Market Rebound: Impact of AI and Tariff Policies
Written by Emily J. Thompson, Senior Investment Analyst
Updated: Feb 24 2026
0mins
Should l Buy IBM?
Source: Fool
- Market Recovery: Tuesday's session marked a partial recovery from Monday's broad sell-off, with the S&P 500 rising 0.8%, the Dow Jones up 0.93%, and the Nasdaq Composite increasing by 1.1%, indicating a restoration of investor sentiment and market stability.
- AI Influence: Anthropic's event proved less threatening than anticipated, positioning Claude as an orchestration layer that integrates with existing tools like DocuSign and Salesforce, leading to a 4% rise in their shares, reflecting a positive market response to collaboration and integration.
- Tariff Policy Uncertainty: Trump's increase of the global tariff rate to 15% and the Supreme Court's ruling against emergency powers tariffs have created investor uncertainty regarding future effective tariff rates, putting pressure on growth stocks and high-risk investments while increasing market volatility.
- Long-Term Trend Intact: Despite current market fluctuations, all three major indexes are up over 13% in the past 52 weeks and are within 3% of their end-of-2025 levels, indicating that the long-term upward trend remains intact, with investors needing to watch Nvidia's upcoming earnings report for potential market impacts.
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Analyst Views on IBM
Wall Street analysts forecast IBM stock price to rise
16 Analyst Rating
11 Buy
4 Hold
1 Sell
Moderate Buy
Current: 253.330
Low
210.00
Averages
315.80
High
375.00
Current: 253.330
Low
210.00
Averages
315.80
High
375.00
About IBM
International Business Machines Corporation is a provider of global hybrid cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) and consulting expertise. The Company’s segments include Software, Consulting, Infrastructure and Financing. The Software segment includes hybrid cloud and AI platforms, which allow clients to realize their digital and AI transformations across the applications, data, and environments in which they operate. The Consulting segment focuses on integrating skills on strategy, experience, technology and operations by domain and industry. The Infrastructure segment is focused on the hybrid cloud infrastructure market, providing on-premises and cloud-based server and storage solutions. In addition, it offers a portfolio of life-cycle services for hybrid cloud infrastructure deployment. The Financing segment provides client and commercial financing, facilitating its clients’ acquisition of hardware, software and services. It helps clients in more than 175 countries.
About the author

Emily J. Thompson
Emily J. Thompson, a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) with 12 years in investment research, graduated with honors from the Wharton School. Specializing in industrial and technology stocks, she provides in-depth analysis for Intellectia’s earnings and market brief reports.

- Industry Transformation Acceleration: All U.S. federal agencies are mandated to adopt quantum-resistant encryption by January 2027, propelling the global quantum technology market to an expected $7.66 billion by 2031, with a 22.6% CAGR, reflecting strong demand for quantum-secure infrastructure.
- Market Expansion Dynamics: Quantum Secure Encryption Corp. has expanded its operational markets from four to thirteen since November 2025, with its channel partner count reaching eleven and two additional partnerships expected soon, indicating rapid growth and an expanding customer base in the global market.
- Technological Innovation Enhancement: QSE's Quantum Preparedness Assessment (QPA) platform now includes expanded automation for analyzing software, cryptographic, and hardware bills of materials, aiding organizations in identifying cryptographic risks in complex environments to meet federal long-term migration planning requirements.
- Government Procurement Ecosystem Strengthening: QSE has solidified its position in government procurement by joining the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries (CADSI) and the Municipal Information Systems Association (MISA), opening new pathways for participation in public sector and defense-related tenders involving quantum readiness initiatives.
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- Industry Transformation Acceleration: All U.S. federal agencies are mandated to adopt quantum-resistant encryption by 2027, with the global quantum technology market projected to reach $7.66 billion by 2031, reflecting a 22.6% CAGR, which will drive rapid growth for companies like Quantum Secure Encryption Corp.
