Jim Cramer's top 10 things to watch in the stock market Thursday

Oil rose more than 4.5% amid reports the U.S. is considering large-scale military operations in Iran, while Treasury yields climbed and the Kospi fell more than 2.5%; the article expects a sharply lower U.S. open and flags the 30-year Treasury auction. Corporate updates were mixed: PepsiCo beat quarterly earnings and revenue but cut full-year core EPS guidance, while Levi Strauss shares fell almost 4% after direct-to-consumer organic growth of 2% missed 6.7% consensus. Analyst calls included Goldman Sachs upgrading Palantir to buy with a $230 target and HSBC downgrading Constellation Brands to hold.

Analysis

The key cross-asset risk is an inflation-duration shock, not simply “higher oil”: sustained crude strength can lift inflation expectations and long yields together, pressuring long-duration equities while raising input and freight costs. The 30-year auction is an immediate test; a weak result and further yield expansion would argue against buying broad dip weakness. A de-escalation in Iran or a well-absorbed auction would weaken that setup.

Do not conflate confirmed semiconductor demand with attractive returns across every AI-infrastructure project. TSMC’s strength supports real demand at the chip-fabrication layer, but says little about utilization, power availability, financing costs, or returns on new data-center capacity. Firmus Grid’s prospective float and unresolved pricing are a company-specific supply/valuation warning, not evidence that AI capex has peaked. Over 1–3 months, watch hyperscaler capex and infrastructure utilization commentary; over 6–18 months, power constraints and project economics matter more than chip orders.

The earnings misses are uneven signals: LEVI’s merchandising explanation is testable against next-quarter DTC growth and inventory/promotion levels; FDXF shipment counts are more informative about freight demand than fuel-surcharge-inflated revenue. For PEP, higher rates can pressure the dividend multiple while oil-related packaging and logistics costs threaten margins. In financials, higher yields are not automatically bullish: curve shape, deposit costs, and securities marks determine whether WFC/GS benefit. The contrarian risk is treating one positive foundry datapoint as proof that all AI-linked assets deserve the same multiple—or treating a single operational miss as a broken long-term franchise.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Near term, keep broad duration exposure hedged rather than buying the open indiscriminately; reassess after the 30-year auction and crude response. A weaker auction with rising long yields strengthens the hedge thesis; easing yields or geopolitical risk invalidates it.
• Prefer selective semiconductor exposure such as TSM over unproven AI-infrastructure offerings; do not extrapolate TSM demand into Firmus Grid without verifiable pricing, backlog, funding, and customer-utilization data.
• Keep LEVI and FDXF on a catalyst watch, not an automatic dip-buy: require a measurable DTC recovery for LEVI and improving shipment counts for FDXF. Further deterioration in either metric would falsify the near-term recovery case.
• For WFC and GS, monitor the yield curve and deposit-cost disclosures before adding on the rate narrative; a bear-steepening move with rising funding costs, or renewed long-end stress, would undermine the positive thesis.