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The S & P 500 notched a record close Friday for the first time in more than two years — and over that time, no Club stock has performed better than Eli Lilly . The broad market index ended Friday’s session at 4,839.81, edging out its prior all-time high close of 4,796.56 set on Jan. 3, 2022. Including Friday’s gain, it rallied around 35% from its bear market low, reached on Oct. 12, 2022 . While Jim Cramer christened a new bull market in January 2023 before last year’s incredible rally, some observers wait until the S & P 500 closes at a new record — as it did Friday — to make the official declaration. Eli Lilly more than doubled since the S & P 500’s prior 2022 record and Friday’s close on optimism around the opportunities for tirzepatide — the active ingredient in its newly approved Zepbound weight-loss drug and its Mounjaro type-2 diabetes drug cleared in May 2022. Tirzepatide is also being tested to treat a slew of other diseases and conditions. Leading AI chipmaker Nvidia and cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks are in second and third place over that same period — up 97.5% and 86.2%, respectively. Zoom in and look at just 2023, it was the same stocks but in a different order: Nvidia more than tripled, Palo Alto rose 112%, and Lilly gained just over 59%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average set its first record close since January 2022 in December and ended Friday’s session at a record high above 37,800. The Nasdaq, on the other hand, ended Friday at 15,310.97 — meaning it needs to rally about 5% more to take out its Nov. 19, 2021 record high. It is worth noting that the Nasdaq 100 , which is weighed more heavily in Big Tech, did close at another record high Friday. Quite a bit has happened on Wall Street since the S & P 500’s old high in January 2022. At that time, the Federal Reserve had yet to embark on a series of interest rate hikes that took its benchmark overnight lending rate to its highest level in 22 years. The peak in Covid-era inflation — at 9.1% year-over-year increase in June 2022 — as measured by the consumer price index, was still five months away . It also would be more than 10 months before the startup OpenAI introduced ChatGPT. The viral launch sparked an investment cycle in artificial intelligence that contributed to the turnaround in sentiment toward technology stocks, which had helped drag the market into a bear market to begin with. A resilient U.S. economy — despite worries that a recession was around the corner, alongside cooling inflation throughout last year — figured heavily into the making of the new bull market. Take a look below to see how 31 of our 32 current Club stocks have fared between the S & P 500’s record closes. GE Healthcare , which began as a publicly traded firm a year ago, is excluded from the chart. Keep in mind that our stocks have changed a bit, with some companies, such as Eaton , only in the portfolio for about two months. Meanwhile, we’ve exited other companies that we owned on Jan. 3, 2022, like Abbott Labs . Though it’s back in our Bullpen watchlist . Also remember, that some stocks, like Nvidia, had very steep falls in 2022 before resuming their upward trajectory, impacting their overall performance over the past two years. (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.
People walk through the Financial District by the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on the last day of trading for the year on December 29, 2023 in New York City.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images
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