- Market Expansion Dynamics: Quantum Secure Encryption Corp. has expanded its operational markets from four to thirteen since November 2025, with its channel partner count increasing to eleven and two additional partnerships expected soon, enhancing its market penetration in commercial and government sectors.
- Technological Innovation Enhancement: The company's Quantum Preparedness Assessment (QPA) platform now features expanded automation for analyzing software, cryptographic, and hardware materials, aiding organizations in planning long-term transitions to quantum cryptographic standards.
- Government Procurement Opportunities: Quantum Secure Encryption Corp. solidified its position within government procurement ecosystems by joining the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries (CADSI) and the Municipal Information Systems Association (MISA), opening new pathways for participation in public sector and defense-related cybersecurity tenders.
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- Collaboration Agreement: IBM and Lam Research have signed a five-year collaboration agreement aimed at jointly developing new materials and processes to support logic scaling to the sub-1nm node, marking a significant advancement in their semiconductor partnership.
- Technological Innovation Focus: The collaboration will concentrate on developing advanced etch and deposition capabilities, as well as High NA EUV lithography processes, to meet the demands of increasingly complex device architectures, thereby accelerating industry adoption of next-generation interconnect and device patterning.
- Decade of Partnership: IBM and Lam Research have collaborated for over a decade to advance logic fabrication technologies, successfully enabling early applications of 7nm, nanosheet, and EUV process technologies, which lays a solid foundation for this new agreement.
- Combining Research Capabilities: By leveraging IBM's advanced research capabilities at the Albany NanoTech Complex alongside Lam's end-to-end process tools and innovations, the teams will build and validate complete process flows for nanosheet and nanostack devices, ensuring reliable transfer of High-NA EUV patterns into actual device layers with high yield.
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- Real-World Applications: Supporters of quantum computing highlight its potential real-world applications, while skeptics question the timeline for these applications to become a reality.
- Recent Research: New research from a quantum computing company and Advanced Micro Devices suggests that practical applications of quantum computing may already be emerging.
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- IBM's Long-Term Investment Value: IBM, with over a century of history, attracts both growth and income investors with a 2.8% dividend yield and continuous payments since 1916, showcasing its stability and appeal in the uncertain AI era.
- Quantum Computing Breakthrough: IBM's Nighthawk quantum processor is expected to achieve quantum advantage by the end of this year, marking significant progress in solving real-world problems, which could further drive its stock price upward after reaching an all-time high of $324.90 last year.
- Amazon's Cloud Computing Leadership: Amazon dominates the global cloud computing market through its AWS division, with fourth-quarter revenue rising 24% year-over-year to $35.6 billion, indicating strong growth potential in the AI infrastructure market, projected to expand from $59 billion in 2025 to nearly $500 billion by 2034.
- Capital Expenditure Strategy: Although Amazon's plan to spend about $200 billion on capital expenditures in 2026, a significant increase from $128.3 billion in 2025, has led to a 10% stock price drop, this investment will meet its own and other businesses' computing needs, further enhancing profitability and market share.
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- Consumer Stock Pressure: The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2.95% last week, with Sherwin-Williams (SHW) dropping 9.02%, indicating a loss of investor confidence in consumer staples, which is expected to impact future sales growth for the company.
- Software Stock Rebound: Despite IBM being down over 11% year-to-date, it rebounded 7.76% last week, suggesting a renewed market interest in the software sector, which could improve overall investor sentiment and drive stock prices higher for related companies.
- Salesforce Analyst Discrepancy: Salesforce's stock rose 3.76%, but analysts are divided on its growth outlook, with Stephens lowering its price target to $241 while Phillip Securities maintains a Buy rating with a target of $253, reflecting differing expectations regarding the impact of AI transformation.
- Nike Faces Tariff Pressure: Nike's stock fell 8.31% due to new 15% global tariffs forcing a supply chain restructure, compounded by a 17% drop in Greater China revenue, which will further compress profit margins and affect future market performance.
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