An early candidate for story of the year... More about AI disruption... Legitimate concerns, overblown reaction?... Stocks panic, bonds don't... This risk indicator shows multiyear lows...
No matter what happens next, 'AI disruption' will be a story of 2026...
Companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are making rapid advances in AI technology itself. And the companies providing their chips, data centers, and energy are right behind them.
Meanwhile, AI also has a huge impact on industries and jobs that the technology could reshape.
This is by no means a new story... or an unpredictable consequence of any emerging technology. We've been writing for years that there will be eventual "winners" and "losers" from AI.
But only recently has that sentiment shown up in an obvious series of wild stock moves...
So far in 2026, one sector at a time, AI is disrupting the stock market, swiftly and significantly.
And as Stansberry Research Publisher Matt Weinschenk explained in Friday's This Week on Wall Street, the AI-sparked sell-offs have hit sectors ranging from software to data collection and even trucking.
As we wrote last week, the private-equity sector is even getting caught up in this turn of fortunes.
And yesterday, we noted that software firms CrowdStrike (CRWD) and International Business Machines (IBM) were the two latest "victims," each losing 10% or more in a day following new tool releases from Anthropic that could shake up entire existing business models.
The software industry is the poster child...
We've told you about the "SaaSpocalypse," meaning AI upending the Software as a Service ("SaaS") businesses that have thrived in recent decades.
The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector Fund (IGV) is down nearly 35% from its high in September and now trades at the lowest level since 2023.
As market technician and analyst Mike Zaccardi shared on the social platform X this morning, IGV is having its worst month since October 2008. Some of the fund's individual stocks are faring much worse...
Advertising platform Applovin (APP) has been cut in half from its December high. And tax-software firm Intuit (INTU) has plummeted 55% from its recent high in July.
But as we've shared here recently, this kind of market behavior also has the hallmarks of panic selling. We're not here to tell you that AI won't force dramatic changes in companies... or that AI-driven concerns won't lead to more selling in broad sectors and individual stocks.
It just means that this intense selling could be overblown, or closer to the end than the beginning.
David Marlin of Marlin Capital observed on X today that the tech sector's forward price-to-earnings ratio of the tech sector is now roughly the same as the multiple for the "boring/slow growth" consumer-staples companies.
In the past seven years, this happened during the Liberation Day panic, throughout the 2022 bear market, and during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. Things got "less bad" for stocks after each instance.
It goes the other way, too...
Perhaps a new trend is about to develop. Today, we saw the first signs of just-as-quick rebounds in certain stocks because of deals they're making with Anthropic, as the AI company discussed during a briefing today.
Intuit rose as high as 5% intraday. Shares of LegalZoom (LZ) and Docusign (DOCU) rose about 3%.
Docusign announced that its contract-management software is now available "as part of Anthropic's Cowork." LegalZoom said the same about its attorney-services software, and Intuit about its tax and financial management tools. The announcements signal a strategy that they and other companies might employ moving ahead: If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
Whether this is simply good PR to halt a stock slide, or something substantial for these businesses, we shall see.
Nobody knows right now if this market action is misguided or completely appropriate. We suspect it's somewhere in the middle, though that idea doesn't make for attractive headlines.
But the reality is that right now, certain stocks have been hit hard in the AI trade.
Over the next few days, we're likely to see the story continue one way or another. Nvidia (NVDA), a top bellwether for the entire AI ecosystem, reports its earnings after the market closes tomorrow.
Yet here's what we want to highlight today, something else that experienced investors are looking at too: Another large, and critically important, part of the market isn't signaling that anything is wrong at all.
The bond market doesn't believe in the 'SaaSpocalypse'...
As our colleague Mike DiBiase wrote in last week's issue of Stansberry's Credit Opportunities, software companies' bonds haven't suffered the same fate as their stock prices. From Mike...
Every month, we scour through thousands of corporate bonds looking for outliers... bonds that are yielding far more than they should given their level of risk. We thought we'd find a few software-bond bargains.
But that wasn't the case...
As a reminder, a bond is a company's debt. As long as a company is healthy enough to pay its debt, bondholders can collect interest and principal on their investments. But bonds can drop in price if the market thinks the company might be unable to meet its financial obligations.
Bonds of software businesses have held steady, and the bond market doesn't think any SaaS companies are in "immediate danger of bankruptcy," Mike says. If there were a true imminent disruption, bondholders would've run for the hills just like stockholders did. But they didn't. The exact opposite happened. More from Mike...
In fact, the vast majority of software companies saw their bond prices increase. And for those whose prices fell, the decreases were tiny. There wasn't a single software bond that even approached what we would call an outlier.
AI will likely force some software companies out of business. It just may take a while for that to happen – longer than a few weeks...
