IBM Shares Fall Over 13% After Anthropic Launches AI Tool to Modernize COBOL

IBM shares fell over 13%, marking their steepest daily drop since 2000, following AI startup Anthropic's announcement of its Claude Code tool that automates modernization of COBOL, a legacy programming language widely used in banking, government, and airline systems running on IBM mainframes. The AI tool can analyze and map complex COBOL codebases faster and cheaper than traditional consulting teams. This development raised investor concerns about potential disruption to IBM's legacy software services and triggered declines in other IT and cybersecurity stocks globally.