Software stocks lagged the broader market for much of 2026, even as fears that artificial intelligence would gut the sector’s fundamentals largely failed to materialize.

Nuveen chief investment officer Saira Malik argues the sector’s earnings tell a different story than its stock charts, and that a rebound may be closer than the price action suggests. The comments arrive a day after Nvidia’s earnings eased fears about AI spending, and hours before Workday, Autodesk, and Marvell rounded out a heavy week of technology results.

Why Software Stocks Got Punished for No Reason

Malik said investors spent much of 2026 worrying that generative AI would gut software company headcounts and revenue growth, a fear that hit the sector broadly and indiscriminately.

She argued the numbers never backed up the panic.

“When you separate the signal from the noise, it didn’t show up in software companies fundamentals. Revenue growth rates for software companies remained fairly stable.”

Saira Malik, Bloomberg

Margins and earnings held up too, she said, and the wave of job cuts many expected AI to trigger across the sector has not materialized to the degree feared.

Real Names, Real Declines

Workday beat second-quarter revenue and profit estimates this week. Shares still slipped afterward, but then spiked again after hours trading.

Autodesk dropped roughly 5% in after-hours trading despite raising its full-year revenue outlook. Investors instead focused on a lower free-cash-flow forecast tied to a recent acquisition.

Adobe and Workday have also drawn cautious coverage from some Wall Street analysts this year, who flagged slowing growth and business-model transitions as key risks for both stocks.

Marvell Is the Next Signal to Watch

Malik said Marvell’s results, due after Thursday’s close, would show whether the AI trade extends beyond Nvidia into the broader chip and software ecosystem. A strong report, she said, would confirm the rally Nvidia’s earnings ignited this week, when the chipmaker lifted its fiscal 2027 revenue growth outlook to 70%, well above the roughly 45% Wall Street had expected.

Marvell went on to beat estimates on both revenue and profit, though its stock dipped slightly as investors weighed compressing margins against the growth.

Long-term Treasury yields above 5% and Fed Chair Kevin Warsh’s Jackson Hole speech on Friday remain wildcards for how equities trade next. But the read from Nuveen is that software’s earnings, not its share prices, are telling the more accurate story right now.

Source: BeInCrypto