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: Wall Street surged Wednesday thanks to the second encouraging inflation report this week and a batch of strong bank earnings. The consumer price index, excluding food and energy, came in slightly below expectations before the opening bell Wednesday, one day after a measure of wholesale inflation did the same. Odds that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates twice this year increased after Wednesday’s CPI print, according to the CME FedWatch tool . The hot December jobs report released Friday had caused investors to rethink the rate-cutting path ahead. Financials were one of four sectors in the S & P 500, out of 11, to be up more than 2% Wednesday. Communication services, consumer discretionary and tech are the others. Earnings reports drove the move in financials. Club name BlackRock popped roughly 5% after its results showed recent sellers left the train too soon . Wall Street wisely focused on the big picture with fellow portfolio stock Wells Fargo , sending its shares up 7%. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs validated our recent switch out of Morgan Stanley as executives sounded upbeat on dealmaking activity in 2025 . Bristol vision: The largest market for Bristol Myers Squibb’s new schizophrenia treatment may, in fact, be patients with Alzheimer’s disease. That’s according to company leaders who spoke with our CNBC colleague Annika Kim Constantino at the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco.Here’s an excerpt from her story. In an interview, company executives said each treatment use they are studying for Cobenfy has multibillion dollar potential, including Alzheimer’s disease psychosis, Alzheimer’s agitation and Alzheimer’s cognition, bipolar disease and autism. But Alzheimer’s is the
