IBM stock crashes 13% as Anthropic unveils AI tool to modernize decades-old COBOL systems
23 Sources
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Anthropic's new AI tool can write 67-year-old COBOL code, which sends 115-year-old IBM's stock tumbling by 13% -- IBM stock has worst day in 26 years, down 25% MoM and counting
Ancient language is still the bread-and-butter of mainframe systems What do airlines, banks, and insurance companies have in common? Besides being an absolute pain to deal with, they all rely on COBOL and IBM mainframe computers as core infrastructure. The computing giant's stranglehold over those
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Anthropic Adds Caveat to AI Safety Policy in Race Against Rivals
Anthropic PBC, known for its commitment to artificial intelligence safeguards, has loosened its central safety policy, saying the change is necessary to remain competitive. The company in 2023 said in its Responsible Scaling Policy that it would delay AI development that might be dangerous. In a
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Anthropic touts AI for COBOL, IBM stock takes a hit
IBM's share price slumped by 13 percent on Monday, seemingly caused by investors reacting to an Anthropic blog post that points out its Claude Code tools can accelerate refactoring of apps written in the ancient COBOL language. Anthropic's post points out that COBOL applications remain prevalent
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IBM posts steepest daily drop since 2000 after Anthropic says AI can modernize COBOL
Feb 23 (Reuters) - Shares of International Business Machines (IBM.N), opens new tab recorded their steepest daily drop in more than 25 years on Monday, after AI startup Anthropic said its Claude Code tool could be used to modernize a programming language run on IBM systems. IBM shares sank 13.2%,
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IBM is the latest AI casualty. Shares are tanking 11% on Anthropic programming language threat
International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) signage on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, US, on Monday, Dec. 8, 2025. International Business Machines stock is getting slammed, becoming the latest victim of rapidly developing AI technology, after Anthropic's Claude
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IBM Shares Plunge as Anthropic Touts COBOL Modernization Efforts
International Business Machines Corp. shares plunged on Monday, after the artificial intelligence startup Anthropic said its Claude Code tool can help with modernizing COBOL, a dated programming language that's mainly run on IBM computers. Shares sank 13% in their biggest one-day percentage loss
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COBOL modernization no longer requires years of consultant work
* AI automates COBOL code exploration, maps dependencies, and analyzes structural risks quickly * Engineers can prioritize modernization based on technical risk and business value efficiently * Automated tests verify that migrated COBOL components produce identical outputs to legacy
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IBM's $40B stock wipeout is built on a misconception: Translating COBOL isn't the same as modernizing it
On Tuesday, Anthropic published tools that let Claude read, analyze and translate legacy COBOL into modern languages like Java and Python. By the end of the trading day, investors had wiped roughly $40 billion from IBM's market cap -- the company's biggest single-day drop in 25 years -- pricing the
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Experts see opening for IT in Anthropic's big COBOL code jolt
IBM's stock recovered a bit after its February plunge as experts highlighted AI startup Anthropic's work on legacy COBOL code. Modernising decades-old, 'spaghetti' code could expand opportunities for tech services despite falling per-line-of-code pricing. Rewriting COBOL entirely may unlock a
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IBM Stock Is Trending After Crating 13% And Claude-Maker Anthropic Is The Reason Why: Here's What Happened - IBM (NYSE:IBM)
On Monday, shares of International Business Machines Corp (NYSE:IBM) declined 13.18% in the regular session to $223.35 and gained 0.94% in after-hours trading. The stock was seen trending overnight. The stock became the latest perceived victim of rapidly advancing AI technology. AI Tool Targets
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I'm Not Convinced Anthropic's New COBOL Coding Tool Is an Actual Threat to IBM | The Motley Fool
A deeper dive into this technology reveals that Anthropic's offering only addresses one of several matters related to the use of mainframe computers. The market's knee-jerk reaction makes enough superficial sense. Anthropic's AI-powered computer-coding platform Claude can easily help modernize
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SA Asks: As AI gains traction, what's next for IBM? (IBM:NYSE)
Shares of International Business Machines (IBM) were hammered this week after Anthropic (ANTHRO) announced its Claude Code tool could be used to efficiently modernize systems running on COBOL, a legacy programming language widely used on IBM mainframes. We asked Seeking Anthropic's Claude Code
