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Three of our Club holdings — Salesforce (CRM), Nvidia (NVDA) and Qualcomm (QCOM) — will be hosting events this week that we believe have the potential to be catalysts for their stocks. Salesforce Ahead of its Dreamforce software conference this week — Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday — we want to know if Salesforce can deliver a durable rate of revenue growth target while expanding operating margins. Co-CEOs Marc Benioff and Bret Taylor deliver the main keynote at 1 p.m. ET on Tuesday. While beating on revenue and earnings-per-share in its latest quarter, reported Aug. 24, Salesforce cut its current quarter and full-year outlook, saying customers began to take a more “measured approach” to their businesses. However, it did announce a new $10 billion repurchase program and reiterated a commitment to disciplined margin, cash flow, and revenue growth. In a research note, Morgan Stanley shared concerns over a possible short-term slowdown in information technology budget growth — but like the Club, analysts there believe Salesforce is well-positioned due to its exposure to digital transformation. “Investors are underestimating the level to which management remains committed to delivering on sustainable margin expansion,” the Morgan Stanley note explained. In a separate note, Raymond James said Salesforce shares could be at an inflection point, noting their surprise that the stock has underperformed since the company’s second quarter earnings given its steady margin guidance and $10 billion share repurchase authorization. The Club’s take: This year’s Dreamforce is a chance for Salesforce to repair investor confidence in the company’s assurance to deliver top-line durability and margin enhancement. Any color on the pace of its $10 billion buyback would also be welcome news for CRM stock, which has dropped 40% in 2022 but relatively flat since our latest purchase of 50 shares on Sept. 6 . Nvidia Nvidia faces a video gaming chip glut and new license requirements that could put China sales at risk. In light of these challenges, the company’s GTC Conference could help mitigate these factors with new product launches and how it plans to deal with China’s restrictions. GTC runs until Thursday, with CEO and founder Jensen Huang’s keynote address set for 11 a.m. ET on Tuesday. We got some updates on these fronts at Goldman Sachs’ Communacopia + Technology conference in San Francisco last week: Nvidia CFO Colette Kress indicated while gaming GPU sales are expected to remain flat in the short-term given the high channel inventories, they’re expected to normalize by the end of January. Nvidia is also working with its China customers to find alternatives to its A100 products in an effort to offset a $400 million revenue loss due to the U.S. government’s future export restrictions of Nvidia’s artificial intelligence chips to China. Tight chip supply is what Goldman analysts called a “constraining factor” for semiconductor companies, which is why the firm expects Nvidia to benefit as supply eases over time. The Club’s take: The new license requirements with China and the gaming inventory glut are two headaches that probably will not be going away anytime soon. But our focus at GTC will be on the future. In particular, we are excited to see Jensen Huang lay out more details of his vision for metaverse technologies and how artificial intelligence is driving radical improvements across many different industries. Qualcomm At Qualcomm’s auto investor day, scheduled for Thursday, we’re waiting to hear updates on the Snapdragon Digital Chassis, an integrated set of open, cloud platforms that let drivers connect their cars. SnapDragron, which was originally intended for mobile applications, could be a growth engine for Qualcomm. The company has already secured partnerships with BMW, Stellantis (STLA) and General Motors (GM) to use Snapdragon to power its advanced driver assistance system. Morgan Stanley thinks Qualcomm’s investor day will be a positive for the stock as the company talks about the opportunity it has with placing Snapdragon different markets, not just in auto. Outside automotive, we found out this weekend that a Qualcomm chip helps enable Apple’s newly announced ability in iPhone 14’s to connect directly to satellites in case of off-the-grid emergencies. Earlier this month, Qualcomm and Meta Platforms (META) said they’re teaming up to make custom chipsets that will be used for virtual reality (VR) products The Club’s take: A major reason for our Qualcomm investment is for its revenue diversification. Qualcomm’s chips have an edge because they can be used in phones and cars. Auto is a big part of that, so we want to see how SnapDragon technology can possibly be integrated into other applications and get a sense of how big this opportunity is for the company. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long CRM, NVDA, QCOM and META. 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.

Marc Benioff, chairman and chief executive officer of Salesforce.com Inc.
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Peloton is launching a line of rowing machines, with pricing starting at $3,195.
The Peloton Row machines are now available for pre-order, and the company expects to start delivering the machines by December.
The new product comes as Peloton has been executing a restructuring plan as losses have mounted for the company.

Peloton Rowing Machine
Courtesy: Peloton

Peloton is adding a line of rowing machines to its lineup as the company works through a restructuring to expand its customer base and return to a profit.
The fitness machine maker said on Tuesday it’s launching Peloton Row, which starts at $3,195 and is now available for pre-order on its website. Deliveries are expected to begin in December.

