IBM Stock Bounces Back as Anthropic AI Threat Downplayed by Analysts

IBM's stock price rebounded on Tuesday after a sharp selloff on Monday due to concerns over a new AI tool from Anthropic that could potentially threaten its mainframe business.

The release of Claude, a feature aimed at modernizing legacy code on IBM systems, triggered a 13.2% drop in IBM's stock price on Monday, the steepest single-day decline in over 25 years.

However, analysts from UBS, Evercore, and Jefferies downplayed the threat, stating that the tool is not as significant as the market fears and would at best complement IBM's own business of updating COBOL codebases.

'The idea of shifting off of [the] mainframe is not a new concept,' Evercore analysts said. 'IBM's customers have had ample opportunities to migrate off of mainframe and are sticking with the platform given inherent advantages.'