One of our most recent defensive buys cleared a hurdle and its stock jumped

Every weekday, the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer releases the Homestretch — an actionable afternoon update, just in time for the last hour of trading on Wall Street. Stocks were hanging in there on Thursday , with the S & P 500 down only slightly on the first day of the fourth quarter. The market looked much worse earlier in the session as bond yields rose and the 10-year Treasury reached its highest level since April 2022. But then, Treasury prices rebounded, bringing yields down by 10 basis points from their high. That move erased all the S & P 500's losses, and the index turned slightly green. It's unclear what the exact catalyst was for this reversal in bond prices, but we should note that the probability of a 25-basis-point interest rate increase at the Federal Reserve's meeting later this month continues to trend downward. Odds of a hike now stand at about 29%, down from 37% yesterday and 68% one week ago, according to the CME FedWatch tool. Cardinal Health was a bright spot in the market after the drug distributor said it entered a binding letter of intent to extend its existing distribution agreement with CVS Health through June 30, 2032. What's important here was that Cardinal Health reaffirmed its fiscal 2027 adjusted EPS guidance of 13% to 15% growth and long-term adjusted EPS growth guidance of 12% to 14%. That indicates to us that the economics of this relationship did not materially change. This matters because there was a view heading into this contract negotiation that CVS Health would drive a hard bargain. McKesson also announced a similar distribution agreement with CVS. Bank of America described these extensions as a "clearing event" for the two stocks, and we agree. Both stocks are up about 3% to 4% Thursday. McKesson is up a little more because it had faced a greater risk of losing its relationship with CVS and seeing the business move to Cardinal Health, which would have been an even bigger win for CAH. Still, we are pleased to see Cardinal Health move past this negotiation without any negative impact on its short- or long-term fundamentals. With this uncertainty gone, the market will circle back to this stock because it's a consistent double-digit grower with limited exposure to the economy and interest rates and trades at a reasonable multiple of 18x earnings per share. Cardinal Health's ongoing success in its specialty pharma and healthcare services strategy is why we added to our position on Wednesday. An Anthropic IPO may be less than two months away . Bloomberg reported Thursday that the frontier AI lab may begin marketing for its initial public offering as early as the week of Nov. 9, putting the company on schedule to begin trading before Thanksgiving. Anthropic could fetch a valuation of around $2 trillion, according to reports. We don't need to tell you how important this IPO is to our four chip stocks — Nvidia , Broadcom , Intel , and Micron — as well as the AI theme at large. It will be especially important for Broadcom, with Anthropic expected to overtake Alphabet as its largest customer for custom AI chips next year. In a sign of how close the two companies are, Reuters said Thursday that Broadcom has agreed to lend Anthropic up to $42 billion to finance infrastructure spending. Nike reports earnings after the closing bell . There are no major earnings on Friday. The big event Friday is the September nonfarm payroll report. Economists polled by FactSet expect a gain of 90,000 jobs in September, with a 3.2% year-over-year increase in average hourly earnings and the unemployment rate unchanged at 4.1% from August. It will be an important data set because a hot report may be viewed as bad news for stocks and bonds on the thesis that a strong labor market gives the Fed more "cover" to continue raising interest rates to slow inflation. (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.