The tech sector’s biggest winners and losers are swapping places
It’s bizarro world for the tech sector.
Software stocks, the market’s collective whipping boy in 2026 in light of the presumptive threat of AI disruption, are continuing to recover on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the biggest winners of the AI boom this year — memory stocks, benefiting from intense shortages — are taking their turn in the red.
The iShares Expanded Tech Software ETF’s gains are being led by Datadog, a rare case of a software stock rising after reporting earnings this season, with heavyweights Oracle and ServiceNow outperforming the industry. Figma, which isn’t in this product, is also up double digits.
On the other side of the spectrum, Micron, Sandisk, Seagate Technology Holdings, and Western Digital are selling off.
The seesaw of modern markets often requires that as one group’s fortunes inflect positively after a long drubbing, so too must a high-flyer have its wings clipped.
That is, if you’re a portfolio manager long memory and short software stocks, and enough investors are willing to catch a falling knife and buy the beaten-down group, staying market-neutral and reducing this position would require you to purchase software and dump some memory stocks.