What a difference a few weeks can make. The last time we had our Monthly Meeting , on Friday, March 27, the stock market was still stuck in the fog of the Iran war. The following Monday brought a little more pain. But it turned out the S & P 500 and Nasdaq closed the March 30 session at their lowest levels since attacks began on the final day of February. Since then, the S & P 500 and Nasdaq have staged stunning rallies — gaining 10.7% and 15.5%, respectively, as of Wednesday’s close, which were record closing highs for both. The Nasdaq has been higher in all 11 sessions — its longest winning streak since November 2021. The S & P 500 has been 10 trading days out of the past 11. The market surge has built since then on hopes of a resolution to the Mideast conflict. It has also helped that U.S. oil prices have dropped roughly 18% from their war peak of nearly $113 per barrel on April 6. .SPX .IXIC YTD mountain S & P 500 and Nasdaq YTD The dramatic stock rally underscores what Jim Cramer has preached for over a month and reiterated during our March meeting: Don’t panic. Don’t exit the stock market because it feels like the easy way out in a tough market. While we’re not market timers, Jim’s advice came one session before stocks saw their March 30 wartime bottom. Ahead of Thursday’s April Monthly Meeting, which will be livestreamed starting at noon ET, the Club’s best-performing stocks over that stretch have crushed the overall market’s sizable gains. To be sure, not all of our stocks have posted gains. Here’s where we stand on our top four and bottom four stocks from March 30 through Wednesday’s close. Top 4 performers Broadcom up 35.2% We made two sales of this chipmaker this week, booking profits after the stock’s massive rally. We trimmed our position on Monday and Wednesday . The latest gains came after a number of positive developments, including a multiyear deal with Meta Platforms, which was announced after Tuesday’s close. Corning up 30.9% Stocks that support the AI infrastructure boom have been on a tear. Corning makes the fiber optics within data centers, which have seen fervent demand as hyperscalers invest hundreds of billions of dollars into these energy-intensive facilities. In his Sunday column , Jim described Corning stock as one of the many “data centers innards that know no bounds.” Meta Platforms up 25.2% Not only did the Broadcom news boost investor sentiment, but Meta also announced an expanded AI infrastructure agreement with CoreWeave worth $21 billion last week. Additionally, the Facebook and Instagram parent unveiled a new AI model, Muse Spark, around the same time. Hopefully, Muse Spark helps justify Meta’s massive AI spending. Amazon up 23.7% The rally in Amazon stock has pushed its weighting in the portfolio to over 5%, which is above our ideal threshold. Jim said on Tuesday we’re considering trimming our position as a right-sizing move. Shares soared nearly 4% that day after Amazon announced a deal to acquire Globalstar and strengthen its Leo satellite internet venture. Bottom 4 performers Nike down 11.3% A lackluster earnings report in late March pressured this retailer . Forward guidance also disappointed investors. The release was proof that we’re farther from Nike’s turnaround than expected. We’re giving CEO Elliott Hill another shot to show progress. It hasn’t been all bad news, though. Nike got a much-needed vote of confidence after Hill and director Tim Cook each bought roughly $1 million worth of the stock over the past week. Salesforce down 4% Shares fell with the rest of the software cohort . Investors have been concerned about how generative AI will impact Salesforce’s seat-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) business model. “If you’re in the software camp, you’re being treated as if you’re ready for the embalmer,” Jim said last week. “If you are in the hardware and AI camp, you’re headed for the pantheon of greatness.” He pointed to gains in chipmakers and other companies underpinning the data center and AI infrastructure buildout. Johnson & Johnson down 1.6 We started a position in Johnson & Johnson in early April, swapping out of pharma rival Bristol Myers . While J & J shares have lagged recently, the Club likes the drugmaker’s ongoing portfolio transformation and its robust pipeline. Our decision was validated on Tuesday when management announced a beat-and-raise quarter . We are looking to keep building out our J & J position. Costco down 1.2% The stock rolled over an impressive run earlier in the year. Costco’s decline had little to do with fundamentals and more to do with profit-taking. After all, the wholesale retailer reported another month of impressive sales just last week. We continue to like Costco, especially in an elevated gas prices environment, which tends to send even more shoppers its way for great prices. (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 . 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Our 4 best and worst performing stocks since the Iran war market bottom
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