IBM Stock Rallies on AI Services Momentum—Analysts Boost Price Targets

International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) shares plunged 11 % in Monday afternoon trading to roughly $246, making the stock the latest high-profile casualty of accelerating artificial-intelligence disruption. At the session low the IBM stock price was almost 22 % below where it started 2026, erasing more than $35 billion in market capitalization and leaving the Dow component at its cheapest valuation since last spring. The sell-off was triggered after Anthropic announced that its Claude AI platform can now analyze and modernize massive COBOL codebases—a service that directly threatens IBM’s lucrative mainframe, financial-services and government-contracting franchises, where the 60-year-old language still processes the majority of global transaction volume. By automatically mapping dependencies, documenting workflows and flagging risks, Claude slashes the time and cost advantages that have long protected IBM’s systems-integration business, prompting investors to “sell first and ask questions later.” Volume spiked to more than double IBM’s 20-day average as bearish momentum traders piled in, and options activity showed a surge in put-buying tied to the March $230 strike. Historical data from Yahoo Finance show the stock closing Friday at $254.37 and opening Monday at $254.37 before cascading to an intraday low of $245.63. That price also drags IBM 21 % beneath its 52-week high, intensifying technical pressure just as the broader S&P 500 hovers near record territory. Fundamentally, IBM still offers a 4.3 % forward dividend yield and trades at 15 times consensus 2026 earnings—well below the 28-times multiple carried by many pure-play AI software names. Bulls argue that Red Hat subscription growth, quantum-computing contracts and its Hybrid Cloud platform can offset near-term weakness, while bears counter that new AI tools will erode IBM’s legacy services backlog faster than management can pivot. Catalysts now in focus include IBM’s Investor Day on March 12, where executives are expected to update free-cash-flow targets and detail cost-cutting plans, and first-quarter earnings in late April. Until then, keyword searches such as “IBM stock forecast,” “IBM dividend,” and “IBM share price today” are likely to stay hot as traders weigh whether Monday’s AI-sparked downdraft marks a buying opportunity—or the start of a longer re-rating toward value-stock territory.