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. Markets: The S & P 500 was trying to hold onto gains. It looked like a strong day at Friday’s open as Amazon shares surged in reaction to accelerating revenue growth within its cloud computing unit. Strong revenue guidance from Apple initially boosted the market, too. The market gains cooled later Friday. Still, the S & P 500 is on pace for a weekly advance of over 0.5% and an October advance of more than 2%. Earnings: Another week down — and so far, quarterly results continue to be upbeat. About 64% of the S & P 500 have posted, and 79% of those companies have seen revenue upside, while 83% have reported earnings upside, according to FactSet. That’s a little worse than the 82% on revenue and 87% on earnings that were reported last week. The size of the earnings beats has been shrinking. “While the percentage of S & P 500 companies reporting positive earnings surprises is above recent averages, the magnitude of earnings surprises is below recent averages,” FactSet’s Senior Earnings Analyst John Butters wrote Friday. This week’s run of earnings releases has pushed the third-quarter earnings growth rate for the S & P 500 to 10.7% from 9.1%. If this rate holds, Butters says it will mark the fourth straight quarter of double-digit year-over-year growth for the index. The last time that happened was in 2021 when companies lapped Covid-related closures. Analysts project that the double-digit earnings growth will continue for the S & P 500 in four of the next five quarters, according to Butters. Up next: Around one-fourth of the S & P 500 is scheduled to report quarterly earnings next week. Club holding Eaton will post results on Tuesday morning. Solstice Advanced Materials , newly spun off from Honeywell, and DuPont are before Thursday’s open. Texas Roadhouse is out with quarterly results after the close. Investors on Thursday evening will also receive a business update from Qnity Electronics, which will be spun off from DuPont on Saturday. If the government shutdown continues, the Bureau of Labor Statistics won’t release its crucial monthly jobs report. Instead, Wall Street will have to rely on the ADP private payrolls report on Wednesday to gauge the labor market’s health. (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.
