Jim Cramer's Investing Club meeting Friday: Google layoffs, Salesforce, selectivity

Published Fri, Jan 20 202311:43 AM ESTUpdated Fri, Jan 20 20231:29 PM EST

Every weekday the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer holds a "Morning Meeting" livestream at 10:20 a.m. ET. Here's a recap of Friday's key moments. Be picky when buying stocks We want layoffs on strength Salesforce downgrade is old news 1. Be picky about stocks Stocks rose on Friday, boosted by Netflix 's (NFLX) huge subscriber growth beat during the fourth quarter. The S & P 500 Oscillator has moved down to 5.6% after the market's losses over the past couple of days but remains in overbought territory. We urge investors to be extremely picky: Investors should only buy stocks that are down by quite a lot — like Caterpillar (CAT) was when we added to our position on Thursday. Shares of CAT have fallen roughly 4% in the last five trading days. 2. We want layoffs, but with one condition Alphabet (GOOGL) said Friday that it will cut 12,000 people from its headcount. Shares of Alphabet rose nearly 4% on the news. While we want to see tech companies cut costs, it's important that companies lay off workers from a position of strength, not weakness. In other words, we would've preferred Alphabet to reassure shareholders that they have revenue acceleration and still found room to cut costs, instead of being opaque about the state of its balance sheet. Nevertheless, we still like the stock, and the layoffs aren't a surprise considering that Alphabet's business is in advertising, which has been hammered in the current recessionary environment. 3. Salesforce downgrade is old news Cowen on Friday downgraded Salesforce (CRM) to market perform (hold) from outperform (buy), citing recent executive departures and a tough macroeconomic environment. But the downgrade isn't based on any new information and is in line with what analysts have said in the past couple of months. The stock has already come down on those concerns, so we aren't paying too much heed to the downgrade. Shares of Salesforce were up more than 1% mid-morning Friday. (Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust is long CAT, CRM, GOOGL. 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.