By Sinéad Carew and Suzanne McGee
Aug 26 (Reuters) - U.S. software shares have been on a roller coaster and more wild rides likely lie ahead, thanks to AI-driven uncertainty and the rise of trading strategies that investors say are accentuating the swings in popular technology sectors.
After hitting a record high on October 28, the S&P 500 software and services index lost more than 33% of its value by April 10, with selling accelerating following a January product release by Anthropic that some portfolio
managers worried would make many of these firms' products obsolete.
The index then bounced 33% during a mostly solid first-quarter earnings season, before selling off again and then partly recovering once more during a largely healthy second-quarter earnings season. The index is down more than 3% for the year and is more than 12% below its October record. Software investors will tune in next for quarterly reports from Salesforce and CrowdStrike on Wednesday afternoon, followed by Oracle in mid-September.
Even for an industry under threat from the rise of AI, the intense swings in software are testament to the power of popular strategies such as momentum trading, buying shares that are rising and selling those that are falling, and the rise of leveraged funds that can double or triple daily moves.
The latest sector bounce was highlighted by an eight-session, 29% surge in shares of Microsoft Corp, the biggest stock in the index and one of the biggest in the world, following its July 29 earnings release.
While some of the latest quarter's results showed "eye-popping" strength, Tony Welch, chief investment officer at SignatureFD, said it remains unclear how much of the summer bounce stemmed from improving confidence in fundamentals -- and how much resulted from trader bets that the price momentum would continue.
"These rallies, they start because there is an impending fundamental improvement that the market participants sniff out, but then they continue to build on themselves with momentum," said Welch, adding that "as you get later into a move it does tend to be more of a momentum driver."
LEVERING UP TO PROFIT ON DAILY MOVES
Along with "decent earnings" and momentum trading, Joe Saluzzi, co-founder and head of equity market structure research and co-head of equity trading at Themis Trading, pointed to "derivative-style products like the double-leveraged ETFs and the single-day options."
The leveraged ETF segment, which includes single-stock and index products offering their buyers up to double the daily return or decline of many of the market’s most popular and volatile stocks or triple the daily gains in an index, has exploded in size in the last two years. The number of single-stock leveraged or inverse ETFs has surged to 486 from 28 at the end of 2023, according to data from Morningstar. About 40 of the ETFs are in the software-infrastructure category while 23 are related to software application companies.
Because leveraged ETF providers rebalance their exposure to the underlying stock or index at the start of each trading day, they can amplify short-term price swings, allowing momentum to play a greater role in the magnitude of daily share moves.
"That's where you tend to see the most of that in action, in those momentum names. Those are folks that are most likely day traders that are fueling the momentum through leveraged products," said Saluzzi.
"It tends to slow down when things are going the other way for a bit. And then once it starts heating up again, they get right back involved, and you can see the options market just explode with volume."
AN ONSLAUGHT OF TRADING VEHICLES
In the last two months, Corgi Investments -- a newcomer to the ETF industry -- has rolled out a suite of inverse ETFs tied to individual stocks or indexes including 11 products based on individual software firms including Microsoft, Oracle, AppLovin and ServiceNow.
Based on results and estimates, the index is on track to post second-quarter aggregated earnings growth of 24.4% versus expectations for 16.4% on July 1, before reporting began, according to Tajinder Dhillon, head of Earnings Research at LSEG.
But even if the remaining reports suggest that threats to the industry may have been overstated, investors are still cautious about how the sector will fare as AI continues to evolve.
"Right now, the prices reflect what we've already seen from an earnings perspective, and they kind of reflect an expectation that the earnings stream will continue," said Marta Norton, chief investment strategist at Empower. "But to the extent that that is not true, then there is real risk in these stocks."
(Reporting by Sinead Carew, Suzanne McGee and Saqib Iqbal Ahmed, editing by Colin Barr and Nick Zieminski)
