IBM plunges 25%: justified drop or hedge fund attack?

IBM plunges 25%: what is behind the crash?

Last Thursday, IBM shares suffered a 25% plunge in a single session, wiping out tens of billions in market capitalization. The quarterly results, released hours earlier, showed growth in AI services and partnerships with ServiceNow, but they were not enough to stop the bleeding. The question hanging over the market: is this a justified correction or a move orchestrated by big players?

Earnings that do not match the drop

IBM's artificial intelligence services grew, and the company maintains solid alliances with tech giants. Yet the market punished it hard. Some analysts point out that the real problem lies in the consulting segment, which accounts for 31% of the business. Clients such as Goldman Sachs are migrating their workloads to on-premises servers to control costs and data, reducing their spending on IBM software and services. This trend, although partly priced in, seems to have weighed more than expected.

A coordinated attack by hedge funds?

The magnitude of the plunge has fueled suspicions of manipulation. Some investors claim that hedge funds may have taken short positions in the weeks leading up to the drop, exploiting the stock's weakness to multiply their profits. The case is reminiscent of Pfizer, which despite good results and a 7% dividend has kept falling in recent weeks. The thesis is that big players can keep up the downward pressure for weeks until they bore long-term shareholders into selling.

With a moderate P/E ratio and solid fundamentals, some see an attractive entry point if the stock falls another 10%. But skepticism prevails: the loss of consulting business is a structural risk the market has not yet fully priced in. What nobody disputes is that IBM's crash is not a simple technical correction.