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. Market update : Stocks are higher on Friday, but the S & P 500 is still on pace for a weekly decline. There was some brief volatility in the early morning over concerns of an upcoming government shutdown, but the market rightfully shrugged off the headlines. Top picks: Two stocks in the portfolio were named top picks on Friday. Morgan Stanley replaced Atlassian with Microsoft as its favorite bet in software and raised the price target to $625 from $582. The analyst pointed out how the stock has been mostly flat since the software company reported strong quarterly results with an acceleration in Azure growth and provided upbeat forward guidance, but has lagged due to uncertainty around its OpenAI relationship, the durability of Azure growth, Agentics potential threat to Microsoft’s productivity app positioning, and questions about the right multiple to pay for the stock. Still, Morgan Stanley said
