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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 Thursday’s key moments. July’s soft PPI is welcome news for growth stocks Disney just crushed it Quick mentions: QCOM, AAPL, DIS, AMZN We need to be nimble in oil 1. July’s soft PPI is welcome news for growth names Stocks rose for a second consecutive day on the heels of yet another softer-than-expected key inflation reading. The July producer price index declined from June, dropping 0.5% compared to an expected 0.2% rise, according to Dow Jones estimates. This report comes a day after the consumer price index showed that inflation’s upward pace has decelerated . We believe that this is a sign that the Federal Reserve could engineer a soft landing for the economy. Importantly, this also means that the growth names that have been trampled this year could be on the mend. Growth names are often unpopular when interest rates are high, since these stocks are riskier and are considered long-duration assets, meaning the bulk of their earnings are expected in future years. Investors tend to stick to safer options during times of economic uncertainty. We have several growth tech names in our portfolio, along with cyclical and industrial stocks. However, we are always looking to reposition, and are waiting for the right time to add Starbucks (SBUX), which we recently added to our bullpen , as a Club holding. 2. Disney just crushed it Disney (DIS) had a stellar quarter reported after the close on Wednesday, which smashed top and bottom line expectations. Subscriber numbers for its streaming service Disney+ were strong, differentiating the company from struggling competitors like Netflix (NFLX). Most importantly, the company saw outperformance from theme parks with no slowdown in sight for attendance or spending. It successfully proved itself to be more than just a streaming play. While we do wish that Disney spent less time discussing streaming on its earnings call, we are satisfied with the company’s quarter. We aren’t trimming our Disney position into today’s strength and would not chase it either. 3. Quick mentions: QCOM, AAPL, AMZN We also have thoughts to share on other Club holdings that are making waves this week. Samsung on Wednesday announced two new foldable smartphones, which use Qualcomm ‘s (QCOM) Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 Mobile platform. While handsets will likely be a smaller piece of the sales pie in the years ahead, the two companies’ strong relationship bodes well for QCOM’s stock. We also believe that the Loop Capital note on Thursday that shows Apple (AAPL) is increasing its build for the iPhone 14 will be beneficial for QCOM. Of course, this note is also a good sign for the iPhone maker, whose stock is on the rise. We suspect that its upward trajectory means the stock is on track to finish the year up. We believe we should’ve been more aggressive on buying back the Amazon (AMZN) shares we sold higher, especially considering JPMorgan’s (JPM) note on Thursday that focused on free cash flow inflecting next year. There’s also the notion that e-commerce has started to accelerate again, which could further help boost the stock. 4. We need to be nimble in oil While Devon Energy ‘s (DVN) $1.8 billion acquisition of Validus Energy and CEO Rick Muncrief’s appearance on “Squawk on the Street” suggests the stock will go up, we are still planning to act carefully with all of our oil plays. That’s because DeCarley Trading co-founder Carley Garner said that she expects oil to bounce in the short-term but eventually decline. While oil might have some more room to run, we will consider trimming some of our positions once the U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude gets to the $95 level, especially considering we’re very overweight in oil. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long AAPL, QCOM, NVDA, DVN, DIS, AMZN. 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. More

“Have you looked at our caps recently?” is the question a worried Nazi soldier puts to his comrade in a comedy sketch performed by David Mitchell and Robert Webb. He has just noticed that their uniforms are emblazoned with skulls; a doubt is nagging away at him. “Hans,” he asks. “Are we the baddies?”Listen to this story. Enjoy more audio and podcasts on More

Earlier this year it suddenly became clear what a subversive force WeChat could become. It happened on April 22nd, when Shanghai was in lockdown. A black-and-white video swiftly went viral among the 1bn-plus Chinese users of the social-media platform owned by Tencent, China’s biggest internet firm. For six minutes, as a camera panned over Shanghai’s skyline, it carried an audio montage of babies crying after being separated from their quarantined parents, residents complaining of hunger, apartment dwellers banging bins, a mother desperately seeking medicine for her child. “The virus is not killing people, starvation is,” a person cries out. It was a haunting, dystopian scene.Listen to this story. Enjoy more audio and podcasts on More

General Motors on Thursday revealed its redesigned 2023 GMC Canyon as a more premium offering than the current midsize pickup.
GM expects to begin producing the 2023 Canyon early next year, with new AT4X off-road models beginning in spring 2023.
Pricing for the pickup will range from about $40,000 to more than $60,000.

