What will it take to get tech stocks rising again? An unemployment rate above 4%

Published Mon, Apr 22 202412:07 PM EDTUpdated Tue, Apr 23 20242:07 PM EDT

Every weekday the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer holds a "Morning Meeting" livestream at 10:20 a.m. ET. Here's a recap of Monday's key moments. 1. U.S. stocks rose Monday as the market tried to recover from last week's brutal sell-off when the S & P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped 3% and 5.5%, respectively. The selling was driven by concerns about higher-for-longer interest rates and escalating tensions in the Middle East. The S & P 500 Short Range Oscillator indicates that we're still in oversold territory. The question is: Are we oversold enough to have a bounce? It's hard to know for sure, but Jim Cramer pointed to some key upcoming events that could rattle the market even more, including the auctions of the 2-year, 5-year and 7-year Treasury bonds this week and Fridays' PCE deflator — a measure of U.S. consumer spending, which is closely watched by the Federal Reserve. 2. In his Sunday column , Jim also examined what's driving the Nasdaq's recent downturn, including data storage company Super Micro's 23% drop on Friday. While experts pointed to Super Micro not preannouncing earnings as the reason for the sell-off, Jim said it was part of the broader tech downturn dating back to March 8, when the February jobs report came in hot. "To me, that number said there's no need for rate cuts because we are growing this economy like mad," Jim said on Monday. Since then, it's been tough sledding for many high-growth tech names. What's the fix? The jobs market needs to cool. "I know one thing: If unemployment doesn't go above 4% then nothing matters." Jim wrote. 3. Strategists at UBS Global Research on Monday slashed their ratings on the "Big Six" tech stocks – a group consisting of Club holdings Apple , Amazon, Alphabet , Meta Platforms, Microsoft and Nvidia – to neutral from overweight. The strategists argued that profit growth momentum for the group could "collapse" over the next few quarters. We're not concerned about the Wall Street research. The call is not critiquing valuation or artificial intelligence prospects for these portfolio names, but rather earnings momentum. (Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust is long AAPL, META, NVDA, GOOGL, AMZN, MSFT. See here for a full list of the stocks.) 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.