What happened: IBM (IBM) stock plummeted more than 10% at the market open on Thursday, joining a sell-off in software names like ServiceNow (NOW) and Oracle (ORCL).
What’s behind the move: IBM’s first quarter results failed to calm investor anxiety over artificial intelligence’s impact on the infrastructure and software giant. Software sales grew more than expected, but revenue in the company’s consulting segment came in shy of estimates.
The enterprise information technology company maintained its full-year guidance of constant currency revenue growth above 5% versus estimates of more than 5.1%. Wall Street may view that as a cautious outlook given the company’s recently closed Confluent acquisition, which is expected to contribute additional revenue.
What else you need to know: Investors have been selling off software stocks over fears that AI will disrupt their business models and replace their software products.
In February, IBM plummeted more than 20%, its largest monthly decline in decades, after AI developer Anthropic (ANTH.PVT) unveiled a tool aimed at modernizing a programming language that runs on IBM mainframes.
IBM has pushed back against that narrative, arguing that AI will make its offerings more attractive.
“As clients scale use cases, AI continues to be a tailwind for our global business,” IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said in the company’s earnings release.
The company, long known for its mainframe computers, has been on an acquisition spree in recent years as it positions itself as a hybrid cloud software provider through deals such as Red Hat in 2019, HashiCorp last year, and most recently, Confluent.
Ines Ferre is a senior business reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on X at @ines_ferre.
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