2023 GMC Canyon Denali

DETROIT — General Motors on Thursday revealed its redesigned GMC Canyon as a more premium offering than the current midsize pickup, including a new off-road AT4X model that will expand the vehicle’s pricing range.
The new AT4X model features off-road performance parts as well as unique interior and exterior styling. It will launch alongside a standard AT4 off-road pickup, premium Denali model and an entry-level Elevation trim that will start at about $40,000. The company will also offer a limited “AT4X Edition 1” vehicle for the first year of production, starting at $63,350. Starting pricing for the current model tops out around $50,000.

Amid pent-up demand and record high prices, automakers have been adding more off-road and performance variants to their lineups to beef up profit margins before they transition more to electric vehicles, which can offer high performance but have lower margins than gas-powered vehicles.

GM started offering AT4 vehicles with its full-size Sierra pickup in late 2018. It has since expanded to the entire GMC lineup. AT4 currently accounts for about a third of Canyon sales, according to officials.
The Canyon is a sibling vehicle to the recently unveiled Chevrolet Colorado midsize pickup, but the company has greatly differentiated the designs of the new vehicles. However, both pickups share the same platform and “bones” and are exclusively powered by a 2.7-liter four-cylinder engine that produces up to 310 horsepower and 430 foot-pounds of torque.
GM expects to begin producing the 2023 Canyon early next year, with AT4X models beginning in spring 2023. GM opened reservations for the 2023 GMC Canyon AT4X Edition 1 on Thursday.
Each 2023 Canyon is higher and wider than the current generation. It’s also longer but offers about the same interior space as the current vehicle. The new design is more aggressive than the outgoing model, including a large rectangular grille and a new iteration of the brand’s signature C-shaped front lights.

2023 GMC Canyon AT4

Midsize pickup trucks are important to the automaker, but their sales are far lower than GM’s larger full-size pickup trucks. For example, GMC sold only about 13,700 Canyons through the first half of this year compared with more than 70,000 Sierra light-duty pickups during that time.
GM’s U.S. sales were down about 18% through the second quarter as the global automotive industry continues to manage through supply chain problems, including a shortage of semiconductor chips.

2023 GMC Canyon Denali

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McDonald’s is planning a phased reopening of some of its restaurants in Ukraine, beginning with locations in Kyiv and western Ukraine.
The fast-food chain had said it was pausing operations in Ukraine in February after the country was invaded by Russia.

People are stand queue to McDonald’s in central Kyiv, Ukraine, on 29 May, 2020.
STR | Nurphoto | Getty Images

McDonald’s said Thursday that it is planning a phased reopening of some of its restaurants in Ukraine, where the company noted other businesses are safely operating.
The fast-food company said in a message posted to its website that it will work over the next few months to get product back to the restaurants, bring back employees and physically prepare its locations in Kyiv and western Ukraine to start serving customers again.

McDonald’s had announced in February that it would pause its operations in Ukraine after Russia’s invasion of the country. Before that, McDonald’s had 109 restaurants in Ukraine. The chain declined to comment on how many restaurants will be opening as part of its plan to resume operations in the country.
“We’ve spoken extensively to our employees who have expressed a strong desire to return to work and see our restaurants in Ukraine reopen, where it is safe and responsible to do so,” Paul Pomroy, the corporate senior vice president of international operated markets, said in the message posted online. “In recent months, the belief that this would support a small but important sense of normalcy has grown stronger.”
In addition to establishing an employee relief fund several months ago, McDonald’s said it continued to pay the salaries of more than 10,000 Ukrainian employees.
In Russia, meanwhile, McDonald’s sold its businesses to an existing licensee in May after previously pausing operations in the country.

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Britain is rolling out urgent polio vaccinations for all London-based children under 10 as a reemergence of the virus stoked fears of a wider outbreak.
The immunization campaign is aimed at providing a “high level of protection from paralysis” and limiting further spread of the virus, health officials said.
It comes after an unvaccinated man from New York City was paralyzed last month after contracting the virus.

Manjurul | Istock | Getty Images

Britain is rolling out urgent polio vaccinations for all London-based children under 10 as a reemergence of the virus across the U.K., U.S. and Israel stoked fears of a wider outbreak.
The immunization campaign is aimed at providing a “high level of protection from paralysis” and limiting further spread of the virus, U.K. health authorities said Wednesday.

