The very public implosion of President Donald Trump and Elon Musk ‘s alliance may have captivated Wall Street this week, but the government’s solid monthly employment report was the real showstopper. In addition to those two developments, earnings from Club names CrowdStrike and Broadcom , and the back-and-forth between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on trade defined the market. 1. Jobs, stocks , Fed : The S & P 500 jumped 1% on Friday on the labor data , which showed job growth in May that was strong enough to ease fears of a recession and warmer-but-not-too-hot wage inflation. With both sides of the Federal Reserve’s dual mandate of maximizing employment and fostering price stability in check, the market still felt comfortable rooting for an interest rate cut down the line. For the week, the S & P 500 rose 1.5% , logging its back-to-back weekly gains. For the second time this week, and despite Friday’s solid nonfarm payrolls data, Trump prodded Fed Chairman Jerome Powell to cut rates – this time, calling for a full percentage point reduction . The market is predicting virtually no chance of a reduction at the central bank’s upcoming meeting later this month. On Wednesday, the president called for a Fed rate cut after the weak ADP private sector hiring report. Powell has been saying all along that he won’t be influenced by politics and will be economic data dependent. The Fed chief has also said he would like to see more data on whether Trump’s tariffs, which are moving targets and not finalized, negatively impact the economy. 2. Scorched Earth : Could the relationship between the world’s most powerful man, Trump, and the world’s richest, Musk, end any other way than the way it did Thursday? Both billionaires went after each other on social media. Trump called Musk “crazy” and threatened to kill federal contracts with Musk’s companies, including SpaceX. Musk called for Trump’s impeachment, criticized Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” of tax cuts and spending priorities making its way on Capitol Hill, and then said SpaceX would decommission its Dragon spacecraft. Musk later took back that last part. Tesla shares sank over 14% on Thursday – but on Friday, recovered more than 3.5%. Also on Friday, Trump said he was not interested in having a call with Musk. Putting all the drama aside, there are real issues at play here concern the federal budget deficit and the billions upon billions of dollars of stock market value that has been erased from Musk’s Tesla . Shares have lost more than 25% year to date. 3. Back on, again : The other Washington-related saga that has implications for stocks is trade talks between the U.S. and China. Trump announced on Friday that U.S.-China trade talks will take place Monday in London. The news comes after Trump and Xi finally talked on the phone Thursday. Last month, high-level U.S. officials met with their Chinese counterparts in Geneva, Switzerland, where they each agreed to pause most of the triple-digit tariff rates on each other’s imports. Before the Trump-Xi call, the U.S. president accused China of violating that agreement – to which the Chinese accused the U.S. of not adhering to the deal. Reuters reported on Friday that China granted licenses for rare earth elements to the top three U.S. automakers. Back in April, China, which dominates in rare earths, put export curbs on the resources, which are key to making many of our modern-day products. 4. Records, then selling : Both CrowdStrike and Broadcom saw their stocks finish at record closing highs ahead of this week’s respective earnings reports, which led to selling. CRWD YTD mountain CrowdStrike YTD Shares of CrowdStrike hit its closing record of just under $489 on Tuesday. Then after the bell, the cybersecurity delivered a mostly solid quarter . The stock lost 5.8% on Wednesday. Good old profit-taking after a big run to all-time highs contributed to the selling, and so did concerns about mixed guidance and some noise around federal government inquiries into the company — though nothing has changed in our stance toward last July’s massive IT outage and its dealings with software reseller Carahsoft. The outage was caused by a botched CrowdStrike software update. CEO George Kurtz appeared on “Mad Money” with Jim and defended his company in the probes , saying the company is cooperating with investigators. On earnings night, we raised our price target to $500 per share from $400 but kept our hold-equivalent 2 rating in recognition of this year’s more than 35% gain in the stock. Shares were modestly higher on Thursday and Friday. AVGO YTD mountain Broadcom YTD Broadcom shares closed at a record high of $261 each Wednesday. Then, after Thursday’s close, Broadcom delivered a strong quarter and upbeat comments about its key artificial intelligence business. There are no signs that demand for the company’s custom AI chips, or “accelerators,” and networking solutions will let up anytime soon. On the software side, Broadcom continues to make the most of its blockbuster VMware acquisition. But again, profit-takers swooped in during Friday’s session and pushed the stock down 5%. On earnings night, we raised our price target on the stock to $290 per share from $230 but kept our 2 rating. During Friday’s Morning Meeting, Jim did tell investors without a position in Broadcom that it would be a good time to buy, starting with a partial position then building it up over time. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long CRWD, AVGO. 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. 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Jobs, profit-taking and 2 other things that drove the stock market this week
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