catch-up call, the updated PT still implies nearly 6% upside from Friday’s close of $663. Analysts pointed to an improved outlook on security demand. Cantor Fitzgerald raised to $700 from $550 a few days later, citing “quite strong” first-quarter checks and improved earnings. Stifel, Morgan Stanley, Truist, TD Cowen, and Barclays raised their targets, too. The Club did the same on Monday, and hiked our CrowdStrike price target to $650 from $500. We took peer Palo Alto Networks to $255 from $200 as well. Now that both stocks have pushed past those levels, we’ll need to reevaluate. That’s probably a call we’ll make after earnings in June. CrowdStrike stock has been on a six-week winning streak. Last week, it gained 11.7%; the week before, it was up nearly 12.6%; and the week before that, it was up nearly 16%. Huge advances like these are why we trimmed twice since Monday, and downgraded CrowdStrike to a hold-equivalent 2 rating . It’s not because our conviction has changed. Instead, it’s an opportunity to capitalize on a parabolic move that might not be sustainable in the long run. We’re cautious because CrowdStrike has had such a volatile 2026. AI disruption concerns previously pummeled the entire cybersecurity group and software broadly through February and March. But ever since Anthropic’s Project Glasswing launched, the narrative on cyber has shifted. The market’s seeing what we always have: new AI models will accelerate demand because the risk of new cyber attacks has never been greater. (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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