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ETtech Explainer: Decoding Anthropic's Claude Code update that triggered IBM selloff
A single Anthropic blog claiming its AI model Claude can read and modernise COBOL wiped nearly $30 billion off IBM's market value. COBOL, a 1959 programming language, still powers critical banking, airline and government systems worldwide. Claude promises to cut modernisation time from years to
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Anthropic's COBOL Bet Shakes Mainframe Economics | PYMNTS.com
By completing this form, you agree to receive marketing communications from PYMNTS and to the sharing of your information with our sponsor, if applicable, in accordance with our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions. If you haven't heard of it before now, it's understandable. It's a programming
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Anthropic's offer to modernize COBOL using AI triggers double-digit slide for IBM
In another wake-up call for established IT firms, IBM witnessed a 13% decline in share price on Monday after Anthropic announced that Claude Code can modernize COBOL programming language, which runs on IBM systems. According to some estimates, this is the steepest hit IBM has taken at the stock
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IBM's Anthropic-induced sell-off overlooks the fact it's disrupting itself: Jefferies (IBM:NYSE)
IBM (IBM) shares sold off on Monday on the basis that Anthropic's (ANTHRO) Claude Code product can translate COBOL, prompting concern about the tech giant's legacy business. However, investment firm Jefferies said the sell-off, which caused IBM shares to sink their most Investors fear Claude Code
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Anthropic AI's COBOL code advances unlock new doors for IT companies
Industry leaders say Anthropic's advances in automating COBOL code could lower migration costs and create new opportunities for IT service firms. HCLTech CEO C Vijayakumar noted modernising mainframes is complex, with tools, integrations and business logic posing challenges. Despite IBM's stock
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IBM stock crash: How a single blog post wiped $30 billion off IBM's market value in one afternoon - here's what rattled investors
IBM stock crash shocked Wall Street. IBM shares fell 13% in one day. Nearly $30 billion in market value vanished. This was IBM's worst drop since 2000. The trigger was not earnings. It was an AI blog post by Anthropic. The post introduced a COBOL modernization AI tool. Investors fear AI disruption
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Explained: How IBM's 13% plunge on Anthropic's COBOL disruption fears sparked bloodbath in TCS, Infosys, Wipro & other IT stocks
IT stocks slumped on February 24, falling up to 8%, after IBM plunged 13% on Wall Street -- its worst drop in 25 years -- amid concerns that Anthropic's Claude AI tool could streamline COBOL code and disrupt IBM's legacy business. The weakness spilled over to Indian IT names. Shares of major
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IBM posts steepest daily drop since 2000 after Anthropic says AI can modernize COBOL
Feb 23 (Reuters) - Shares of International Business Machines recorded their steepest daily drop in more than 25 years on Monday, after AI startup Anthropic said its Claude Code tool could be used to modernize a programming language run on IBM systems. IBM shares sank 13.2%, their biggest drop
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IBM shares sink 13%, record steepest drop in 25 years after Anthropic says AI can modernise COBOL
Shares of International Business Machines (IBM) plunged more than 13% on Monday to record their steepest single-day drop in more than 25 years on Monday. This came after AI startup Anthropic said its Claude Code tool could be used to modernise a legacy programming language which runs on IBM
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Infosys, Wipro, other IT stocks in focus as Anthropic delivers new shock; ADRs tumble up to 5%
Shares of information technology (IT) companies such as Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro and Infosys, among others, could face heavy selling pressure in Tuesday's trade after Anthropic said its Claude Code tool can be used to modernise legacy systems that run on COBOL. Infosys and Wipro US-listed
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IBM stock falls 10% after Anthropic launches AI tool to modernize COBOL code
IBM's stock price suddenly fell by more than 10% on Monday afternoon after a big AI announcement shocked the market. The fall happened right after AI company Anthropic revealed a new tool that can help modernize old COBOL computer code faster. The news was first highlighted in a post on X by The
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IBM experienced its steepest single-day stock decline in over 25 years, plummeting 13% after AI startup Anthropic announced that its Claude Code tool can automate COBOL modernization. The 67-year-old programming language remains the backbone of critical systems in banking, airlines, and government—sectors where IBM has maintained decades of dominance through its mainframe business.
