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. The market rally gained momentum on Tuesday with signs of potential de-escalation in the Iran conflict. The S & P 500 was up more than 2%, jumping on unconfirmed reports that Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was open to ending the war on the condition of certain guarantees. We’re hesitant to call this an all-clear signal, but it takes two sides to end a war. Between this news and a late Monday report from The Wall Street Journal that President Donald Trump is willing to end the war without reopening the Strait of Hormuz, the market is responding to the first sign of mutual interest in de-escalation. U.S. oil benchmark WTI crude dropped about 1% Tuesday, though it was still north of $100 a barrel. Eli Lilly made a big splash on the M & A front , announcing Tuesday that it was buying Centessa Pharmaceuticals in a deal that could be worth up to $7.8 billion. Centessa Pharmaceuticals is a clinical-stage company working on new medicines for the treatment of excessive daytime sleepiness, like narcolepsy. The company’s key asset is cleminorexton (formerly known as ORX750), which seeks to mimic a molecule in the brain, known as orexin, that helps regulate wakefulness. It’s shown promising results in Phase 2a clinical studies across type 1 and type 2 narcolepsy and idiopathic hypersomnia, which is another form of excessive daytime sleepiness. Analysts at Wolfe Research are currently forecasting more than $3 billion in peak sales for cleminorexton if it hits on those three targeted indications. Several analysts are coming out positive on the deal, noting it broadens Lilly’s presence in neuroscience, an area of growing focus beyond obesity and diabetes. Leave it to Lilly to try to track the code on difficult conditions like these sleep disorders. In an interview with our CNBC colleague Angelica Peebles last year , Lilly Chief Scientific Officer Dan Skovronsky said the company would invest to solve