“All children aged 1 to 9 years in London need to have a dose of polio vaccine now — whether it’s an extra booster dose or just to catch up with their routine vaccinations,” Dr. Vanessa Saliba, consultant epidemiologist at the U.K.’s Health Security Agency, said.
“It will ensure a high level of protection from paralysis. This may also help stop the virus spreading further,” she added.
Parents and carers in affected areas will be contacted by their health practitioner to schedule an appointment for their child to receive an inactivated polio vaccine, with up to a million children expected to be offered the shot.

A wake-up call

David Heymann, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said the rollout should act as a “wake-up call” for those who are unvaccinated.
“This should give us all a wake-up call – vaccine-derived polio virus is circulating in many countries around the world – including in parts of the U.K. and the U.S.,” he said.

“Though not all children and adults who are infected with a vaccine-derived polio virus become paralyzed, those who have not been fully vaccinated are at risk of being paralyzed – and they are also the persons who continue to facilitate transmission and the outbreaks that are occurring in the U.K.,” he added.
It comes after an unvaccinated man from New York City was paralyzed last month after contracting the virus.
The city’s first known case in a decade left officials warning it could be just “the tip of the iceberg,” with hundreds more infections possibly going undetected.

Authorities investigate rising virus traces

Polio is a rare but highly infectious virus that can occasionally cause serious illness, such as paralysis, in people who are not fully vaccinated.
No cases of polio have been detected in the U.K. since it was eradicated in 2003 following a widespread immunization campaign, and health officials say the risk to the majority of people who are fully vaccinated remains low.
However, British authorities declared a national incident in June after traces of the virus were discovered in sewage samples across several London boroughs.
Routine sewage surveillance in the U.K. usually picks up traces of the virus once or twice a year, typically deriving from individuals who have been vaccinated overseas with the live oral polio vaccine as opposed to the dead version used in the U.K.
But since Feb. 2022, 116 samples of type 2 poliovirus have been detected in samples across eight London boroughs in the north and east of the capital.
The UKHSA said genetic analysis of the samples suggests that the spread has now gone “beyond a close network of a few individuals” and could be spreading within the community. While most of the samples detected are the safe vaccine form of polio, “a few” have mutated enough to be dangerous, it added.
Health officials are now increasing sewage surveillance nationally and investigating the connection between U.K. samples and recent cases detected in the U.S. and Jerusalem, Israel.
“Further investigation is needed to fully understand how they are connected, but it does illustrate that this virus has the potential to cause disease, especially in poorly vaccinated communities,” said Dr. Kathleen O’Reilly, associate professor in statistics for infectious disease and expert in polio eradication, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

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Warby Parker joined the slew of retailers that have cut their financial forecasts for the year.
The eye glasses maker reported a narrower-than-expected quarterly loss and sales in-line with analysts’ estimates.

A general view of the atmosphere at Warby Parker’s store in The Standard, Hollywood
Michael Buckner | Warby Parker | Getty Images

Warby Parker on Thursday joined the slew of retailers that have cut their financial forecasts for the year, even as it reported a narrower-than-expected loss in its fiscal second quarter and sales in-line with analysts’ estimates.
Chief Financial Officer Steve Miller said the eye glasses maker is facing an “uncertain macroeconomic environment.”

“We are taking a disciplined approach to managing costs to set us up for sustainable growth and profitability,” he said in a statement.
As part of its efforts to trim expenses, Warby has cut 63 jobs, representing about 2% of its total employee base and 15% of corporate positions, a spokesperson confirmed to CNBC.
In recent weeks, retailers including Walmart, Best Buy, Gap and Allbirds have lowered their expectations for sales or profits as they begin to see consumers cut back spending on discretionary items, such as apparel or electronics, amid soaring inflation. At the same time, though, luxury brands like Ralph Lauren and Versace owner Capri Holdings say people are still splurging on expensive shoes and handbags.
At Warby, customer demand started to fall off in the second half of May, executives told analysts on a conference call Thursday morning.
Warby shares rose less than 1% extended trading. As of Wednesday’s market close, the stock had tumbled nearly 70% year to date.

