IBM Shares Plummet 13% as Anthropic's Claude Code Threatens Core COBOL Modernization Business
Summary
IBM shares plummet 13.2% to $223.35, pushing year-to-date losses past 24%, after Anthropic's Claude Code tool threatens IBM's lucrative COBOL modernization business by automating complex legacy code analysis that previously took human analysts months to complete.
Key Points
- IBM shares plummet nearly 13.2% to $223.35, bringing year-to-date losses to over 24%, after Anthropic announces its Claude Code tool can automate COBOL modernization, directly threatening a core IBM business.
- Anthropic's Claude Code is now capable of mapping dependencies, documenting workflows, and identifying risks across massive COBOL codebases, a task that previously took human analysts months and made modernization cost-prohibitive.
- IBM's sell-off is part of a broader AI-driven market disruption, with cybersecurity stocks also tumbling after Anthropic recently unveiled Claude Code Security, creating a volatile 'sell first, ask questions later' trading environment for legacy tech companies.