It's a jam-packed afternoon of developments impacting 7 portfolio stocks

Breaking news from the markets: 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. Stocks rebounded Thursday as investors shrugged off concerns about a significant escalation in the military conflict between the U. That sent bond yields and oil prices lower — two factors that have recently been supportive of equities.

The S & P 500 gained nearly 1% in afternoon trading, while the Nasdaq jumped more than 1%. Meta Platforms initially traded lower after said a leaked internal document showed the company plans to aggressively ramp up AI compute capacity next year. The market remains divided on Meta 's AI roadmap — rewarding new monetization opportunities (such as a public cloud and AI models) while remaining guarded on the massive spending required to get there.

Economic Details

The company's latest AI model is fueling optimism that these investments will ultimately pay off. The company unveiled on Thursday Muse Park 1. 1, which it called its "strongest model for agentic and coding work yet.

" What's notable about the model is that Meta is making its application programming interface (API) available through a developer portal. The inclusion of API capabilities puts Meta in more direct competition with the likes of Anthropic and OpenAI. APIs are the bridge that allows two software programs to talk to each other.

For the first time, Meta is providing APIs that let developers integrate its proprietary Muse Spark 1. 1 model into external applications, a key step toward building a commercial AI platform that can compete with OpenAI and Anthropic. Meta stock reversed higher as the session unfolded.

Analyst Views

Cowen increased its Cardinal Health price target to $275 per share from $255. The bump was part of the analysts' drug and medical distribution second quarter earnings preview note. Cardinal Health 's upcoming print is the fourth quarter of the company's 2026 fiscal year, and Cowen anticipates Cardinal guiding fiscal year 2027 earnings per share (EPS) above consensus, which currently sits at $12.

04, according to FactSet. Shares touched $240 at one point this morning, but dropped alongside others in healthcare names as the market rotated back into tech. Cardinal Health and rivals McKesson and Cencora fell after FedEx announced the launch of FedEx Life Sciences, a dedicated organization created to support the transportation of pharmaceuticals, medical devices, biologics, and other critical healthcare shipments.

The new initiative is part of the company's goal of growing FedEx Healthcare into a $10 billion business. This may encroach on some of Cardinal Health's territory, but the company does a lot more than transport medicines from Point A to Point B. It provides inventory management, data reporting, new product launch support, and many other healthcare services that FedEx can't provide.

Economists are analysing what the news means for the markets.