Despite an unexpected banking crisis that had reverberations across markets and the broader global economy, equities ended the first quarter of the year on a positive note last Friday. But the first week of trading of the second quarter got off to a rocky start, forcing us to recalibrate our approach to the market. For starters, the S & P 500 Short Range Oscillator flipped to overbought territory for the start of the quarter, giving us an opportunity to scale back some of our positions and raise cash. But as the week progressed, stocks came under pressure amid signs the labor market is softening, fueling fresh investor fears of a recession. That prompted many investors to dump technology stocks in favor of defensive sectors like health care and consumer staples. Consistent with our discipline, we followed through on what Jim Cramer outlined on Sunday and used this week’s volatility to opportunistically sell, along with a couple of buys. This week of trading comes on the heels of a buying spree in the second half of March, when the market was oversold and uncertainty over the financial sector dominated. Here’s a wrap-up that explains how our broader view of the market influenced our trading decisions this week: Monday Guided by the Oscillator, we decided to trim shares of our networking holding at the start of the week. We sold 160 shares of Cisco Systems (CSCO) into strength Monday, with the stock having rallied roughly 10% since the company’s fiscal second-quarter report in February. In that quarter, Cisco delivered a beat on revenue and profit, while raising its guidance. However, investors like us are still questioning whether Cisco’s orders can continue to grow on par with 2022. Earlier this year, we started to get concerned over Cisco’s order-growth prospects amid a slowdown in IT spending. As a result, we remain cautious on Cisco until we get a better idea of growth expectations for next year. Tuesday Tuesday was our busiest day of trades . We had a mix of selling and opportunistic buying across our energy, consumer staples, infrastructure and health-care holdings. We decided to exit our position in Devon Energy (DVN), selling 500 shares of the energy company after an unexpected production cut from OPEC+ boosted oil stocks. We had been planning to part with Devon since it delivered a disappointing fourth quarter , leading to a lower fixed-plus-variable dividend. This trade also gave us a chance to scale back our weighting in the oil-and-gas sector. But we’re continuing to hold Coterra Energy (CTRA), which has exposure to natural gas. We have a stake in Halliburton (HAL) for its strong pricing power and expect it to benefit from years of underinvestment in the industry. Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD) is another one of our energy names we hold for its solid capital efficiency and a 10.5% dividend yield. We plan to stick with these three oil stocks, given energy prices are likely to move even higher amid ongoing geopolitical turmoil. We trimmed our position in Procter & Gamble (PG), selling 100 shares of the consumer goods giant while downgrading our rating of the stock to a 2. Shares of P & G had a troubled start to the year as investors piled into tech, but the stock has recently been on the rise after some Wall Street analysts upgraded the company to a buy rating. The boost in shares gave us a chance to trim our position and raise some cash. We’re still big fans of P & G for its ability to maintain pricing power. We also see a favorable set up for the stock for the rest of the year as some commodity costs come down. We bought 20 shares of manufacturing giant Caterpillar (CAT), as signs of a weaker economy prompted a market rotation into defensive stocks. So, we strategically bought shares of CAT on weakness because we favor the company long-term for its strong order backlog and dividend strength. With the market’s move into health-care stocks this week, we sold 20 shares of biopharmaceuticals giant Eli Lilly (LLY) into strength after the stock’s rise over the past month. We’re still long-term holders of the company, and our investment case hasn’t changed. We continue to believe Eli Lilly’s obesity and diabetes treatment, Mounjaro, could be one of the best-selling drugs of all time. Thursday We ended the trading week by purchasing this automation-focused industrial giant on weakness. We added 50 shares to Emerson Electric (EMR) on Thursday, with the stock down around 4.5% this week. Our purchase comes ahead of a likely decision on Emerson’s bid to acquire measurement equipment maker National Instruments (NATI) for $53 per share. If Emerson were to secure the winning bid in the mid-$50s-per-share range, its stock should trade higher because the deal would be accretive to earnings-per-share. And if Emerson were to walk away from the deal, the stock could trade higher as well — mainly because uncertainty over the takeover, which crushed the stock in January, would be eliminated. We expect that management would abandon the transaction should the price move too high, freeing up cash for other acquisition opportunities or, more likely, a share buyback. (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.
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during morning trading on January 17, 2023 in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
Despite an unexpected banking crisis that had reverberations across markets and the broader global economy, equities ended the first quarter of the year on a positive note last Friday. But the first week of trading of the second quarter got off to a rocky start, forcing us to recalibrate our approach to the market.
Enbridge is going big on solar again in Texas, and Meta is snapping up all the solar power it can get.
Last month, Electrek reported that the Canadian oil and gas pipeline giant just launched its first solar farm in Texas. Now it’s given the green light to Clear Fork, a 600 megawatt (MW) utility-scale solar farm already under construction near San Antonio. The project is expected to come online in summer 2027.
Once it’s up and running, every bit of Clear Fork’s electricity will go to Meta Platforms under a long-term contract. Meta will use the solar power to help run its energy-hungry data centers entirely on clean energy.
The solar farm project’s cost is around $900 million. Enbridge says it expects Clear Fork to boost the company’s cash flow and earnings starting in 2027.
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Enbridge EVP Matthew Akman said the project reflects “growing demand for renewable power across North America from blue-chip companies involved in technology and data center operations.”
Meta’s head of global energy, Urvi Parekh, added that the company is “thrilled to partner with Enbridge to bring new renewable energy to Texas and help support our operations with 100% clean energy.”
