What Happened?
A number of stocks fell in the afternoon session after Bloomberg reported that Anthropic’s preliminary second-quarter revenue topped $11.5 billion.
CNBC reported earlier in August, that Salesforce and its peers “have been under pressure on the view that tools such as Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex could hollow out software bills.” The market reaction suggests Anthropic’s print was treated as evidence that the tools are generating real dollars, not just demos.
Software had already bounced since Microsoft’s July 22 results, according to Morningstar, which left the group exposed if that fear returned. Salesforce expected to report earnings later in August, could show whether customers are still expanding applications, or shifting budget to AI assistants.
The stock market overreacts to news, and big price drops can present good opportunities to buy high-quality stocks.
Among others, the following stocks were impacted:
- Marketing Software company Upland Software (NASDAQ: UPLD) fell 5.4%. Is now the time to buy Upland Software? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
- Advertising Software company The Trade Desk (NASDAQ: TTD) fell 5.1%. Is now the time to buy The Trade Desk? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
- Automation Software company SoundHound AI (NASDAQ: SOUN) fell 5.2%. Is now the time to buy SoundHound AI? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
Zooming In On Upland Software (UPLD)
Upland Software’s shares are extremely volatile and have had 73 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful but not something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.
The previous big move we wrote about was 20 days ago when the stock gained 10.5% on the news that a drop in Treasury yields and growing concerns over the artificial intelligence investment cycle improved the market's appetite for enterprise software.
Global chipmakers suffered a sharp selloff tied to anxieties over lofty valuations, the sustainability of AI infrastructure spending, and intensifying competitive threats from China. Crucially, the decline in interest rates provided a macro tailwind for long-duration Software-as-a-Service valuations, acting as a catalyst for the software sector's rebound. Alongside the relief from lower rates, software appeared to benefit from capital reallocation.
As portfolio managers trim their chip exposure and lock in profits, they are likely to seek refuge in other sectors, especially established enterprise names. With the top 25 semiconductor and hardware companies hitting a combined market capitalization of approximately $22 trillion, even a fractional shift from this group can move the needle for software equities. Consequently, the sector experienced a broad lift, with many enterprise firms posting gains.
Upland Software is up 233% since the beginning of the year, but at $4.99 per share, it is still trading 18.2% below its 52-week high of $6.10 from August 2026. Despite the year-to-date gain, investors who bought $1,000 worth of Upland Software’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at only $136.11.
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