Tuesday marks the first day of trading for the second half of 2025. It was a rocky six months for the U.S. stock market and the Club’s 30-name portfolio as investors weighed President Donald Trump’s tariffs, ongoing geopolitical conflict and the Federal Reserve’s next monetary policy decision. The market ebbed and flowed, but ultimately ended the first six months higher. The S & P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite both advanced 5.5%. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 3.6%. Not all of our Club holdings closed out on a high note. Our five worst performers — Salesforce , Bristol Myers Squibb, Apple , Danaher and DuPont de Nemours — each fell at least 10% over the period. But past performance does not guarantee future results, as the saying goes, and all of these stocks could see markedly different back halves of 2025. Indeed, with the exception of Salesforce, these bottom performers were all up Monday as the market rotated out of its first half winners like AI plays, including fellow Club holding Nvidia. Here’s what it would take to get these five lagging stocks back in the green. 1. Salesforce: -18.4% Salesforce tumbled on concerns about a slowdown of its core business, adoption of its AI tools and general weakness in software names. Salesforce shares can get back on track if the company’s able to show investors real signs of growth in Agentforce, its set of AI tools. That’s why we’re waiting until its Dreamforce conference in September, when management is expected to share more details about these buzzy offerings. Plus, the event was a key catalyst for the stock in 2024. 2. Bristol Myers Squibb: -18.2% Shares took a hit after a key growth prospect — schizophrenia treatment Cobenfy — reported a disappointing clinical trial in April. We’re hoping a study later later this month will show that Cobenfy works well in treating symptoms for Alzheimer’s-related psychosis and get the stock back on track. 3. Apple: -18.1% Much has weighed on this stock over the past six months: the impact of higher levies on the iPhone maker, a lackluster rollout of AI features on those devices and a Justice Department antitrust case against Google that could have knock-on effects for the company’s high-margin services revenue stream. Signs of improvement in any one of those challenges would help. Plus, management needs to pull back on buybacks in order to reinvest that money back into its AI efforts. Case in point: Shares jumped Monday after Bloomberg reported that Apple is considering using AI startups Anthropic and OpenAI for the overhaul of virtual assistant Siri. 4. Danaher: -13.9% Danaher’s stock has also been held back by concerns that potential tariffs and drug pricing regulations against the US pharmaceutical industry could weigh on future capital investments. Cramer has also said the management team has been ineffective. If Danaher replaces its CEO, the stock will likely run higher. 5. DuPont: -10% DuPont’s China exposure has weighed on the stock since Trump’s “Liberation Day” on April 2. It has also been in a spin purgatory , a common pattern where shares of a company lag ahead of a breakup of its businesses. The specialty chemicals maker will split into two-publicly traded entities in November. We’re hopeful that investors will see the real value in DuPont’s electronics business once that’s complete. Still, the Club lowered its price target on legacy DuPont to $82 from $100 in May. (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.
Our bottom 5 stocks for the first half of 2025 — why we still own them
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