The rowing machine, which also requires a $44-a-month membership to Peloton’s exercise classes and programs, joins the lineup of Peloton Bike, Peloton Bike+, Peloton Guide and Peloton Tread.
Peloton Row, which had reportedly been in the works for some time, comes as the company has been working through a restructuring in recent months.
Last month, the company reported widening losses and declining sales for its fiscal fourth quarter, marking its sixth consecutive quarter of losses. Peloton had said it aims to reach break-even cash flow on a quarterly basis in the second half of fiscal 2023.
The company had also announced it partnered up with Amazon to begin selling its products on the behemoth ecommerce retailer, a move that could help Peloton broaden its customer base. The partnership is Peloton’s first foray outside of its core direct-to-consumer business.
Peloton has also been shaking up its leadership. A week ago, the company announced co-founder and former CEO John Foley, co-founder and Chief Legal Officer Hisao Kushi, and ChiefCommercial Officer Kevin Cornils, would be leaving the company as part of its transformation.
Foley had served as Peloton’s CEO for about 10 years before he stepped down in February.

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Velocity Capital Management will look to invest in early-stage sports, media and entertainment companies.
The firm is founded by former private equity professional David Abrams and ex-Sportradar CEO Arne Rees. 
Velocity will look to make investments of up to $50 million in companies with enterprise values up to $2 billion.

Newcastle United’s Alexander Isak in action with Crystal Palace’s Cheick Doucoure.
Lee Smith | Reuters

Two longtime sports executives are launching an investment firm they say will back startups capitalizing on the growing opportunities at the intersection of sports, media and entertainment.
Velocity Capital Management said Tuesday it will invest up to $50 million in early-stage companies with enterprise values of up to $2 billion.

One of Velocity’s co-founders is David Abrams, a co-owner of the English Premier League’s Crystal Palace and a former private equity partner and chief investment officer of Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, which owns the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers and the NHL’s New Jersey Devils. The other co-founder is Arne Reese, who most recently served as the U.S. CEO of Sportradar, a sports technology business. 
The firm has closed its first investment in Camp NYC, which creates shop-and-play retail experiences based on intellectual property from popular children’s entertainment, such as Disney’s “Mickey & Friends” and “Paw Patrol.”
“Camp is a business that cuts across some of the things we’ve been looking at as a firm,” said Abrams.
The company’s stores, which are a mix of a shopping and interactive experience, are located in New York City, including its flagship location on Fifth Avenue, as well as in New Jersey, California and Texas.
Velocity said it has received investment capital from a variety of sources, including Delaware North, a private company with a portfolio that includes more than 50 entertainment and sports venues, sports betting sites and the NHL’s Boston Bruins. Other investors include Signify Wealth, an investment advisor with NFL clients; Remington Ellis, a sports marketing and talent agency; Bolt Ventures, a family office that invests in sports and entertainment in the U.S. and Europe; and RWN Management, the family office of Apollo Global Management co-founder Mark Rowan.

In an interview, Abrams and Rees said they decided to start Velocity after watching the sports and media ecosystem evolve in such areas as technology, analytics and intellectual property.
“For now we are focused primarily on growth-stage companies,” said Abrams. “These are companies where we will likely take a non-control investment, but want to play an active role as an advisor or on the board.”
Abrams and Rees said their background in investing and sports gave them the confidence to get Velocity off the ground. 
Before joining Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment as its chief investment officer in 2018, Abrams served as a partner at Apollo for much of his career. Harris Blitzer — founded by private equity professionals Josh Harris and David Blitzer — also owns the Prudential Center, the arena where the Devils play, and e-sports organization New Meta Entertainment, among other businesses in the sports world. 
Rees previously guided Sportradar, a data firm that works with sportsbooks, sports federations and media companies, through its IPO in 2021. His resume also includes roles at ESPN and the Union of European Football Associations.

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Consistently saving a small percentage of your salary is a simple way to ensure you’re prepared for retirement.
As a rule of thumb, most financial advisors suggest you save 10% to 15% of your earnings.

Here’s a case study assuming you start with no savings, plan to retire at 65 and have investments that earn 6% annually.
If you want to retire with $2 million, you’ll need to invest about 24% of a salary of $50,000 starting in your 20s. Waiting until you’re older will require a larger portion of your pay. If you wait until your 30s, then that number jumps to 34% of your salary. This does not account for variables such as a possible pay increase or decrease, employer match, inflation or any other of life’s curveballs.
Watch this video to find out how much money you will need to invest to save $2 million for retirement, broken down by age.

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From rising inflation to a red-hot job market and the negative gross domestic product in between, economists are divided on the health of the U.S. economy.
“There has been a lot of talk recently that we’re in a recession. We have two quarters of declining GDP that often happens with the recession. … But we have job growth that is incredibly strong. We have an unemployment rate that is a 50-year low,” Claudia Sahm, founder of Sahm Consulting and a former Federal Reserve Board economist, told CNBC.

A top concern for Americans: Are there layoffs on the horizon?
“There are going to be more layoffs. So you need to be wary of that,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, told CNBC.
More corporate leaders are anticipating a recession, according to a survey from Stifel.
Big companies are already announcing layoffs, including Best Buy, Ford Motor, HBO Max, Peloton, Shopify, Walmart and Wayfair.
Meanwhile, a survey from PwC shows 50% of firms expect to reduce their labor forces in the next six to 12 months.

