IBM share price crash: Anthropic’s latest business move has hit shares of International Business Machines Corp or IBM hard. The stock tumbled on Monday after artificial intelligence startup Anthropic announced that its Claude Code tool can assist in upgrading COBOL, an aging programming language predominantly operated on IBM systems.
In a blog post, Anthropic said that updating COBOL systems traditionally required large teams of consultants working for years to map complex workflows. However, it noted that “tools like Claude Code can automate the exploration and analysis phases that consume most of the effort in COBOL modernization.”
IBM Shares Crash
Since the majority of mainframe computers running COBOL are produced by IBM, the development triggered heavy selling in the company’s stock.
The decline reflects growing investor concerns that advances in artificial intelligence could challenge the growth outlook of established legacy technology firms.
The stock dropped as much as 13% during intraday trading, marking its steepest single-day fall since March 2020. Following the slide, IBM shares are down 26% for February, putting them on course for their largest monthly percentage decline since at least 1968, based on data compiled by Bloomberg.
A substantial portion of IBM’s operations is still anchored in its mainframe segment. These large-scale, client-owned systems support applications written in COBOL, a programming language that predates most modern coding frameworks used across today’s technology landscape.
Mainframes remain widely used by institutions requiring high levels of stability and reliability, including financial institutions and government agencies.
On Friday, Anthropic rolled out an additional security capability within its Claude AI model, a move that triggered broad-based selling in cybersecurity stocks.
Software shares have generally struggled this year amid mounting concerns about disruption driven by artificial intelligence. A leading software-focused exchange-traded fund has declined 27% so far this year, putting it on pace for its steepest quarterly drop since the 2008 financial crisis.
Much of the market pressure has followed the launch of new AI-driven tools from companies such as Anthropic, OpenAI and Alphabet Inc. Investors are increasingly concerned that “vibe coding,” or the use of AI to generate software code, could enable users to build their own applications. This shift may reduce reliance on established software offerings, potentially affecting revenue growth, profit margins and pricing power for legacy technology firms.
