What Happened?

A number of stocks jumped in the afternoon session after strength across artificial intelligence and technology equities helped lift major market averages, offsetting macroeconomic headwinds from Treasury yields near 24-year highs. 

Equities showed resilience as strong investor appetite for artificial intelligence hardware and software providers pushed the sector higher for a second straight session. The momentum in tech shares helped counterbalance significant pressure stemming from benchmark Treasury yields trading around multi-decade highs alongside rising crude oil prices. Typically, higher yields elevate financing costs and weigh on the valuations of growth-oriented companies. However, market participants remained focused on underlying enterprise AI adoption, evaluating incoming corporate earnings reports, and awaiting key macroeconomic data, including the upcoming jobs report.

The stock market overreacts to news, and big price drops can present good opportunities to buy high-quality stocks.

Among others, the following stocks were impacted:

• Project Management Software company monday.com (NASDAQ: MNDY) jumped 3.6%. Is now the time to buy monday.com? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
• Design Software company Unity (NYSE: U) jumped 7%. Is now the time to buy Unity? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
• Compliance Software company Workiva (NYSE: WK) jumped 5.5%. Is now the time to buy Workiva? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
• Automation Software company Appian (NASDAQ: APPN) jumped 8.8%. Is now the time to buy Appian? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
• Video Conferencing company Five9 (NASDAQ: FIVN) jumped 6.6%. Is now the time to buy Five9? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.

Zooming In On Appian (APPN)

Appian’s shares are extremely volatile and have had 38 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful but not something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.

The previous big move we wrote about was 17 days ago when the stock gained 6.4% on the news that shares of enterprise software and SaaS companies rallied broadly as investors rotated capital out of semiconductor and AI-hardware stocks following calls for an artificial intelligence development slowdown. According to Reuters, while chipmakers and hardware providers faced steep sell-offs after leaders from Anthropic and OpenAI urged a pause in frontier AI advancement, software stocks bucked the broader tech trend and climbed higher in early trading. Market participants viewed the potential deceleration in AI infrastructure spending as a catalyst to rotate back into traditional enterprise software names like ServiceNow, Salesforce, and Adobe. Investors have increasingly feared that unchecked AI progress could yield autonomous agents capable of bypassing traditional software interfaces entirely. A development freeze limits that threat. It also gives incumbent platforms breathing room to package AI as a feature within their own ecosystems, preserving their recurring revenue without the immediate risk of frontier models rendering their core software obsolete. 

Broadly, these SaaS companies are perceived as less vulnerable to a sudden halt in hyperscaler capital expenditures; instead, they offer steady recurring revenue streams and are positioned to benefit from a more deliberate, measured integration of existing AI tools into corporate workflows rather than a frantic, capital-intensive race for raw compute power.

Appian is up 10.5% since the beginning of the year, but at $37.65 per share, it is still trading 17.5% below its 52-week high of $45.64 from November 2025. Despite the year-to-date gain, investors who bought $1,000 worth of Appian’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at only $397.60.

WHILE YOU’RE HERE: The Next Palantir? One satellite company captures images of every point on Earth. Every single day. The Pentagon wants it. Hedge funds are using it to beat earnings. You’ve probably never heard of it.

This is what the early days of Palantir looked like before it became a giant. Same playbook. Different technology. If you missed Palantir, you need to see this. Claim The Stock Ticker for Free HERE.