IBM Stock Drop Marks Worst Day Since 2000
IBM shares plunged 13.2% on Monday, marking the company's steepest single-day decline since October 2000, after Anthropic announced new capabilities for its Claude Code tool
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. The dramatic IBM stock drop came in response to a blog post detailing how AI for COBOL could transform legacy code modernization, a market where the 115-year-old tech giant has maintained a lucrative stranglehold for decades1
. With the decline, IBM shares have fallen 27% in February alone, on track for the company's biggest one-month slide since at least 19682
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Source: ET
Anthropic Claude Code Targets Critical Business Infrastructure
Anthropic's announcement directly challenges IBM's dominance in mainframe systems that power critical infrastructure across banking, airlines, and government sectors
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. The 67-year-old COBOL programming language handles an estimated 95% of ATM transactions in the United States, with hundreds of billions of lines running in production every day5
. "Modernizing a COBOL system once required armies of consultants spending years mapping workflows," Anthropic stated in its blog post. "Tools like Claude Code can automate the exploration and analysis phases that consume most of the effort in COBOL modernization"4
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Source: VentureBeat
The AI startup, recently valued at $60 billion, released a Code Modernization Playbook and YouTube demonstrations showing Claude Code working with COBOL systems
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. According to Anthropic, AI can now help teams modernize their COBOL codebase in quarters instead of years, mapping dependencies across thousands of lines of code and documenting workflows that would take human analysts months to surface5
.Why COBOL Modernization Matters for Financial Services and Beyond
COBOL, short for Common Business-Oriented Language, was developed in the 1950s and revolutionized business computing by offering human-readable code with decimal-point math as default—critical for financial services accuracy
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. If you've interacted with social security, healthcare, government, finance, insurance, automotive, retail, or airlines, you've touched a COBOL system at some point in your transaction1
.The challenge extends beyond technology. Most COBOL programmers are retiring and dying, making their skills increasingly rare and expensive
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. These legacy software systems run business-critical operations that cannot afford downtime and contain proprietary data structures and legacy business logic understood only by a few greybeards—if at all. Any rewrite attempt must reverse-engineer miles of business logic, reimplementation while maintaining fixed-point decimal math, and execute a perfect transition with minimal downtime1
.IBM Defends Mainframe Business Amid Market Perception Shift
IBM Senior Vice President Rob Thomas defended the company's prospects in a Monday blog post, arguing that mainframe value transcends any single programming language. "The value IBM mainframe delivers has nothing to do with COBOL," Thomas wrote. "Whether the application is written in Cobol, Java, or any other language, the platform provides the same guarantees. The language is not the source of that value. The platform is"
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Source: ET
IBM CEO Arvind Krishna noted in July 2025 that the company's own AI coding assistant for mainframes, watsonx Code Assistant for Z, "has got very wide adoption," with customers primarily using it to understand their COBOL code base and decide what to modernize
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. IBM itself launched this tool in 2023 to convert COBOL into Java3
. Last month, IBM reported its highest mainframe revenue in 20 years, which Arvind Krishna attributed partly to these same AI code conversion tools3
.Broader AI Disruption Hits Legacy Software Companies
The IBM selloff reflects broader market fears about AI's impact on legacy business models. Software stocks have been battered in recent months, with cybersecurity stocks including CrowdStrike and Datadog also slumping after Anthropic introduced new security features
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. A major software ETF is down 27% this year, on track for its biggest one-quarter drop since the financial crisis in 20082
.Investors fear that "vibe coding"—using AI to write software code—will let users create their own applications, diminishing demand for legacy products and weighing on companies' growth, margins, and pricing power
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. Companies like Salesforce, Atlassian, Adobe, ServiceNow, and HubSpot have experienced substantial share price decreases amid this speculation3
.Related Stories
Mainframe Migration Efforts Already Underway
The idea of accelerating COBOL work isn't entirely new. Recent years have seen mainframe migration initiatives from AWS, Microsoft, IBM spin-out Kyndryl, and NTT
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. Infosys chairman Nandan Nilekani said just last week that AI means the cost of rewriting legacy apps has become affordable and made such moves imperative3
. The UK government last year complained about the substantial bills it pays to maintain creaky COBOL code3
.Evercore ISI analyst Amit Daryanani noted that "clients already had the option to migrate from the mainframe, yet they are sticking with the platform," suggesting IBM has already provided customers with several modernization options
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. Still, Anthropic's blog post noted that "legacy code modernization stalled for years because understanding legacy code cost more than rewriting it. AI flips that equation"5
.Anthropic Loosens AI Safety Policy Amid Competition
In a separate development, Anthropic updated its AI safety policy to remain competitive with rivals like OpenAI, Google, and Elon Musk's xAI Corp
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. The company, known for its commitment to AI safeguards, said in a Tuesday blog post that it would no longer delay potentially dangerous AI development if it believes it lacks a significant lead over a competitor. "The policy environment has shifted toward prioritizing AI competitiveness and economic growth, while safety-oriented discussions have yet to gain meaningful traction at the federal level," Anthropic stated2
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