Meta’s first multi-gigawatt data center, Prometheus, is expected to come online in 2026.
Clear Fork is part of a growing trend: tech giants like Meta, Amazon, and Google are racing to lock down renewable energy contracts as they expand their fleets of AI-ready data centers, which use massive amounts of electricity.
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A fully electric Japanese electric pickup truck? It’s not a Toyota or Honda, but Isuzu’s new electric pickup packs a punch. The D-MAX EV can tow over 7,770 lbs (3,500 kg), plow through nearly 24″ (600 mm) of water, and it even has a dedicated Terrain Mode for extreme off-roading. However, it comes at a cost.
Meet Isuzu’s first electric pickup: The D-MAX EV
After announcing that it had begun building left-hand drive D-MAX EV models at the end of April, Isuzu said that it would start shipping them to Europe in the third quarter.
By the end of the year, Isuzu will begin production of right-hand drive models for the UK. Sales will follow in early 2026.
Isuzu announced prices this week, boasting the D-MAX EV features the same “no compromise durability” of the current diesel version.
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The D-MAX EV pickup features a full-time 4WD system, a towing capacity of up to 3.5 tons (7,700 lbs), and an added Terrain Mode, which Isuzu says is designed for “extreme off-road capability.” With 210 mm (8.3″) of ground clearance, Isuzu’s electric pickup can wade through up to 600 mm (24″) of water.
Powered by a 66.9 kWh battery, Isuzu’s electric pickup offers a WLTP range of 163 miles. With charging speeds of up to 50 kW, the D-MAX EV can recharge from 20% to 80% in about an hour.
The electric version is nearly identical to the current diesel-powered D-Max, both inside and out, but prices will be significantly higher.
Isuzu D-Max EV specs and prices
Drive System
Full-time 4×4
Battery Type
Lithium-ion
Battery Capacity
66.9 kWh
WLTP driving range
163 miles
Max Output
130 kW (174 hp)
Max Torque
325 Nm
Max Speed
Over 130 km/h (+80 mph)
Max Payload
1,000 kg (+2,200 lbs)
Max Towing Capacity
3.5t (+7,700 lbs)
Ground Clearance
210 mm
Wading Depth
600 mm
Starting Price (*Ex. VAT)
£59,995 ($81,000)
Isuzu D-Max EV electric pickup prices and specs
Isuzu’s electric pickup will be priced from £59,995 ($81,000), not including VAT. The double cab variant starts at £60,995 ($82,500). In comparison, the diesel model starts at £36,755 ($50,000).
The EV pickup will launch in extended and double cab variants with two premium trims: the eDL40 and V-Cross. Pre-sales will begin later this year with the first UK arrivals scheduled for February 2026. Customer deliveries are set to follow in March.
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In this photo illustration, Claude AI logo is seen on a smartphone and Anthropic logo on a pc screen. (Photo Illustration by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images
OpenAI and Anthropic continue to lead a fundraising bonanza in artificial intelligence, raising historic rounds and stratospheric valuations.
But when it comes to finding AI exits for venture firms, the market looks a lot different.
AI startups raised $104.3 billion in the U.S. in the first half of this year, nearly matching the $104.4 billion total for 2024, according to PitchBook. Almost two-thirds of all U.S. venture funding went to AI, up from 49% last year, PitchBook said.
The biggest deals follow a familiar theme. OpenAI raised a record $40 billion in March in a round led by SoftBank. Meta poured $14.3 billion into Scale AI in June as part of a way to hire away CEO Alexandr Wang and a few other top staffers. OpenAI rival Anthropic raised $3.5 billion, while Safe Superintelligence, a nascent startup started by OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, raised $2 billion.
While Meta’s massive investment into Scale AI amounted to a lucrative exit of sorts for early investors, the overarching trend has been a lot more money going in than coming out.
In the first half, there were 281 VC-backed exits totaling $36 billion, according to PitchBook. That includes the roughly $700 million acquisition of EvolutionIQ, an AI platform for disability and injury claims management, by CCC Intelligent Solutions, and the public listing of Slide Insurance, which builds AI-powered insurance offerings for homeowners. Slide is valued at about $2.3 billion.
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“The dominant exit trend right now is frequent but lower-value acquisitions and fewer IPOs with significantly higher value,” said Dimitri Zabelin, PitchBook’s senior research analyst for AI and cybersecurity.
CoreWeave’s IPO, which took place at the very end of the first quarter, was the exception on the infrastructure side. The stock shot up 340% in the second quarter, and the company is now valued at over $63 billion.
Zabelin said the pattern of more investments in applications with smaller deals has been in place for the past year.
“Vertical solutions tend to plug more easily into existing enterprise gaps,” Zabelin said.
The acquisitions wave is being driven, in part, by what Zabelin calls bolt-on deals where larger companies buy smaller startups to enhance their own future valuations, hoping to enhance their value ahead of a future sale or IPO.
“That also has to do with the current liquidity conditions in the macro environment,” Zabelin said.
Outside of AI, activity is slow. U.S. fintech funding dropped 42% in the first half of the year to $10.5 billion, according to Tracxn. Cloud software and crypto have also seen sharp pullbacks.
Zabelin said IPO activity could pick up if economic conditions improve and if interest rates come down. Investors clearly want opportunities to back promising AI companies, he said.
“The appetite for AI, specifically vertical applications, will continue to remain robust,” Zabelin said.
— CNBC’s Kevin Schmidt contributed to this report.