The Club’s 10 things to watch Monday, Sept. 21 — Today’s newsletter was written by Club editors Kevin Stankiewicz and Matthew J. Belvedere. 1. We’re headed for a sharply higher open this morning on Wall Street. Dow futures are jumping over 400 points, while Nasdaq 100 and S & P futures are up 1% and 0.7%, respectively. The Dow is riding a three-week losing skid. The Nasdaq and S & P were basically flat last week . Stocks are getting some help this morning from oil and bonds. WTI crude is down over 2% to under $98 a barrel and the 10-year Treasury yield is below 4.95%. 2. The oil and bond markets may hold a lot of sway over how stocks trade this week, but that’s not all we’re watching. In our week ahead column for Club members , we detailed three big events on our radar: Meta’s annual developer conference on Wednesday; earnings from Costco on Thursday night; and President Donald Trump ‘s planned summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday. 3. Wells Fargo hiked its price target on Meta to $796 from $640, implying almost 20% upside for the stock. Reiterated its buy rating. It’s been an up-and-down year for shares, but they’ve been in an uptrend in mid-August. Wells said excitement around Meta’s new AI releases , including the Muse personal agent app, gives the social media giant a story to tell during the Meta Connect conference. 4. Ahead of the Trump-Xi summit, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the U.S. proposed to China creating a new notification mechanism for AI incidents that rise “up to a national security level.” Bessent made the comment last night after meeting with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in New York. The national security implications of AI are one reason why it’s difficult to imagine a major slowdown in development. 5. Novo Nordisk’s investor day left something to be desired, with the Ozempic maker’s New York-listed shares off more than 4% premarket. Novo said it plans to launch five “multi-blockbusters by 2030” and achieve $23 billion in risk-adjusted sales from its pipeline. CEO Mike Doustdar also talked about diversifying away from the obesity and diabetes market, where it lost its lead to Club name Eli Lilly . Lilly’s next-gen GLP-1 drugs such as retatrutide give us confidence to stick with the stock. 6. Evercore ISI upgraded networking provider Ciena to buy from hold, with a big price target boost to $550 from $375. The stock is up 6% to around $370 this morning. The analysts see Ciena as a great way to play optical connectivity in AI data centers. They think Ciena can keep growing sales by 30% and earnings by more than 35%. That would back our feeling that the AI pacing debate won’t slow things down on the buildout side. 7. Microsoft got two price target increases: one bullish and one bearish. Cantor Fitzgerald went to $608 from $522, representing 23% upside to Friday’s nearly $493 close; kept at a buy. However, Rothschild & Co Redburn went to $440 from $400, still thinking the stock will go lower; kept at a hold. Both cited multiple expansion as enterprise software stocks keep re-rating higher, a trend we see continuing. 8. Morgan Stanley raised its price targets on CrowdStrike to $254 from $238 and Palo Alto Networks to $410 from $394 and maintained buy ratings on each. The analysts see both Club names as beneficiaries of increased cybersecurity spending due to worries about AI safety. We have been saying this since the beginning of the so-called SaaSpocalypse. The PT bumps imply upside on both stocks. Palo Alto is also being added to the S & P 100, a subset of the largest companies in the S & P 500. 9. UBS is the latest Wall Street shop to lower its price target on McDonald’s , going to $320 from $340. Though like Citi last week, UBS is also keeping its buy rating on the stock. At Wednesday’s investor day, the fast-food giant is expected to unveil plans to boost business in the U.S. and abroad. Restaurant stocks have been struggling in this elevated inflation environment. 10. Bringing inflation down to the Federal Reserve’s 2% target won’t be painless, Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said in a speech in London, according to Bloomberg . Following last week’s interest rate hike, Goolsbee was putting into perspective what to expect going forward in the Fed’s tug-of-war between its dual mandate of fostering price stability and maximizing employment. 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. 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Our top 10 things to watch in the stock market Monday
Sep 21, 2026
