Home Depot eyes a deal — plus, casual dining shines and TikTok ban is delayed once more
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 modestly lower Friday as investors mull over the latest news from the Israel-Iran conflict and consider the Federal Reserve's next monetary policy move. Fed Governor Christopher Waller said that policymakers could lower interest rates as early as July. "That would be my view, whether the committee would go along with it or not," Waller told CNBC Friday morning. Meanwhile, shares of chip stocks — including Club holdings Broadcom and Nvidia — were under pressure after a Wall Street Journal report indicated that the U.S. may revoke waivers that major semiconductor manufacturers rely on to use American technology in China. Elsewhere on the geopolitical front, top European diplomats were set to hold talks with Iranian officials in Geneva on Friday. It comes after the White House said that President Donald Trump will decide within the next two weeks whether the U.S. will directly join Israel's attacks on Iran's nuclear sites. Home Deal-po?: QXO is not budging on its unsolicited $5 billion cash proposal to acquire GMS Inc. following Club name Home Depot's own bid for the building products distributor, Bloomberg News reported Friday afternoon . A QXO spokesperson told Bloomberg that $5 billion is the company's full offer. On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Home Depot made a submission for GMS — raising the specter of a bidding war with QXO, the latest venture of billionaire businessman Brad Jacobs, a frequent guest on "Mad Money" over the years. Home Depot and QXO are competing for a bigger share of the construction supply market targeting professional contractors. Home Depot made a massive move in that area last year with its $18 billion acquisition of SRS Distribution. RBC analysts said Home Depot's bid for GMS might be perceived "slightly negatively," arguing it could further gross-margin dilution and delay share repurchases because the company's debt load remains above its targeted levels in the wake of the SRS deal. Casual shining: Darden Restaurants' fourth-quarter earnings report Friday showed that consumers are still opening their wallets for casual dining despite high levels of economic uncertainty — an encouraging sign for portfolio name Texas Roadhouse . Darden's leading chains — Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse — saw same-store sales rise 6.9% and 6.7% for the quarter, respectively. LongHorn Steakhouse, a direct competitor to the Texas Roadhouse chain, reported a 9.3% increase in total sales, which includes the performance of 16 new locations. "Consumers are figuring out that casual dining is a great value. And so, they're coming to casual dining more," said Darden CEO Rick Cardenas "We're seeing that across our brands and some of the industry. And so, without commenting on what's happened in other places, we think that's a big part of it. Consumers want to go out and spend their hard-earned money. And we think we're taking some wallet share from fast food and fast casual." Added Darden CFO Raj Vennam: "Pretty much every household income is growing in casual dining except for the ones below $50,000." For its full-year fiscal 2026, Darden expects total inflation in the range of 2.5% to 3% — including both labor and commodities like food — and same-store sales between 2% and 3.5%. Executives also doubled down on their commitment to affordability, saying they expect menu price hikes this fiscal year will "still likely be below total inflation." In general, what we heard from Darden, particularly on the overall consumer interest in casual dining, bodes well for Texas Roadhouse. It comes after analysts at UBS were upbeat on the Club name in a note earlier this month . We took some profits on Texas Roadhouse in May to lock in some big gains on our purchases in April during the tariff-driven market turmoil. While the stock is up less than 2% since that trim, it is our best-performing name this week, gaining around 6%. Clock keeps ticking: Trump signed an executive order Thursday granting another 90-day extension to the deadline for ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok, to divest the social media app's U.S. operations to an American entity. This is the third time Trump has extended the divestiture timeline for the short-form video platform, which is the chief competitor for Club name Meta . The deadline for ByteDance to complete the sale or face a ban in the U.S. is now set for Sept. 17. From an investment perspective, it would be a clear-cut positive for Meta's stock if its main rival in the U.S. went dark — forcing its users and advertisers to redirect their attention and dollars elsewhere. But, at this point, we're not holding our breath for it to happen, given Trump's stated desire to "save it." Meta's actions suggest that CEO Mark Zuckerberg isn't betting on that happening, either. Instead, the Facebook and Instagram parent is putting its full financial force behind its AI investments to keep attracting and retaining users, and to further improve revenue and profits in its core advertising business. As we recently wrote , the AI-first tech giant keeps improving its AI tools for advertisers to create personalized ads with diverse text, backgrounds and images at a low cost. To stay ahead, Zuckerberg is on the hunt for top AI talent. CNBC reported Thursday that Meta is planning to hire AI investors Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman and partially buy out their venture capital fund, NFDG, which has invested in AI startups like Perplexity. Thursday's news comes after Meta recently invested $14.8 billion for a 49% stake in data-labeling company Scale AI. And, according to a Bloomberg News report Friday , Meta held discussions with Perplexity about a potential takeover before making its Scale AI offer. Ultimately, Meta's AI advancements and top experts in the field will allow it to better compete should TikTok remain as a competitor in the U.S. Meta stock is down about 1.6% Friday, to roughly $684 per share. It's up around 17% year to date. Up next: Starting after the close Friday and continuing into next week, Club name Eli Lilly will be presenting a slew of trial data at the American Diabetes Association's annual conference. Meanwhile, there are no Club holdings reporting earnings next week, though we'll be keeping an eye on results from the likes of FedEx and Micron . KB Home also has earnings in what will be a busy week of housing news, most notably the National Association of Realtors' existing home sales report on Monday morning. The biggest economic event of the week is the Fed's preferred inflation gauge, the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index, which is due out Friday morning. (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.
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