My top 10 things to watch Thursday, July 30 1. Futures are rebounding with Microsoft’s post-earnings rally leading the way higher. It’s a far cry from yesterday’s nasty sell-off after the Fed meeting. Chairman Kevin Warsh talked tough on price stability but left interest rates unchanged. I wonder if the Fed actually wants bond yields to go higher to curb the spiraling AI spending. Odds for September Fed meeting hike above 60%. 2. Bond yields continued higher this morning as the June personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index matched forecasts. Core PCE, the Fed’s favorite inflation gauge, increased 3.3% annually. Still way above 2% central bank inflation target. I think the bond market genuinely fears inflation. Warsh said yesterday the economy was good. This morning, gross domestic product (GDP) growth slowed to a weaker-than-expected 1.5% in Q2. 3. Best earnings of the night belongs to Club name Starbucks. Beautiful acceleration in same-store sales growth, with both U.S. and global comps up 7.9%. The number of transactions is growing, not just price hikes. Full-year guide increased too. Brian Niccol has Starbucks humming again. Shares up 6% premarket. 4. Next best was Microsoft. Acceleration of Azure cloud was extraordinary. Switching from finance lease to operating lease saved $15 billion in capital expenditures. No capex guidance raise. Full-year Azure revenue passed $100 billion for the first time ever. Copilot at 30 million seats arguably the first unambiguous proof of monetization for a generative artificial intelligence product. The battleground stock is up 10% this morning. 5. The worst was Meta Platforms. Core business machine never better, with advertising revenue and pricing power higher. However, the stock is down 9% because all Wall Street cares about are AI spending and free cash flow. FCF collapsed 91% to a measly $784 million in the quarter. The capex guide was bumped up. Reality Labs, the unit that includes the viral connected glasses, lost another $4.6 billion. 6. Chipotle is up 8% after the company reported its best comparable sales growth in six quarters. Traffic and check size also up. Chipotle boosted its full-year comps guide by low single digits. Management said the cyclospora outbreak caused a 2 percentage point drag on sales in the second half of July, the first month of the current quarter. Guidance accounted for that. CEO Scott Boatwright told me on “Mad Money” that better customer service and execution is resonating. 7. KeyBanc said buy the dip in Vertiv despite the picks-and-shovels AI play reporting a disappointing quarter yesterday. Analysts did lower their price target to $325 from $360, acknowledging investors aren’t paying the same multiple for data-center stocks anymore. CEO Giordano Albertazzi told me last night on “Mad Money” that the issues in the quarter were temporary and related to supply chain hurdles, not waning demand for its cooling and power gear. 8. Wells Fargo cuts its price target on Bloom Energy to $176 from $217 after earnings. Analysts pointed to turbine capacity overbuild and lower assumed shipments for 2030 plus. Still a great quarter with beats on the top and bottom line. They raised guidance and earnings for the second quarter jumped 680% from a year ago. 9. JPMorgan upped its price target on Arm to $255 from $240. Analysts cited a “clean beat” that cements the chip designer’s position as an AI-era compute platform. They kept their buy rating. The stock is up 11% on the earnings release, erasing all of yesterday’s sell-off. Although Arm posted a record first quarter for overall revenue, guidance was mixed. Shares are up over 105% year to date, but still well off their June highs. 10. The Financial Times reported that Situational Awareness, the $20 billion hedge fund started by an ex-OpenAI employee, is looking to raise capital after facing losses connected to the downturn in AI stocks. In an investor letter dated July 24, the firm said that it had not been immune to the market’s recent volatility. Still, they said they were up 439% on a net basis in 2026 through the end of June. 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.
Jim Cramer’s top 10 things to watch in the stock market Thursday
Jul 30, 2026
