We're buying more of this megacap AI stock as the market heads for a lower open
Shortly after the opening bell, we will be buying 55 shares of Alphabet at roughly $298. Following the trade, Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust will own 255 shares of Alphabet, increasing its weighting in the portfolio to about 2% from 1.56%. Stock futures are pointing to a sharply lower open on Tuesday as the escalating war in Iran has sent oil prices surging and U.S. Treasury yields rising. The turmoil has also led to a global equities sell-off, with South Korea’s Kospi suffering its worst day in 19 months amid a broader decline in Asian stocks, European stocks falling, and weakness spilling over into the U.S. markets. An expected lower open on Tuesday follows a surprising Monday session, when the S & P 500 opened down about 1% but recovered throughout the day and finished slightly positive. Here’s how we handled the past 24 hours. When the market was indicated to open lower on Monday, we dipped into our unusually large 15% cash pile and initiated a new position in Cardinal Health, a health-care defensive growth stock. As a drug distributor and medical supplies provider that generates nearly all its revenue inside the United States, this stock should have limited sensitivity to what is happening overseas. After the market made a surprising recovery, we took advantage of the reversal and replenished our cash position almost 1-for-1 by selling about half of our remaining position in BlackRock , given its exposure to the embattled private markets. Now, with the S & P 500 poised to open 1.4% lower on Tuesday and the tech-heavy Nasdaq under even greater pressure, we’re dipping back into our large cash position and buying more shares of Alphabet. As we wrote when we scooped up Alphabet shares in mid-February at roughly $300 a share, time will tell whether the hyperscale capex spree will pay off. However, Google Search revenue is seeing a lift from artificial intelligence, driven by increased engagement with AI-powered queries. And Google Cloud is taking share from peers based on the 55% year-over-year growth in its backlog, which ended the year at $240 billion. As a result, we believe Alphabet has a clearer path to monetizing its large capex spend than its hyperscaler peers. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long GOOGL. See here for a full list of the stocks.) 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.