The Club’s 10 things to watch Oct. 17, 2025 — Today’s newsletter was written by Investing Club editors Kevin Stankiewicz and Matthew J. Belvedere 1. S & P futures are flat this morning following yesterday’s sell-off on renewed credit quality concerns emanating from regional lenders Zions Bancorp and Western Alliance . It fanned the flames created by the recent bankruptcies of Tricolor and First Brands. The loan issues may give the Fed more reason to cut at its late October meeting, said Jim Cramer. 2. Baird upgraded Zions to buy from hold, contending the $1 billion in lost market cap yesterday on a $50 million charge-off is “overdone from our perspective.” Analysts said the fact Zions is alleging “leads us to believe this is a unique borrower rather than anything systemic.” Western Alliance also is alleging fraud in its bad loans. 3. Jefferies , one of the banks caught up in the First Brands fallout, was upgraded to buy from hold at Oppenheimer. Analysts argued the firm’s First Brands exposure is “in reality very limited,” and said they got more confidence in Jefferies’ long-term trajectory at its investor day yesterday. After a 27% drop in the past month, shares added about 3% this morning. 4. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is set to speak with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng over the phone today, CNBC’s Eamon Javers reported. With trade tensions between U.S.-China heating up in recent days, the market will likely take this dialogue between the two sides in stride. 5. DuPont was tapped as a short-term buy idea at Deutsche Bank ahead of its planned spin-off its Qnity electronics division. The firm’s sum-of-the-parts valuation suggests the stock is trading at a 38% discount. We agree the breakup will unlock a lot of value, which is why the Club owns DuPont. We analyzed Qnity’s prospects earlier this week. 6. Eli Lilly shares are down 4% this morning after President Donald Trump said yesterday the cost of GLP-1 drugs will come down “pretty fast.” While Trump said he was specifically talking about a treatment made by Lilly’s main rival in GLP-1s, Novo Nordisk , investors have been worried about price competition in this booming market this year. 7. Bank of America raised its Advanced Micro Devices price target to $300 from $250, implying roughly 30% upside from yesterday’s close. The analysts cited recent positive comments about AMD’s Helios rack-scale AI hardware platform. AMD shares, which closed at a record high Wednesday, have been on the upswing since the OpenAI deal earlier this month. In chips, we own Nvidia and Broadcom . 8. Oracle landed a bunch of price target hikes after the software and emerging cloud giant laid out updated long-term financial targets at an analyst day. Piper Sandler went to $380 from $330. Guggenheim went to $400 from $375. While Bank of America believes Oracle is well-positioned in the cloud, analysts asked whether it can build data centers fast enough to meet its revenue targets. 9. Mizuho raised its price target on Club name Eaton to $425 from $385, which would be 13% higher than yesterday’s close. The analysts bumped up their models ahead of earnings in their electrical equipment and multi-industry coverage universe. We love Eaton and GE Vernova as beneficiaries of the boom in energy-intensive AI data centers. 10. American Express delivered a quarterly beat and a full-year revenue guidance raise. The third quarter net-write off rate was flat. In the premium card space, Amex saw little signs of the crack in the consumer seen in the recent concerns about bad loans. Credit card issuer and Club name Capital One , which took a hit in yesterday’s bank weakness, is getting a bounce this morning. Sign up for my Top 10 Morning Thoughts on the Market email newsletter for free (See here for a full list of the stocks at 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.
The Club’s 10 things to watch in the stock market Friday
Oct 17, 2025
