Here are our top 3 and bottom 3 stocks during a divergent second quarter

Published Sun, Jun 30 202411:18 AM EDT

It was another largely great quarter for the stock market — completing a strong first half of the year for the Dow Jones Industrial Average , the S & P 500 and the Nasdaq , all trading around record highs. The Nasdaq was the big winner of the second quarter, adding 8.26% over the past three months thanks to an artificial intelligence-powered tech rally. The S & P 500 gained 3.92% since the end of March. The Dow, on the other hand, closed out the April through June period in the loss column — ending down 1.73%. The Dow is not as heavily weighted in tech, which was the top-performing sector in Q2. Here's a look at the three best second-quarter performers among the 33 stocks in the CNBC Investing Club portfolio and the three worst. Best Performers NVDA YTD mountain Nvidia YTD Nvidia continued to be the top-performing stock in the portfolio for the second quarter in a row, gaining 36.73%. The major contributor to the upside was a blowout fiscal 2025 first quarter accompanied by strong current quarter guidance. During the post-earnings call in May, the risk of a so-called air pocket in sales momentum as the company transitions to its new Blackwell chip architecture was taken off the table . Management said demand for the yet-to-be-released platform already outstrips supply. Last week, if only briefly, Nvidia became the most valuable U.S. company. After record high after record high, the stock pulled back recently. On Wednesday, at Nvidia's annual shareholders meeting, founder and CEO Jensen Huang took questions and laid out the company's overall strategy to maintain its lead position in enabling AI. AAPL YTD mountain Apple YTD The second big winner was Apple , which rose 22.82% in Q2. The stock didn't do much in the first month of the second quarter. However, all that changed in early May when the company reported solid earnings . Services revenue was better than expected and China was nowhere near as bad as feared. That got the stock going. But the real break out to all-time highs followed the company's AI announcements at this month's Worldwide Developers Conference. Shares took that other leg up, in our view, because Apple Intelligence will only be available on last year's iPhone 15 Pro models or better. That means the vast majority of iPhone users, who we know to be extremely loyal to the brand, have a better reason than ever before to upgrade their devices. We expect many to do so. AVGO YTD mountain Broadcom YTD Broadcom came in third and saw its stock advance 21.13% in April through June. After consolidating for much of the quarter, the stock started jumping earlier this month on strong quarterly results and management raising their outlook for AI-related revenue generation. Investors also came away with increased confidence that the legacy aspects of the business were bottoming and set to rebound into the back half of the year. That confidence also makes sense when considering that Broadcom is a key Apple supplier. So any outsized AI-upgrade cycle that Apple sees is going to translate into a strong cycle for suppliers like Broadcom as well. Worst Performers EL YTD mountain Estee Lauder YTD Estee Lauder was the worst name of the second quarter for the Club portfolio, losing 30.98%. The stock was largely rangebound in April, however, the negative momentum took hold once again when shares got punished for its light guidance. Management's disappointing outlook sparked fresh concerns over the pace of the recovery in Asia Travel Retail. While the report was largely positive and we did see signs of an inflection playing out, these concerns on the pace and magnitude of the recovery continue to weigh on shares. DIS YTD mountain Disney YTD The second worst performer was Disney , which dropped 18.85% in April through June. Disney started to drift back down after management won its proxy fight to keep activist investor Nelson Peltz off the company board. Peltz, who had a big stake in Disney, exited the position. The stock then took another hit on lackluster earnings , in which the company missed expectations on the top line. While noting that Disney's combined direct-to-consumer (DTC) business is still on the path to profitability by the end of fiscal year 2024 in September, the current quarter would see pressure resulting seasonal weakness attributable to its streaming offering in India, known as Disney+ Hotstar. SWK YTD mountain Stanley Black & Decker YTD The third worst performer of the quarter was Stanley Black & Decker , with an 18.42% decline. While shares recovered post-earnings losses quickly, they subsequently reversed back down and now sit below where the level reached in the selloff after the quarterly numbers were release in early May. At least some of that pressure was likely caused by a rebound in longer-term bond yields, which kept borrowing costs high. We view Stanley Black & Decker as our play on Federal Reserve interest rate cuts, which when they happen, should lower mortgages and boost the housing market. Stanley Black & Decker was one of nine stocks featured in our Fed rate cut stocks commentary. (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. 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General view of the Nasdaq building in Times Square, January 24, 2023.

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