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 is lower Tuesday and on track to break its five-session winning streak. The two main drivers of the weakness are profit-taking after a big postelection run and concerns over rising Treasury yields. For some perspective on how big of a move bond yields made Tuesday, consider this: The 10-year Treasury yield was at about 4.37% and the S & P 500 was at roughly 5,996 at 10:20 a.m. ET when the Morning Meeting started. Since then, the 10-Year yield has climbed as high as 4.44% while the S & P 500 has fallen as low as 5,960. It’s not a significant dip for the equity index, especially in the context of its more-than-4% rally in November. But it shows how the stock market begins to get a little skittish whenever bond yields surge like this. We’ve seen that dynamic rear its head from time to time during the rise in bond yields that began in September. Activist alert: Elliott Management revealing a $5 billion-plus stake in Club name Honeywell and pushing for a breakup of its aerospace and automation businesses isn’t the only big update Tuesday in the activist world. It also was reported that ValueAct has taken a $1 billion position in Meta Platforms . ValueAct is a supporter of Meta Platforms’ artificial intelligence strategy, CNBC reported, citing a person familiar with the firm’s plans. That suggests the stake will be passive in nature without a push for changes. Still, ValueAct’s investment represents a stamp of approval for Meta and should ease some of the market’s concerns about the company’s aggressive AI-related investments. Tariff talk : Stanley Black & Decker in a securities filing Tuesday warned that potentially steeper tariffs under the incoming Trump administration could squeeze its profits, further pressuring the stock. This is not the company’s first go-round with higher levies on imports while Donald Trump is in the White House. After tariffs were first put in place on goods imported to the U.S. from China in 2017 and 2018, the DeWalt and Craftsman owner said its original unmitigated exposure was over $300 million. To offset these headwinds, the company repositioned its supply chain and raised prices for customers. The supply chain changes helped reduce the gross impact to below $100 million annually. The price increases offset the rest of the headwind to fully neutralize the annual impact. But what happens if tariffs increase? On Tuesday, the company said its current planning assumption is that tariffs will increase to 60% soon after Trump takes office in January. Management estimates this would create an annualized negative impact of roughly $200 million to pretax operating income before any new mitigation actions. To get ahead of these potential tariffs, management said it’s preparing discussions with customers about price increases. It also said it is exploring supply chain changes that could take 12 months to 24 months before mitigating
