Economy News

Anthropic's Claude Cowork plug-ins set off a software sell-off from New York to Tokyo

2026-02-04

A new AI tool from Anthropic has turned into one of the sharpest sector sell-offs in years. The company launched plug-ins for its Claude Cowork agent on Friday 30 January, automating tasks in legal work, sales, marketing and data analysis. By Tuesday 3 February, investors were dumping companies that sell that kind of software and data.

BNN Bloomberg, carrying Reuters, reports that the S&P 500 software and services index fell nearly 13% over five straight sessions and is 26% below its October peak, even as the S&P 500 itself hit a record that week. Thomson Reuters suffered a record 16% slump on Tuesday and London Stock Exchange Group dropped nearly 13%. Private lenders to software firms fell too: Blue Owl lost 9.8%, Ares 10.2% and KKR 9.7%. On Wednesday the selling spread to Europe, with RELX down about 4% and SAP nearly 4%, and to Japan, where NEC, Nomura Research and Fujitsu sank 8–11%.

Axios says the iShares software ETF fell more than 14% in six sessions after a 15% drop in January, its worst month since 2008. Jefferies called sentiment the “worst ever”; a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst called the sector “radioactive”. J.P. Morgan's Toby Ogg said the sector is “now being sentenced before trial”, and Nvidia's Jensen Huang called the idea that AI will replace software “illogical”.

“Our concern is that the seat-compression and vibe coding narratives could set a ceiling on multiples.” — Billy Fitzsimmons, Piper Sandler, via Axios

How each outlet framed it

BNN Bloomberg (Reuters) — the global scoreboard: legal-data firms, private-credit lenders, European publishers and Japanese IT companies all hit.
Axios — the big question: is AI really replacing software, or is this panic? It notes Anthropic presents Claude as a complement to software providers.
Semafor — the mood: sentiment moving “from bearish to doomsday”, with video game and advertising stocks dragged down too.

What we don't know yet: how long the sell-off lasts and what software companies are really worth if AI changes their model. Axios recalls that mobile was once expected to threaten Microsoft, whose stock is up 789% over the last decade.