--- title: "US Software Stocks Stage a Comeback, Posting Best Monthly Performance Since 2001" type: "News" locale: "en" url: "https://longbridge.com/en/news/288128558.md" description: "Strong earnings from Snowflake and Okta reversed market pessimism. Snowflake secured a $6 billion partnership with Amazon and raised its Full-Year Profit Forecast, sending its stock soaring nearly 50% in four days; Okta, driven by agentic AI reshaping security demands, saw its stock surge 30% in a single day after beating earnings expectations. The strong performance of these two leaders boosted sector sentiment, driving software ETFs to their largest monthly gain since 2001" datetime: "2026-05-30T01:57:44.000Z" locales: - [zh-CN](https://longbridge.com/zh-CN/news/288128558.md) - [en](https://longbridge.com/en/news/288128558.md) - [zh-HK](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/news/288128558.md) --- # US Software Stocks Stage a Comeback, Posting Best Monthly Performance Since 2001 Strong earnings from Snowflake and Okta boosted sentiment, as the market's extreme pessimism about AI disrupting the software industry began to ease. Snowflake and Okta sequentially released earnings that exceeded expectations, driving a significant rebound in US software stocks this week, **propelling the iShares Expanded Tech Software Sector ETF (IGV) to a cumulative 21% gain in May, marking its strongest monthly performance since October 2001.** The prevailing "SaaSpocalypse" sentiment in the market—the belief that artificial intelligence would completely replace the Software-as-a-Service industry—has at least temporarily been significantly alleviated. Snowflake recorded its best single-day gain in history this Thursday, surging nearly 50% cumulatively over the four trading days following the Monday holiday; identity security company Okta soared 30% in a single day on Friday, also setting a historical record. The performance of both companies suggests that Wall Street's predictions regarding the impact of AI on the software industry may have been overly pessimistic—some enterprises are demonstrating stronger resilience than expected. Against the backdrop of this rebound, IGV's year-to-date decline has narrowed to 3.8%, but it still lags far behind the Nasdaq Composite Index's 18% gain over the same period, indicating that structural pressures in the software sector have not fully dissipated. ## Snowflake: From the Center of Pressure to an AI "Pick-and-Shovel" Play Snowflake was the biggest catalyst for this week's software stock rebound. The company announced a $6 billion cloud computing and chip cooperation agreement with Amazon and raised its full-year performance guidance, showing that enterprise customers are accelerating their migration to AI workloads. "We are also seeing customers deploying and expanding workloads at a faster pace," CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy told analysts on the earnings conference call. Argus Research analysts characterized Snowflake as a "pick-and-shovel" play in the generative AI wave and raised their target price from $250 to $300. In a post-earnings report, the analysts wrote: "**As enterprises increasingly need to unify and consolidate data—Snowflake's core business—to fully leverage the advantages of generative AI, we believe Snowflake could actually be a beneficiary of GenAI development.**" Snowflake stock closed at $255.55 on Friday, up 17% year-to-date. ## Okta: Agentic AI Wave Reshapes Identity Security Demand Okta's strong performance also surprised the market. The company not only delivered a quarterly result that beat expectations but also conveyed a key judgment to investors: the transition to agentic AI is forcing enterprises to increase investment in identity security to cope with the growing threat of automated "zombie armies." "It takes time for AI products to land, but every organization will build and deploy intelligent agents," Okta CEO Todd McKinnon said in an interview with CNBC. "This is infrastructure that must be in place in the coming years." This narrative helped Okta reverse previous market concerns that identity management software would be eroded by AI, resulting in a single-day surge of 30% on Friday. ## Broad Sector Gains, But the Year-Long Catch-Up Task Remains Arduous The rebound in the software sector was not limited to Snowflake and Okta. Atlassian rose 26% cumulatively this week, ServiceNow gained over 20%, and Shopify, Workday, and Asana all rose by no less than 14%. Among software giants also positioned in cloud infrastructure, Oracle rose 16% this week, and Microsoft gained nearly 8%—nevertheless, Microsoft is still down nearly 7% year-to-date, making it the worst performer among tech giants. Notably, the historical reference for this rebound is not entirely optimistic: in October 2001, IGV also experienced a significant single-month rebound, but that was merely a brief respite during the bursting of the internet bubble. Whether current software stocks can truly gain a foothold still depends on the dynamic evolution of AI's impact and corporate IT spending. 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