Posted on 02/14/2026 2:33:30 PM PST by fireman15
Selloff wipes out nearly $1 trillion from software and services stocks as investors debate AI's existential threat
Summary:
Companies: Software stocks fall on AI disruption fears, but selling intensity eases
Scramble to shield portfolios as AI muddies valuations, business prospects
Selloff has been overdone, analyst says
Software and service stocks shed $830 billion in market value in six trading days
Feb 4 (Reuters) - Investors were assessing on Wednesday whether a selloff in global software stocks this week had gone too far, as they weighed if businesses could survive an existential threat posed by artificial intelligence. The answer: It's unclear, but AI's development will involve volatility.
After a broad selloff on Tuesday that saw the S&P 500 software and services index (.SPLRCIS), opens new tab fall nearly 4%, the sector slipped another 0.73% on Wednesday, notching the sixth straight session of losses and wiping out about $830 billion in market value since January 28.
Software stocks have been under pressure in recent months as AI has gone from a tailwind for many of these companies to a possible disruption. The latest selloff was triggered by a new legal tool from Anthropic's Claude large language model. The tool - a plug-in for Claude’s agent for tasks across legal, sales, marketing and data analysis - underscored the push by LLMs into the “application layer,” where these firms are increasingly muscling into lucrative enterprise businesses for revenue they need to fund massive investments. If successful, investors worry, it could wreak havoc across industries from finance to law and coding.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
I’m holding $PLTR and will keep buying.
Will the existential threat push the envelope so that we have full transparency? Will it be Utopia or just a ruined envelope?
I have tried putting Claude Opus 4.6 through the paces and have to admit that with its supplemental features it is at this point a little beyond my current ability to make meaningful observations. I have quite a bit of experience with Claude Sonnet 4.5 and it has become my go to for writing scripts and adding additional features to Linus machines especially. It is definitely a step up from Grok when not wanting to waste time chasing down bad code. I assume with the stock selloff that Claude Opus 4.6 with its ability to better integrate AI agents is likely to be much more useful to businesses.
I doubt that it is the long-awaited step toward actual human intelligence AGI. But there have been several major releases in the last month or two. I have been playing with the latest version of Google’s Gemini and purchased their special offer of $1.99 a month for 3 months of their Pro service. I have also been fooling around with Ernie 5.0 which is from the Chinese company Baidu and has many interesting features.
I have spent about the last 6 months working with AI models of all types and sizes and purposes. Your guess is as good as mine. They have evolved some just in the period that I have been fooling around with them. Fortunately, this is a hobby for me, so it has provided a lot of learning opportunities without a lot of stress.
But no matter how you feel about AI... it is the area relating to computers where all the action is. The money being committed and spent is astronomical. The Return on Investment (ROI) is getting into a questionable range that is constantly thought to be turning into a very dangerous bubble.
Any development good or bad can have a huge impact on the markets.
It has its uses but right now, greatly overrated. We spent a couple of months with an AI translation service that had the promise to reduce call time, customer experience (we use a translation service that becomes a 3 way phone call) etc. The demos were flawless but when we went to implement, we had multiple customizations that had to occur and we had 70 more languages to look at. Maybe in 5-10 years, but not today.
Old article. Stocks need a correction from highs.
The next day Nvidia was up 10%.
in my opinion recently people have had to cover their losses in other markets I am not sure where it started, but maybe slowly in Gold and then quickly in Silver.
This created liquidations in Crypto and other stock assets.
In the recent past when money was printed faster than I could imagine using covid as an excuse, that was like a series of meteors hitting in the middle of each the five oceans at the same time, with each hit getting larger and creating more and more turmoil in the markets over time, it is not just a one time hit. Since money is being created, the depth of the market rises and then falls back, but then rises higher before it falls back.
People in the cozy financial centers of the world are being forced to do desperate things to ensure they are not naked, but some of them really are and it is not pretty
very old financial news: that all happened 10 days ago ... what’s the point of posting stock market happenings from 10 days ago?
Not everyone is as aware as you of current AI related volatility. Instead of whining about it why don't you share some links that are more current? Or if you have enough interest start your own thread.
It could be a very useful technology eventually, but the bosses are in a great big hurry to get rid of humans and it won’t go well.
I really have no interest in bitcoin and so during the selloff of the last couple of months I have been asking, on a fairly consistent basis, What is going on? What is the cause...? type questions with some pretty pointed questions. I was unimpressed with the answers with the exception of learning about the amount of leverage and derivative types of gaming, names of strategies I haven’t heard of, who are only interested in the “game.”
My preferred AI have been Perplexity and Claude
The next day Nvidia was up 10%.
As I told catnipman, not everyone is aware of the volatility surrounding AI or the scale of the funds involved. Please do us all a favor and post links to more recent articles that you feel are more appropriate or start your own thread.
To help you get started here is a story about Nvidia from yesterday:
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/13/nvidias-stock-is-down-and-amd-is-up-the-culprit-may-be-arista-.html
I thought the article was written in an interesting way and was worthy of discussion... regardless of it being a little more than a week old.
Same here. But I use Claude in the perplexity platform.
Can AI get them their coffee or do they have to get it themselves ?
I found this more recent article just now...
Why Nvidia, Intel and Pinterest crashed today while Rivian and Palantir surge big - AI disruption fears shake US stock market
“Why Nvidia stock fell despite AI dominance
Nvidia, one of the biggest AI stocks in the US market, slipped 0.75%. The decline was modest but significant given its heavy weight in the Nasdaq and S&P 500.”
“The weakness appears tied to broader AI valuation concerns. Investors are reassessing how far AI spending can expand without creating competitive pressure and margin risks across the tech sector.”
“Even companies seen as AI leaders are not immune when volatility rises. Some traders locked in profits after a strong run earlier in the year. The stock remains near the upper end of its 52-week range of $86.62 to $212.19.”
And there is more interesting info that follows concerning the volatility related to AI.
The page is a bit of a pain from all the ads, but the info is pretty good.
IF YOU WISH TO TEAR YOUR HAIR OUT: TRY CALLING LOWE’S.
THEY USED TO HAVE GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE.
NOW IT IS A REPETITIVE NIGHTMARE
I did yesterday. You’re absolutely spot on!
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