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Stock Crash: 'Big Blue' becomes the latest Anthropic casualty with worst single-day fall in 25 yearsThe sell-off in IBM was the biggest contributing factor to the fall in the Dow Jones on Monday, where the 30-stock benchmark fell over 800 points.By CNBCTV18.com February 24, 2026, 4:27:34 AM IST (Published)2 Min ReadShares of International Business Machines (IBM), popularly known as 'Big Blue' faced the proverbial "Monday Blues" on Wall Street as the stock fell 13%, marking its biggest single-day fall in the last 25 years. The last instance of the stock falling by such a quantum in a single session was back in October 2000.

The fall in IBM shares made it the latest casualty of the Anthropic-led AI disruption fears, that have triggered a wide-spread sell-off in shares ranging from financial services, to logistics, and majorly in software-linked names.

What Happened With IBM?

Anthropic, in its latest blog post wrote that its Claude Code tool could be used to modernize legacy systems that run Common Business-Oriented Language or COBOL.

The Claude Code could be used to automate the exploration and analysis work that drives most of the complexity in COBOL modernization. COBOL is a key business vertical for IBM, as the company has sold mainframe systems used to optimize large-scale transaction processing.

According to data, as many as 95% of the ATM transactions in the US use COBOL, as per Anthropic's blog post, making it a prime target for AI-led disruptions.

"AI excels at streamlining the tasks that once made COBOL modernization cost-prohibitive," Anthropic's post read. The post went on to add that Claude Code could help modernize COBOL codebases by mapping dependencies across thousands of lines of code, documenting workflow and identifying risks that would take human analysts months to surface.

“Legacy code modernization stalled for years because understanding legacy code cost more than rewriting it. AI flips that equation,” the blog post said.

With this fall, shares of IBM are already down 24% so far within the first two months of the year.

Last week, Anthropic had unveiled a new capability in Claude Code, called "Claude Code Security", which could scan codebases for security vulnerabilities and find software vulnerabilities for humans to review. Stocks like Crowdstrike, which fell on Friday, were down another 10% on Monday as well.

Shares of IBM ended 13.1% lower on Monday at $223.35. The stock gained marginally in extended trading.

(With Inputs From Agencies)Continue ReadingTagsAnthropicArvind Krishna IBM CEOIBMWall Street