Overview
- A Morgan Stanley-tracked basket of SaaS names is down about 15% year to date, marking the group’s weakest opening stretch since 2022, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
- Sentiment turned more negative after Anthropic released Claude Cowork on Jan. 12 as a research preview that can turn screenshots into spreadsheets and draft reports from notes.
- Large caps slumped last week, with Intuit falling 16% and Adobe and Salesforce each dropping more than 11%.
- Buy-side caution has hardened, with a Mizuho note saying many investors see no current reasons to own the group as software lags a Nasdaq 100 near record highs and names like ServiceNow trade at multi‑year lows.
- Major vendors have yet to show clear AI-driven revenue gains—Salesforce’s Agentforce and Adobe’s generative features have seen limited disclosed impact—even as valuations compress to a Morgan Stanley basket multiple of roughly 18 times next‑12‑month earnings, the cheapest on record.