Wall Street is locking in profits in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure beneficiaries that led markets in the first half of the year and shifting money into stocks with growth engines beyond data centre investment.

On July 28, U.S. financial media outlet CNBC reported that Jim Cramer (짐 크레이머) said the recent market move is not about stopping AI investment. He said it is a phase in which money is moving from stocks with large gains into other sectors. He said this could be seen as a broadening of the market, but it could also be interpreted as a flight from AI infrastructure beneficiaries.

In the first half, stocks tied to building AI data centres led the market, but many have slid sharply in recent weeks. Micron, Western Digital, Seagate and SanDisk surged after gaining unusual pricing power amid a memory shortage for AI servers, but investors have begun to view that shortage and high profitability as unlikely to last long.

Cramer said he has watched these companies cycle between booms and busts many times, and that parabolic surges created by shortages eventually end, so investors should sell during that stretch. He added that share prices tend to reflect the end of a cycle in advance.

Western Digital's share-price moves show that mood clearly. Western Digital posted a record closing high of $746 per share on June 18, up 333 percent from the start of the year, but then fell about 40 percent from the peak in less than 6 weeks.

Cramer said he does not think money is leaving the stock market. He said investors are reallocating funds away from companies whose results depend on expanded AI infrastructure spending and toward stocks with separate growth drivers.

In the process, buying has also flowed into software shares that had lagged. ServiceNow and Salesforce are up about 11 percent and 16 percent so far this month, and large consumer-related stocks are also benefiting from the shift. Cramer said Costco and Walmart are other stocks currently drawing market attention.

Johnson & Johnson was also cited as a beneficiary of the rotation. Johnson & Johnson hit an intraday record high on July 28 and then gave back part of its gain. The company announced the day before a $5.5 billion settlement to resolve ovarian cancer lawsuits related to talc products. That is below an offer of about $8 billion that a court rejected 2 years ago.

Even as AI-related shares broadly face a correction, Cramer kept an optimistic stance on Nvidia and Intel. He said their businesses are based on sustained demand rather than the temporary pricing power enjoyed by memory makers.

The recent market moves appear less about an AI theme weakening than a process in which money that had been concentrated in data centre expansion beneficiaries is spreading into software, consumer goods and defensive shares. As expectations for excess profits driven by a memory supply shortage fade, differentiation among AI-related shares is expected to become more pronounced.