It was a tough week for stocks as investors navigated everything from rising tensions in the Middle East to key tech earnings reports and healthcare developments. Posting its second consecutive weekly loss, the S&P 500 fell 0.6%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 2.1%. Here's a closer look at what drove the trading action. Oil prices take control again Oil soared for the third consecutive week due to uncertainty over the Iran war. US benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude rose more than 8%, while international Brent crude rose almost 10%. Oil prices rose on Monday after President Donald Trump warned that Iran would pay “many times over” for the deaths of three US service members. They gained momentum throughout the week after Trump again threatened to bomb Iranian bridges and power plants and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tehran was not serious about reaching a deal to end the fighting. On Thursday, fears that the conflict could spread beyond Iran intensified after Houthi militants claimed responsibility for attacks on Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea, sending Brent crude above $100 a barrel for the first time since before the United States and Iran reached an interim ceasefire deal last month. While oil prices retreated on Friday on hopes of a restart of U.S.-Iran peace talks, the week's strong bullish move underscored how quickly geopolitical tensions can reshape the market narrative. Rising crude oil revived concerns about inflation, pushing the 10-year Treasury yield to its highest level since January 2025. With the Federal Reserve meeting next week, the odds of an interest rate hike have increased. According to the CME FedWatch tool, markets are now pricing in a nearly 35% chance of a quarter-point increase in rates, up from just a 13% chance a week ago. Wall Street Raises the Bar for AI Spending Artificial intelligence continued to be a dominant theme in this week's earnings, and investors made one thing clear: They are no longer willing to reward massive spending without seeing a clear path to profitability. Club holding company Alphabet became the clearest example after reporting better-than-expected revenue and profits and Google Cloud growth of 82% year over year on Wednesday night. Shares of Google parent fell 7% on Thursday, as investors focused on Alphabet's decision to once again raise its capital expenditure (capex) outlook. Management now expects to spend between $195 billion and $205 billion on capital spending this year and noted that spending will increase again in 2027. With free cash flow turning negative, Wall Street is becoming increasingly skeptical that hyperscalers can continue investing hundreds of billions of dollars in AI infrastructure without showing greater financial profitability. Alphabet was the fourth-worst performer in the Club's portfolio this week, down 7.8%. Capex levels will be the focus when our other three hyperscalers (Amazon, Meta Platforms and Microsoft) report next week. Club Name Last Thursday night's Intel results told the other side of the story. The chipmaker achieved its highest quarterly revenue growth since 2011, driven by a 59% increase in data center revenue as companies continue to invest aggressively in AI infrastructure. However, we were a little disappointed that Intel didn't announce a major foundry customer. On Tuesday, Intel announced cybersecurity company Fortinet as its first foundry customer. Several other companies, including Apple, are rumored to partner with Intel, but no formal deals have been announced. Intel opened higher on Friday but retreated lower, closing down nearly 8%. That put Intel 3% in the red for the week. GE Vernova's data center exposed mixed earnings served as a prime example of why investors should look beyond the headline numbers. Shares fell about 8% on Wednesday after holding company Club missed Wall Street's earnings per share (EPS) estimate. While one mistake is never ideal, we believe investors focused on the wrong metric. The most important figure was order growth, which increased by 88%, driven by exceptionally strong demand in the company's Energy and Electrification businesses, which are key to operating AI data centers. For a company like GE Vernova, orders provide a much better indicator of future growth than quarterly profits because they reflect customer demand rather than past deliveries. To us, this is exactly the type of long-term story that investors should embrace. GE Vernova shares rallied 4.7% on Thursday, but fell 1.6% on Friday. They ended the week down about 4.1%. Dover, on the other hand, reinforced why we think it's time to move on. Shares of the industrial company fell nearly 8% on Thursday after posting a mixed quarter, with earnings that narrowly beat expectations but insufficient revenue. While the company has significant exposure to attractive secular growth areas, such as artificial intelligence data centers, those companies represent only about 25% of expected revenue through 2026. The rest of its portfolio is spread across a collection of slower-growing industrial businesses, making it difficult for investors to view Dover as an exclusive beneficiary of the AI themes driving the market. We already trimmed the position twice in June, locking in double-digit gains. Dover shares rallied 2.2% on Friday, but ended the week down 5.6%. Healthcare Catalysts While technology dominated much of the week's attention, two of the Club's healthcare names reminded that some of the market's most compelling long-term growth stories exist beyond AI. Eli Lilly announced encouraging late-stage data for its next-generation anti-obesity drug, triple-action retatrutide. Shares rose 2% following the news Thursday. The therapy has generated excitement because it has demonstrated greater weight loss than Lilly's Zepbound and Novo Nordisk's Wegovy. Investors were initially focused on management pushing its regulatory filing through the first quarter of 2027. We think the most important takeaway is how Lilly plans to present the filing. Instead of using the traditional new drug pathway, the company intends to introduce retatrutide as a biologic, a pathway that generally provides stronger intellectual property protections and exempts the drug from Medicare price negotiations under the Inflation Reduction Act. In our opinion, a slightly later launch is a reasonable trade-off if it extends the commercial life of what could become one of Lilly's most valuable products. Lilly shares gained 1.4% for the week. Johnson & Johnson also delivered a major positive surprise after the FDA approved its Ottava robotic surgery system months earlier than investors expected. Shares rose 2% following the news Wednesday. The approval gives J&J a foothold in the fast-growing robotic surgery market, long dominated by Intuitive Surgical, and provides an important catalyst for its MedTech business, which has recently lagged the company's pharmaceutical segment. J&J shares finished up 4.1% for the week. (See here for a complete list of Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust holdings.) 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 fund'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. 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