What Happened?
A number of stocks jumped in the afternoon session after Snowflake's impressive earnings results provided the clearer evidence that the "SaaSpocalypse" — a rolling selloff that had erased approximately $2 trillion from software market values since late 2025 on fears that AI would make subscription software obsolete — had been overstated for platforms sitting at the centre of AI workflows.
Snowflake surged 35%, its best single day ever, after reporting that AI accounts on its platform jumped from 9,100 to 13,600 in a single quarter, product revenue grew 34%, and full-year guidance was raised by $180 million. The read-through was immediate. ServiceNow gained 5%, Palantir rose nearly 6%, Oracle and Microsoft each added roughly 3%, and a broad wave lifted the iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV).
The SaaSpocalypse thesis rested on a simple fear: that autonomous AI agents would replace per-seat software licences, hollowing out established SaaS business models. Snowflake's results inverted that logic directly. Instead of AI displacing its platform, AI drove more consumption of it. CFO Brian Robins described Cortex Code as creating a "step function change" in AI revenue potential, and said it was the single largest driver of the full-year guidance raise. Enterprises are not replacing data platforms with AI; they are using AI to generate more workloads that run on those same platforms.
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:
- Vertical Software company Guidewire Software (NYSE: GWRE) jumped 6.7%. Is now the time to buy Guidewire Software? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
- Endpoint Security company Varonis Systems (NASDAQ: VRNS) jumped 6.2%. Is now the time to buy Varonis Systems? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
Zooming In On Guidewire Software (GWRE)
Guidewire Software’s shares are very volatile and have had 22 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 10 days ago when the stock gained 3.7% on the news that investor confidence rebounded as markets softened their view on the existential threat AI poses to traditional software companies.
After a period of significant underperformance, dubbed the "SaaS Rout of 2026," where software stocks traded at a discount to the S&P 500, the prevailing fear that AI would completely disrupt and replace traditional Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) companies began to subside.
Experts noted that these companies possess significant advantages, including established enterprise relationships, vast amounts of proprietary data, and deep integration into customer workflows, which AI is unlikely to erase overnight. This changing perspective suggests a potential re-rating for the sector as investors realize these companies may be well-positioned to integrate and leverage AI rather than be replaced by it.
Guidewire Software is down 24% since the beginning of the year, and at $142.53 per share, it is trading 45.6% below its 52-week high of $261.88 from September 2025. Despite the year-to-date decline, investors who bought $1,000 worth of Guidewire Software’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $1,458.
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