As Bank of America Global Research showed in a recent note, it took nearly 10 years for movie-rental chain Blockbuster to declare bankruptcy after streaming giant Netflix (NFLX) went public in 2001...
We don't doubt we'll see a lot more of these charts in the coming years as AI does disrupt software and other companies. But the winners and losers are yet to be decided. Some companies will successfully adapt to a world with AI, and some won't.
In the meantime, investors aren't taking any chances and are dumping the entire sector. In times like these, it's quite possible that selling will expand to other sectors.
As our Ten Stock Trader editor Greg Diamond wrote today, one reason is found on Wall Street...
With some important stocks starting to fall, the big funds out there would be forced to manage risk and sell. If the selling becomes broad enough, these funds wouldn't be concerned with the long-term fundamental picture of their investments.
They'd be concerned with their annual performance.
Managing their risk becomes the priority. I've been a part of that world, and it happens a lot. Something to keep in mind over the next weeks – what it means if the selling intensifies.
So don't be surprised by more volatility ahead. At the same time, this can eventually be an opportunity. And the stock market overall is holding up.
The equal-weight S&P 500 Index just hit another new all-time high on Friday, and even the standard market-cap-weighted benchmark S&P 500, up almost 1% today, isn't far from its record set last month.
The credit market doesn't see any risk in the broader market, either...
That's based on high-yield credit spreads, which are still at historically low levels. That's a good sign. As Mike wrote...
The U.S. high-yield credit spread (the difference between the average yield on high-yield bonds and the yield of similar-duration "risk free" U.S. Treasurys) increased from around 275 basis points ("bps") last month to 292 bps this month.
The last time we saw high-yield credit spreads widen was during the "tariff tantrum" last spring. They spiked to more than 450 bps in April, the highest in nearly two years. But that's still short of the 550 bps level that Mike said could trigger the next credit crisis.
Plus, spreads quickly came back down last spring. They remain at multidecade lows below 300 basis points. Low spreads indicate complacency from investors. It shows that they aren't requiring a much higher return for taking on risky junk bonds.
That doesn't mean folks' concerns about the economy and market are without merit. There are risks out there... Inflation and "unaffordability," cracks in the job market and "frozen" hiring, and consumer-debt troubles all signal that not all is well in the economy.
Also, keep in mind an important distinction between bond investors and stock investors... Bond investors still pocket their maximum gains unless a company defaults on its debt obligations, and they have legal protections that shareholders don't. An overvalued stock doesn't need a default for its share price to crash.
Still, the credit market is the lifeblood of the economy. And bond investors aren't concerned about a widespread crisis. That's still meaningful in the face of this year's "AI sell-offs."
So, take this selling for what it is – right now, at least. It's a story of the young year, but it's not the only one.
New 52-week highs (as of 2/23/26): Agnico Eagle Mines (AEM), First Majestic Silver (AG), Antero Midstream (AM), ASML (ASML), BHP (BHP), CBOE Global Markets (CBOE), Ciena (CIEN), CME Group (CME), Coca-Cola Consolidated (COKE), Simplify Managed Futures Strategy Fund (CTA), Equinor (EQNR), Equinox Gold (EQX), Freeport-McMoRan (FCX), Franco-Nevada (FNV), Farmland Partners (FPI), Federal Realty Investment Trust (FRT), Coca-Cola (KO), Linde (LIN), Lumentum (LITE), McDonald's (MCD), Magnolia Oil & Gas (MGY), Monster Beverage (MNST), Altria (MO), Merck (MRK), Realty Income (O), Invesco Oil & Gas Services Fund (PXJ), Roivant Sciences (ROIV), Sprott (SII), Skeena Resources (SKE), Texas Pacific Land (TPL), Travelers (TRV), Telefônica Brasil (VIV), and State Street Utilities Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLU).
In today's mailbag, more of your thoughts on tariffs... Do you have a comment or question? As always, e-mail us at feedback@stansberryresearch.com.
"Tariffs are not 'taxes' just because SCOTUS says they are. They've changed word definitions before to suit a particular wrong decision. Our Founding Fathers depended heavily on tariffs for our young developing republic. (Income) taxes came about primarily in the early 20th century by 'leaders' wanting to establish a monetary system controlled by financial elites who could then pressure and control our lives for their profit." – Subscriber Kevin S.
"The mechanics to apply tariffs is simple. The U.S. importers agree on a certain price; clearing the goods from customs the U.S., importer pays the taxes. The Fed of New York came to the conclusion 90% of the tariffs are paid by U.S. citizens [and companies]." – Subscriber Erich G.
All the best,
Corey McLaughlin and Nick Koziol
Baltimore, Maryland
February 24, 2026
