AI startup Anthropic, whose release of a lawyer automation tool <a href="https://oninvest.com/article/minus-pocti-1-trln-kapitalizacii-za-nedelu-tri-voprosa-o-soft-apokalipsise">triggered a </a>stock crash in software developers and data providers, on Feb. 5 unveiled Claude Opus 4.6, a model that can perform financial analysis and create spreadsheets, the company <a href="https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-opus-4-6">said </a>in a blog post.

Investors saw this as a potential threat to financial research and data players, <a href="https://www.barrons.com/articles/anthropic-financial-research-stocks-01721769?mod=RTA">writes </a>Barron's. Shares of such companies fell sharply in trading on Thursday: quotations of financial data platform FactSet Research Systems collapsed by 9%, credit rating agencies S&amp;P Global and Moody's lost 2.8% and 1.3%, respectively. Securities Nasdaq, which is both a data provider and operator of the exchange of the same name, fell by 3.8%.

In addition to financial services, Anthropic plans to focus on developing AI capabilities to perform tasks in areas such as cybersecurity, life sciences and healthcare, Claude AI product chief Scott White said, Bloomberg <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-05/anthropic-updates-ai-model-to-field-more-complex-financial-research?srnd=homepage-europe&amp;embedded-checkout=true">reports </a>.

Earlier on Thursday, ChatGPT developer OpenAI <a href="https://openai.com/index/introducing-gpt-5-3-codex/">released an </a>update to its AI programming agent Codex, which should further simplify the process of writing and debugging code. The tool can be used to create software - including complex games and apps. The company emphasized that the product's capabilities go far beyond software development itself and cover a wide range of related tasks - from preparing documentation to creating presentations and analyzing user data.

All major U.S. stock indices <a href="https://oninvest.com/article/akcii-v-ssa-padaut-tretij-den-podrad-bitkoin-i-serebro-deseveut-alphabet-snizilas">collapsed </a>in trading on February 5 amid concerns about the sustainability of the AI boom and the risks it poses to software developers. For the S&amp;P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite, it's the third straight day of sell-offs; they lost 1.1% and 1.3%, respectively, on Thursday. The Dow Jones also fell more than 1%.

The VIX volatility index, which is called the Wall Street fear index. jumped 12% and broke the psychologically <a href="https://www.spglobal.com/spdji/en/education-a-practitioners-guide-to-reading-vix.pdf">important </a>level of 20.

<i>This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor</i>

Nasdaq, Inc.

Moody's Corporation

FactSet Research Systems Inc.

Even the Dow Jones did not stay in the positive zone, which was the only one that managed to grow a day earlier

Stocks in the U.S. fall for the third day in a row. Bitcoin and silver are getting cheaper, Alphabet declined

Microsoft Corporation

Salesforce, Inc.

Adobe Inc.

One tool for lawyers has the market questioning the future of the entire Microsoft and Salesforce business model

Minus nearly $1 trillion in capitalization in a week: three questions about the "software apocalypse"

At the end of January, Microsoft and Meta synchronously reported their quarterly results. Both companies performed well, showing revenue and profit growth, but the market reacted in a radically opposite way: Meta's shares rose by about 10%, while Microsoft's securities, on the contrary, investors staged the largest sell-off since 2020, in which a record $357 billion of capitalization <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/29/microsoft-market-cap-earnings.html">evaporated</a> at once. Since the release of the reports, its quotations have lost almost 14%.

Anthropic and OpenAI released updates in the midst of a market sell-off. Is this a new strike?

What's happening in the market