The meme-stock mania didn’t die.
It evolved.
Today’s version isn’t Reddit (RDDT) traders chasing bankrupt retailers.
It’s institutional money panic-selling entire sectors because of two letters: A.I.
And what we’ve seen over the last two weeks is bordering on absurd.
Not because AI won’t disrupt industries.
It will.
But because markets are now repricing companies based on hypothetical future displacement - not actual earnings damage.
That’s a dangerous shift.
It started with SaaS (software as a service).
Anthropic, a top AI company, releases a legal plugin inside Claude Cowork. Then it launches Opus 4.6 - a stronger model capable of coding, financial analysis, document creation, research.
Impressive technology? Absolutely.
But within days, investors began acting as if multi-billion-dollar enterprise software companies with recurring subscription revenue, sticky contracts, 80% gross margins, and embedded workflows were going to zero.
Billions in market cap vanished - not because revenues declined.
Not because guidance was cut.
Because “AI might replace them.”
When Fear Spreads Faster Than Fundamentals
Charles Schwab (SCHW)… Ameriprise (AMP)…
Companies managing trillions in client assets - hit because someday AI might automate advisory functions.
Did assets leave?
Did margins collapse?
Did earnings fall?
No.
The stocks fell because fear travels faster than spreadsheets.
Commercial real estate followed. The theory: AI replaces office workers, so demand for office space collapses.
Office vacancy rates didn’t spike last week.
Long-term lease contracts didn’t disappear.
But prices moved as if the apocalypse arrived overnight.
And then yesterday pushed this narrative into full-blown theater.
Logistics stocks got crushed because a $6 million microcap - Algorhythm Holdings (RIME) - released a white paper claiming its AI platform could increase freight broker productivity 300% to 400%.
This company sold karaoke machines last year.
Karaoke machines.
Yet C.H. Robinson (CHRW) - a company moving roughly $20 billion in freight annually - lost nearly a quarter of its value intraday at one point.
That’s not rational repricing.
That’s narrative contagion.
AI Hysteria Is Creating Opportunity
Meanwhile, here’s what the hard data says:
The S&P 500 is still hovering near all-time highs, earnings growth remains in the double-digits, credit spreads are stable, default rates are not spiking, and liquidity has not vanished.
There is no systemic breakdown taking place, no earnings recession forming, and no looming credit event hiding beneath the surface.
What the market is reacting to instead is AI hysteria — and hysteria has a way of distorting prices far beyond what the underlying data supports.
Yes, AI will disrupt and ultimately destroy some business models over time, but disruption is rarely instantaneous.
It unfolds gradually, often over years or even decades.
The market, however, is pricing this shift as if widespread replacement is happening next quarter.
And that disconnect — between fear and fundamentals — is where opportunity is born, because when the pendulum swings this far toward fear, it rarely stops in the middle.
It snaps back. And hard.
And that snapback creates some of the best short-term trading setups you’ll see all year.
I’m already positioning for it inside my Swing Trader newsletter because the risk/reward in several of these names has shifted dramatically in just days.
If you want to learn more about the data, the setups, and the risk controls behind these moves, I walk through all of it inside Swing Trader.
Bottom Line
This is not 2021 meme euphoria.
It’s 2026 institutional panic dressed up as prudence.
Different actors.
Same emotional overreaction.
When logic disappears and narratives dominate…
That’s when disciplined investors step in.
And right now, the opportunity is in in front of you.
Here’s to your future,
Matt McCall
Founder, NXT Wave Research