Here’s how Warby did in its fiscal second quarter ended June 30 compared with what analysts were anticipating, based on Refinitiv estimates:

Loss per share: 1 cent adjusted vs. 2 cents expected
Revenue: $149.6 million vs. $149.5 million expected

Warby’s loss for the three-month period ended June 30 widened to $32.2 million, or 28 cents per share, from a loss of $18.8 million, or 35 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding one-time items, it lost a penny a share.
Sales grew roughly 14% to $149.6 million from $131.6 million a year earlier, boosted in part by loyal customers spending more money on average.
The company said its count of active customers increased 8.7% to 2.26 million. It defines these customers as people who have made at least one purchase of any product or service from Warby in the previous 12-month period.
“While the losses are disappointing, they are somewhat understandable given that the company remains in expansion mode,” said Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail.
However, Saunders said, the main concern is that the money spent needs to translate into delivering stronger returns.
For fiscal 2022, Warby is now calling for sales to be within a range of $584 million to $595 million, down from a prior range of $650 million to $660 million.
It sees its adjusted EBITDA amounting to about $22 million to $26 million, including a $7.5 million hit related to pandemic-related disruptions to its business.
In its latest quarter, Warby said it opened nine stores, bringing its total count of physical locations to 178. The retailer, founded online in 2010, has been ramping up its investments in real estate to reach more customers and market its brand. It hopes to one day grow to more than 900 stores.
Beyond its glasses, Warby has a contact lens business and offers services in its stores for eye exams. The company has said that people who buy contacts from Warby end up spending more than those who only shop its eyewear.

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With more households living paycheck to paycheck, back-to-school shopping is causing a bigger financial strain this year.
Here’s what you should buy now and what you should delay purchasing, plus expert advice to save big on supplies.

Customers shop for back-to-school supplies at a Target store in Colma, California.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

As parents know all too well, it’s hard to cut back when it comes to the kids.
Despite more households living paycheck to paycheck, this year’s total back-to-school spending is expected to match last year’s record high of $37 billion, according to the National Retail Federation. Families with children in elementary through high school plan to spend an average of $864 on school supplies, $168 more than in 2019, the NRF found.

“Families consider back-to-school and college items as an essential category,” said Matthew Shay, NRF president and CEO.
More from Personal Finance:How to save as food inflation jumpsNearly half of all Americans are falling deeper in debtAnxiety about recession as inflation cuts spending power
A separate report from Deloitte found that 37% of parents may spend even more this year — up to $661 per child. 
And yet, 75% of parents are stressed about paying the tab, a 12% jump from last year, according to LendingTree.
“These expenses are taking a major financial toll on American families already struggling with the highest inflation readings in more than 40 years,” said Ted Rossman, a senior industry analyst at Bankrate.

Families are stretched thin

Almost one-third of families said back-to-school shopping will strain their budgets, with middle-income households feeling especially hard hit, according to a new Bankrate.com survey of more than 2,400 adults.
More than one-third, or 37%, of parents with school-age children said they are unable to afford back-to-school shopping due to inflation, and nearly half said they will take on debt shopping for their kids, another study by Credit Karma found.

Bankrate also found that 41% of consumers will change the way they shop for the upcoming school year, with most looking for money-saving strategies.

How to save money on back-to-school shopping

As a rule, stick to only buying what you need right now, advised Julie Ramhold, a consumer analyst at DealNews.com.
Students may have to start the school year with notebooks, binders, paper, pens and pencils, but other purchases, such as a new backpack or lunchbox, can be put off until they go on sale.
If you don’t need a new laptop or headphones right away, Ramhold recommends waiting until Labor Day or even Black Friday, when the discounts on electronics will be greater.

These expenses are taking a major financial toll on American families.

Ted Rossman
senior industry analyst at Bankrate

A price-tracking browser extension like CamelCamelCamel or Keepa can help you keep an eye on price changes and alert you when the price drops.
In addition to shopping for the best price, taking advantage of sales tax holidays, credit card rewards or cash-back bonuses, said Beverly Harzog, a consumer finance analyst at U.S. News & World Report.
If you qualify, Harzog also recommends applying for a new card with a sign-up bonus or offering a 0% intro APR for 12 to 21 months and then paying it off over the course of the year without interest charges.

“That’s a better win if you do a little bit of strategizing,” she said.
Then use a cash-back site like CouponCabin.com to earn money back on online purchases, including back-to-school supplies from Target, Walmart and Macy’s.
Rossman recommends stacking discounts, for example, combining credit card rewards with store coupons and online shopping portals. “That represents three ways to save on the same purchase.”
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