This comes at a time when the labor market could hardly appear stronger. In July 2022, there were 11.2 million job openings, revealing a shortage of workers for available positions.
“I think it’s very important to look at the number of job openings,” Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter, told CNBC. “The question is how steeply they will fall, how sharply they will fall, if they go back to 7 million [job openings], the level before the pandemic.”
Not to mention, the labor market is facing off against the “Great Resignation.” In July, 6.4 million people got new jobs, while another 4.2 million quit jobs.
“The Federal Reserve is raising interest rates at this point in an effort to slow down the job market, and that’s going to mean more layoffs,” Zandi said.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said it will be a challenge “to return to an environment of stable prices without sacrificing the economic gains of the past two years” during a question-and-answer session at the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, earlier this month.
Watch the video above to learn more about how the U.S. defines a recessionary period in the economy, what common economic indicators are revealing and what may happen next in the labor market.

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Billionaire founder Jared Isaacman is deep into training for the first launch of the Polaris Program, in partnership with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Isaacman’s crew of four is using fighter jets — including aircraft from his personal fleet — to prepare for flying to orbit on the first mission, called Polaris Dawn.
“We want to use as much time leading up to [the launch] for training as possible,” Isaacman said, adding that “using fighter aircraft is a great analog” to spaceflight.

Astronauts love fighter jets, and billionaire founder Jared Isaacman is no different.
Isaacman, who founded payments company Shift4, is deep into training with his team for the first spaceflight of the Polaris Program, announced earlier this year, in partnership with Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Isaacman’s crew of four is using fighter jets — including aircraft from his personal fleet — to prepare for flying to orbit on the first mission, called Polaris Dawn.

“We can’t go to space very often [and there] is a lot of planning that goes into a mission,” Isaacman told CNBC’s Morgan Brennan at an airfield in Bozeman, Montana.

The Polaris Dawn mission crew during training on Sept. 16, 2022, from left:
John Kraus / Polaris Program

“We want to use as much time leading up to [the launch] for training as possible,” Isaacman said, adding that “using fighter aircraft is a great analog” to spaceflight. It follows a practice that NASA uses with its own astronaut corps.
While Polaris Dawn was initially planned for the fourth quarter of 2022, Isaacman said the mission launch is expected to occur “early next year.” Its the first of up to three missions, with the final one expected to be the first crewed launch of SpaceX’s Starship rocket.
Isaacman outlined the program’s three objectives: Go to the highest orbit around Earth that humans have ever flown, conduct a spacewalk outside of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule and use Starlink internet satellites to communicate. He also said roughly 40 science and research payloads will fly on the mission.

Isaacman said SpaceX “is making a lot of investments” in the project, in the form of developing spacesuits and changing parts of the Crew Dragon spacecraft. Polaris was jointly created with Musk “shortly after the Inspiration4 mission” last year, Isaacman said, the first private SpaceX mission that spent three days in orbit with a crew of four and raised more than $200 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

“I didn’t think I was going to space again” after Inspiration4, Isaacman said, but “seeing the direction SpaceX is going with Starship — having an opportunity to participate in a real developmental program … was pretty exciting.”
— Morgan Brennan reported on this story from Bozeman, while Michael Sheetz reported from Paris.

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CEO Sasan Goodarzi noted that the financial software firm is able to see consumer spending, the number of employees that businesses have hired and the number of hours they’ve worked.
“When we look at those elements now versus even pre-pandemic, they’re actually quite healthy,” he said in an interview on “Mad Money.” 

Intuit sees strong consumer spending despite persistent inflation dogging the economy, company CEO Sasan Goodarzi told CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Monday.
Goodarzi noted that the financial software firm is able to see consumer spending, the number of employees that businesses have hired and the number of hours they’ve worked.

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Investing Club: The week in review, the week ahead — Sept. 16, 2022

3 days ago

“When we look at those elements now versus even pre-pandemic, they’re actually quite healthy,” he said in an interview on “Mad Money.” 
His comments come as investors are focused on the Federal Reserve’s upcoming meeting after a hotter-than-expected August inflation report and a warning from FedEx last week about an impending global recession.
The Fed is expected to raise rates by another 75 basis points in its latest attack on inflation, shattering hopes from the summer that the central bank could start to take less aggressive action.
The chief executive acknowledged that while consumer spending appears to be strong, it won’t necessarily stay that way.
“The reality is we do need to get this environment under control. We just have to be very thoughtful in how we do it so that we don’t go from the strong unemployment that we have to high unemployment, because that ultimately is what impacts consumer spending,” he said.

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It’s that time again! “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer rings the lightning round bell, which means he’s giving his answers to callers’ stock questions at rapid speed.

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Matterport Inc: “I’d rather be in HP. … This company is losing too much money.”

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Medtronic PLC: “These guys have lost their way. … They are not executing.”

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International Paper Co: “Once that starts rolling over, it rolls over big. I do not want you to touch that stock.”

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Stanley Black & Decker Inc: “I think that it can easily go down another 10%. If you’re willing to accept that, then I think you’re absolutely fine.”

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