Software and online service providers were hit hard as investors worried about eventual losses of market share to AI tools
Shares of Intuit have fallen 60% during the first half of 2026, even as the company's sales for its critical quarter ended April 30 were up 10% from a year earlier and as analysts increased their rolling profit estimates for the company.
This year has featured volatility in the stock market, with the Iran conflict and the continuing AI hardware build-out leading to plenty of rags-to-riches stories.
If you are an index-fund investor, you should be pleased that the S&P 500 SPX has gained 8.7% and that all but two of the index's 11 sectors are up for the year.
Then again, the same focus on generative artificial intelligence that has helped send manufacturers of computer memory equipment soaring has sent shares of a number of software or online-services companies plunging.
Within the S&P 500, 62% of stocks have shown gains for the first half of 2026. You can see a list of the index's best performers here.
These are the 20 S&P 500 stocks showing the largest midyear declines. All price changes in this article exclude dividends.
Company 2026 price change 2025 price change Forward P/E Forward P/E as of Dec. 31 2026 change in rolling 12-month EPS estimate Change in quarterly revenue Intuit -60% 5% 9.8 26.8 10% 10% CoStar Group -56% -6% 18.5 49.1 16% 23% Boston Scientific -54% 7% 12.3 27.5 2% 12% Accenture -54% -24% 8.6 18.9 2% 6% Cognizant Technology Solutions -53% 8% 6.5 14.8 6% 6% Trade Desk -51% -68% 9.4 17.9 -6% 12% Gartner -47% -48% 9.0 18.7 9% -2% Lululemon Athletica -45% -46% 10.2 16.5 -11% 4% Insulet -45% 9% 21.8 45.7 16% 34% Leidos Holdings -44% 25% 7.9 14.6 3% 4% Workday -42% -17% 10.7 20.3 9% 13% Fidelity National Information Services -42% -18% 5.9 10.5 3% 30% Zoetis -42% -23% 10.3 18.6 5% 2% Adobe -41% -21% 7.8 14.7 11% 13% Salesforce -40% -21% 10.7 20.2 13% 13% Broadridge Financial Solutions -39% -1% 13.0 22.6 5% 8% Tractor Supply -38% -6% 14.1 21.4 -5% 4% Tyler Technologies -36% -21% 20.9 36.3 12% 9% Trimble -35% 11% 13.1 22.6 11% 12% Palantir Technologies -35% 135% 63.7 173.1 77% 85% Source: LSEG
The table includes forward price/earnings ratios, which are current prices divided by consensus 12-month earnings-per-share estimates among analysts polled by FactSet. It also includes forward P/E as of Dec. 31, along with another column showing how much the rolling 12-month EPS estimates have changed this year. The rightmost column includes the change in sales for each company's most recently reported fiscal quarter from the year-earlier quarter.
All of this data provides context for what might be an overreaction by investors to perceived AI threats to some of these companies.
Even though the S&P 500's information technology sector has gained 16.5% this year, half of the stocks on the list of largest decliners are part of that sector. Others, such as Costar, Trade Desk, Fidelity National Information Services and Broadridge Financial Solutions, can be lumped in as providers of information and services that can be threatened by AI.
Shares of Intuit $(INTU)$, which makes TurboTax and QuickBooks software and provides related services for both systems, have declined 60% this year, even as sales for its most recent fiscal quarter ended April 30 were up 10% from the year-earlier quarter. And the rolling consensus 12-month EPS estimate has increased 10% this year.
Intuit's forward P/E has declined to 9.8 from 26.8 at the end of 2025. Its forward P/E is now less than half that of the S&P 500. Among 35 analysts tracking Intuit, 25 rate the stock a buy or the equivalent, according to LSEG.
Susquehanna analyst James Friedman told MarketWatch that Intuit's shares have been pressured by investor concerns that, at some level, AI may present a "substitute" for TurboTax.
He wrote in a note to clients recently that the AI narrative and lower-priced filing alternative had driven the collapse of Intuit's shares.
However, he said there's an opportunity for the company to benefit from generative AI because the company has invested in automation across its platform and has shipped Intuit Assist, an AI-powered financial assistant.
There are plenty of other software and online service providers on the list showing double-digit revenue increases this year, some of which also feature low P/E.
Lululemon (LULU) stands out on the list with the largest decline in rolling 12-month EPS estimate. The company's sales for its fiscal quarter ended May 3 were up 4% from the year-earlier quarter. But its quarterly earnings per share declined by 31% to $1.69.
Sectors
Here is a breakdown of how the 11 sectors of the S&P 500 have performed this year, with the full index at the bottom. This table also compares current weighted forward P/E ratios to those at the end of 2025.
Sector or index 2026 price change Forward P/E Forward P/E as of Dec. 31
Energy 18.7% 12.7 15.6
Industrials 17.9% 25.5 24.2
Information Technology 16.5% 22.8 26.8
Real Estate 12.1% 36.0 35.2
Materials 10.5% 17.5 19.3
Consumer Staples 8.3% 21.8 20.9
Utilities 7.8% 17.6 17.9
Healthcare 3.9% 17.1 18.4
Communication Services 0.4% 19.7 22.2
Consumer Discretionary -1.2% 25.4 29.8
Financial -1.9% 15.0 16.7
S&P 500 Index 8.7% 20.3 22.5
Source: LSEG
The energy sector has been the strongest performer so far this year because of supply disruptions caused by the conflict between the U.S., Israel and Iran.
For the full S&P 500, the forward P/E ratio has declined to a weighted 20.3 from 22.5 at the end of last year. These valuations have declined for all of the index's sectors except for the industrial, real estate and consumer staples sectors.
As for software, William Blair analyst Arjun Bhatia told MarketWatch that although P/E multiples have come down, the fundamentals for many software companies have been "solid," which the market doesn't reward.
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June 30, 2026 07:55 ET (11:55 GMT)
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