Familiar winners dot Monday's stock leaderboard. Here's what the market is signaling

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. The S & P is lower on Monday but trading well off its worst levels of the session. The Nasdaq even fought into slightly positive territory. Selling pressure in equities eased as the surge in oil prices cooled, further demonstrating how crude has become an important gauge for investors during the Iran war. West Texas Intermediate crude retreated from roughly $119 per barrel late Sunday to about $100 at the market open, before sliding further to around $95 by the afternoon. Several developments helped push oil back below $100. Reuters reported that the Trump administration is reviewing options to stabilize the market, including coordinating with fellow Group of Seven countries on a potential release of strategic oil reserves and temporarily easing certain requirements under the Jones Act, which requires ships that transport goods between U.S. ports be American made, owned and crewed. These are steps in the right direction, but it remains to be seen how effective these countermeasures will be in offsetting the supply disruptions from barrels coming offline from Gulf State countries and the uncertainty surrounding shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. On volatile days like Monday, it can be especially helpful to look underneath the hood of the index and see what the market’s winners and losers are saying. Financials, consumer discretionary, and materials were the worst-performing sectors in the S & P 500 on Monday, and their weakness alongside rising oil prices makes sense. Higher crude prices typically translate into higher gasoline prices, and when it becomes more expensive to fill up the tank, consumers have less money left over for discretionary spending. In the consumer-led U.S. economy, that puts pressure on growth, and all three of those sectors are considered economically sensitive. It is notable that technology and AI-related stocks — the engines of this multiyear bull market — are leading the market’s recovery Monday. It could be the market’s way of saying, at least for now, that this AI capital expenditure investment cycle transcends this (hopefully short term) move in oil. Club name Broadcom is adding to last week’s post- earnings gains, up more than 4% and sitting near the top of the leaderboard for the entire S & P 500. Meanwhile, Nvidia is trading higher as the market increasingly looks towards next week’s GTC conference, and GE Vernova is responding to a positive analyst recommendation. Outside our portfolio, we’re also seeing strong gains in some of the memory and storage names like Sandisk , Western Digital and Seagate . KLA Corp and Lam Research , which are two of the leading semiconductor equipment suppliers, are also solidly higher Monday. Up next, after the closing bell, are earnings from Hewlett Packard Enterprise , Casey’s General Stores , and Vail Resorts . Before the opening bell on Tuesday, we’ll see earnings from retailer Kohl’s and the Chinese electric vehicle maker NIO . On the data side, there is NFIB Small Business Optimism Index and the National Association of Realtors’ Exiting Home Sales. (See here for a full list of the stocks in 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.