We are buying 55 shares of Abbott Laboratories at roughly $100.89 and 200 shares of Coterra Energy at roughly $27.44. Following the trades, Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust will own 950 shares of ABT, increasing its weighting to 3.00% from 2.84% and 3,100 shares of CTRA, increasing its weighting to 2.65% from 2.48%. We’re putting some cash to work into the down open Wednesday. Once again, we are adding to our position in Abbott Labs. The stock continues to slide along with many other names in health care as investors focus mainly on the artificial intelligence trade. Abbott may be out of favor right now, but we’re willing to be patient because it’s high quality and one of the fastest growing companies in the medical-technology industry. In the first quarter of 2024, Abbott posted organic sales growth of 10.8%. It may not be an AI infrastructure buildout beneficiary, but double-digit growth for a roughly $175 billion market cap company is still pretty impressive. There is an Abbott-specific overhang to keep in mind: litigation concerns for its baby formula business. While we cannot dismiss this as a potential risk that could linger for months, many analysts think the market capitalization that has been lost in recent months on these concerns far exceeds what Abbott could ultimately pay to settle. We continue to believe this disconnect creates an opportunity to slowly buy this Dividend Aristocrat on weakness. We’re adding to Coterra because we want to more energy exposure on our books due to the rising geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. Coterra Energy has been our long preferred name due to its capital efficiency and ability to flex investment between oil and natural gas – whatever is most economical based on commodity prices. There’s also a lot of consolidation happening in the sector. The latest news is ConocoPhillips buying Marathon Oil at a premium of nearly 15%. Although we never buy stocks simply for mergers-and-acquisitions reasons, Coterra’s pristine balance sheet puts it in a good position to scale up operations if it wants to, and its cheap valuation could make it a target of a larger company. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long CTRA and ABT. See here for a full list of the stocks.) 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.
An oil pumpjack is shown near the Callon Petroleum vicinity on March 27, 2024 in Monahans, Texas.
Brandon Bell | Getty Images
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