On July 16, Salesforce rose 3.09% in regular trading, trading at $172.16/share, with turnover of $548 million. The rebound follows a period of intense selling pressure after IBM disclosed preliminary Q2 results that missed expectations, triggering a broad software sector downturn that had pushed Salesforce down more than 5%.

IBM's stock plunged over 25% — its largest single-day decline on record — after management revealed that clients redirected capital expenditure toward supply-constrained hardware infrastructure in the final weeks of June, delaying multiple large contract signings. Goldman Sachs and Barclays noted the event raised concerns about AI budgets tilting away from software toward hardware, weighing on the broader sector.

As panic sentiment faded, Salesforce staged a recovery rally supported by multiple catalysts: the company's recent $13.5 billion U.S. Air Force defense contract, a Goldman Sachs roadshow confirming increased certainty of accelerating Q3 revenue growth, and its deepened AI agent collaboration with Anthropic. However, prior downgrades from Bernstein, KeyBanc, and Evercore ISI — citing weak customer feedback on AI product Agentforce — reflect ongoing market divergence regarding near-term AI monetization pace.

(The above content is based on publicly available market information, generated by a program or algorithm, and is intended solely as a stock movement alert. It does not constitute investment advice or a basis for trading decisions.)