My top 10 things to watch Friday, March 13 1. Global oil benchmark Brent crude isn't doing much this morning, down more than 1%. Yesterday, Brent settled just north of $100 for the first time since August 2022. The White House is temporarily allowing purchases of sanctioned Russian oil already at sea, hoping to relieve some of the supply disruptions from the Iran war. President Donald Trump said on Truth Social: "We have unparalleled firepower, unlimited ammunition, and plenty of time." 2. Stock futures are rallying this morning, with oil taking a breather. The U.S. oil standard, West Texas Intermediate crude, is down over 2%. The major averages are all down for the week. The Federal Reserve's preferred measure of inflation, the PCE index, mostly matched estimates for the month of January. It was up 3.1% on an annual basis when excluding food and energy. 3. It's the end of an era at Adobe : Shantanu Narayen, CEO since 2007, will step down after a replacement is hired. He's the second enterprise software CEO to depart this year in the face of the "Saas Apocalypse." Carl Eschenbach at Workday was the first. Adobe's annual recurring revenue growth in Q1 came in light. Shares are down over 8% premarket. 4. Salesforce is the latest SaaS (software-as-a-service) company to step up buybacks following the brutal sell-off to start the year. The Club name yesterday filed to raise $25 billion in debt to fund share repurchases. Last month, Salesforce upped its buyback authorization to $50 billion. ServiceNow approved a $5 billion buyback earlier this year. We've actually seen the software group bounce off its late February lows. 5. Ulta Beauty shares are getting whacked this morning, down over 7%. Comparable sales in the fourth quarter were actually very strong. The problem was light full-year guidance for both comp sales and profits. JPMorgan said buy the dip. Wells Fargo has a sell on the stock and cut its price target to $475 from $500. 6. Citi upgraded Knight-Swift to a buy, with the stock down 18% since March 4. The truckers have been hammered this month on fears that higher oil prices will slow down the economy. Before the Iran war broke out, the group had been rallying on hopes that a multiyear freight recession was ending. 7. Among the stock market winners from the war: industrial gas suppliers. Wells Fargo upgraded Air Products to a buy from hold, predicting additional upside to the company's second-half outlook due to elevated helium prices with Qatari supply disrupted. JPMorgan upgraded Club name Linde for similar reasons, saying it's "built better" for this current market than many materials stocks. 8. Lumentum CEO Michael Hurlston told a great story last night on "Mad Money." The supplier of optical technology for data centers is "completely sold out" through the end of 2027. "We see no end in sight," he said. Lumentum, which inked a partnership with Club name Nvidia this month, is arguably the hottest stock in the data center, up 90% over the past three months. For the Club, we own Corning as our optical play. 9. Needham said Alphabet doesn't need to rein in its spending on the AI data center buildout, projecting that the Google parent will be able to "self-fund 100%" of its capex through 2028 with its own free cash flow. Contrast that to a name like Amazon , which is projected to have negative FCF this year. Alphabet is "buying itself deeper moats" with its spending, Needham said. We're believers in Alphabet for the Club. 10. Stifel cut its price target on ServiceTitan to $125 from $145 after mixed quarterly earnings last night. But Stifel kept its buy rating, as did Canaccord. ServiceTitan has a unique model of selling software tailored to the blue-collar trades, but that hasn't made its stock immune to the broader software sell-off. Shares are down about 6% premarket. Sign up for my Top 10 Morning Thoughts on the Market email newsletter for free (See here for a full list of the stocks at 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.
