Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., Feb. 23, 2026.
Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters
Stock futures were near flat Monday night after a rough start to the final week of February’s trading.
Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 45 points, or nearly 0.1%. S&P 500 futures advanced 0.1%, while Nasdaq 100 futures gained 0.1%.
Major averages fell in the regular session on renewed fears of artificial intelligence disruptions to various industries. President Donald Trump’s threat to hike global tariffs to 15% and tensions between the U.S. and Iran also kept traders on edge.
The 30-stock Dow closed lower by nearly 822 points, or about 1.7%, dragged lower by a roughly 13% loss in IBM shares. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite declined 1.1%, while the S&P 500 shed about 1% and slipped into the red for the year.
Software stocks such as Microsoft and CrowdStrike were notable losers during the session, along with cybersecurity stocks and a slate of financial sector names.
“The market has lost momentum. It’s in this trading range … and there’s been a really unhealthy rotation,” Warren Pies, co-founder and strategist at 3Fourteen Research, said Monday on CNBC’s “Closing Bell.” “So consumer staples, energy up double-digits over the last quarter. You have tech and financials down,”
“I just am of the belief that you have to step back, take down your risk and wait for this range to resolve, and really, in order for it to resolve in a bullish way, it has to be tech-led,” he added. “You cannot get out of this with tech and financials continuing to do this.”
Pies, who downgraded U.S. equities to neutral earlier this month, believes tech stocks will see upside from fundamental strength and increasing productivity. “I think this has been a healthy pullback, a consolidation … still, the wise way to navigate that is to wait and let the market definitively break that range,” he said.
Heading into Tuesday, traders will keep an eye on a key event hosted by artificial intelligence firm Anthropic, the company behind Claude. Anthropic is expected to make new product announcements and demonstrate Claude’s latest features. Anticipation of the event — and the additional disruption it could bring — contributed to declines in the software space on Monday.
On Tuesday, investors are awaiting consumer confidence data and Home Depot earnings. They’re also bracing for key earnings results from Nvidia and software names Salesforce and Snowflake due later this week, which could be market-moving amid the current pullback in tech.
Keysight Technologies, Diamondback Energy move on after-hours earnings results
Below are some of the biggest after-hours movers on Monday evening:
- Keysight Technologies — The manufacturer of electronics test and measurement equipment exceeded first-quarter estimates on top and bottom lines, leading shares to jump more than 15%. Keysight earned $2.17 per share, on an adjusted basis, while analysts polled by LSEG expected $2.00 per share. Revenue came out at $1.60 billion, also higher than the $1.54 billion expected.
- Diamondback Energy — Shares lost 3% in after-hours trading after the company’s fourth-quarter earnings disappointed Wall Street. Diamondback reported adjusted earnings of $1.74 cents per share on $3.38 billion in revenue, while analysts polled by LSEG expected $2.08 in earnings per share and $3.31 billion in revenue.
- Vir Biotechnology — Shares surged more than 65%. The company shared positive updated Phase 1 results for its VIR-5500 treatment for patients with metastatic prostate cancer.
— Pia Singh
Sarat Sethi owns Salesforce, Workday ahead of earnings
Sarat Sethi, managing partner at Douglas C. Lane & Associates, said he owns Salesforce and Workday ahead of their earnings results this week that will be closely watched by investors.
Both Salesforce and Workday have been punished this year, tumbling more than 33% and 40%, respectively, as investors fearful of AI disruption took a sharp pivot out of the software sector.
Salesforce, YTD
Sethi is hopeful that their earnings could reverse their fortunes if both companies can prove they have staying power. He noted that Salesforce has a great install base. It’s also valued at roughly 13 times forward earnings, according to FactSet data, implying the stock is now a bargain.
“The question is going to be, are they getting displaced? Are they losing customers?” Sethi told CNBC’s “Power Lunch.” “If none of that’s true, and they’re still growing, and they have the potential to grow and use AI, we think now you’ve gone from kind of a growth-at-a-reasonable-price to a value stock.”
“I’m just hoping it doesn’t become a value trap,” he added.
Salesforce is set to report earnings Wednesday. Workday is scheduled to release results Tuesday.
— Sarah Min
