On February 12th, a company formerly known as The Singing Machine, yes, the one that sold karaoke equipment, wiped billions off the global logistics sector with a single press release.

The company, now rebranded as Algorithm Holdings, has a $6 million market cap and reported a net loss of nearly $3 million last quarter. Yet within hours of claiming its “AI logistics platform” could scale freight volumes by 300-400%, CH Robinson, one of the largest freight brokerages on the planet—plunged 24%. The entire Russell 3000 trucking index had its worst day since Liberation Day.

This wasn’t a one-off. It was the fifth time in ten days.

The Pattern Is the Story

In just ten days, the same sequence played out across eight different sectors: software, private credit, insurance, wealth management, real estate, logistics, drug distribution, and commercial office space. Different industries. Different companies. Different announcements. Identical market reaction: dump first, analyze later.

A Jefferies trader named it the “SaaS Apocalypse.” The name stuck. But what we’re actually watching isn’t a market efficiently pricing disruption. It’s something more dangerous.

Wall Street has developed an autoimmune disorder. The immune system — risk repricing — is attacking healthy tissue because it can no longer distinguish between what’s real and what’s noise.

The Real Damage Isn’t on the Stock Ticker

When CH Robinson drops 24% in a day, that’s not just a number. That’s a board meeting next week, a hiring freeze next month, and a Q2 roadmap getting torn apart to make room for a performative AI strategy, whether or not a coherent one actually exists.

Stock drops don’t just reflect reality. They create it.

Companies whose stocks crater on AI fears start behaving as if AI is an existential threat today even when the actual technology is years away from touching their core business. Innovation budgets get redirected from real product development to headline-friendly AI partnerships. Headcount gets cut. Not because AI replaced anyone, but because the market priced in the expectation that it would.

The stock market may recover in a week. The organizational damage will take years.

Three Categories the Market Is Treating as One

Here’s where the panic becomes a genuine mispricing:

Category 1: Real disruption, happening now. SaaS companies built on per-seat pricing models are legitimately at risk. AI coding tools like Cursor are growing faster than almost any software product in history. Palantir posted 70% revenue growth. The assumption that all software bottlenecks on humans are already breaking down. These companies need to adapt fast.

Category 2: Real disruption, but not this quarter. Wealth management, insurance brokerage, financial advisory. An AI tax planning tool doesn’t replace a wealth advisor whose core value is trust, behavioral coaching, and relationship management. These sectors will change, but on a 3-5 year horizon, not by earnings season.

Category 3: The market has completely lost the plot. A former karaoke company’s press release does not invalidate CH Robinson’s relationships with 100,000 shippers, its proprietary freight data, or its ability to manage the physical and regulatory complexity of cross-border logistics. CBRE’s property transaction expertise doesn’t evaporate because Claude can draft a lease summary.

The market is pricing all three categories identically. That’s the error and that’s where the opportunity lives.

The Career Asymmetry Nobody Is Talking About

If you work in any of these sectors, the scare trade is creating a very sharp split.

The people most at risk right now aren’t those whose jobs AI can actually replace. They’re the ones in cost centers at companies whose stock just dropped, anyone whose contribution is synthesis, summarization, or aggregating other people’s work. You’re now competing with a tool that does that faster and cheaper, and the CEO just became very aware of it.

But here’s the asymmetry: every company panicking about AI is about to spend heavily on AI capabilities. That spending creates roles, budgets, and career paths that didn’t exist three months ago.

The most valuable person in every org chart being redrawn right now is the domain translator, someone who can walk into a room of panicking executives and say: Here’s what Claude can actually do with our contract review workflow. It handles 70% of initial analysis accurately. Here’s where it fails, here’s where we need a human check, and here’s how we cut review time by 40% and outside counsel spend by $200K. This is the implementation plan.

That person doesn’t exist at most companies right now. The technical people know the models but not the business. The business people know the workflows but haven’t used the tools. The consultants know neither — just the frameworks.

The gap between “I’ve heard AI can do this” and “I’ve tested it and here’s exactly what it does for our business” is a canyon. The scare trade just made crossing that canyon the most valuable thing anyone in any organization can do.

The Bottom Line

AI disruption is real. But it’s not evenly distributed, and the market’s current method of pricing it—sector-wide panic triggered by press releases from $6 million companies—is creating a mispricing so severe it’s simultaneously a historic investment opportunity and a historic reallocation of organizational attention.

The companies that will lose are the ones that mistake market panic for strategic signal. The ones that gut their product teams, sign a splashy AI partnership, and pray the stock recovers.

The companies that win will use the panic as cover to invest in genuine AI capability in the domain expertise that makes AI actually useful, and in the people who understand both the tech and the business well enough to know where real leverage lies.

Somehow, a karaoke company helped kick all of this off.

Bitcoin (BTC) battled US sellers at Monday’s Wall Street open amid mixed feelings over the short-term BTC price outlook.

Key points:

• Bitcoin price targets include a $60,000 drop as well as a recovery amid uncertain moves.

• Bitcoin attempts to absorb repeat rounds of selling into the TradFi trading week.

• US tariffs remain the key macro catalyst on the radar.

Bitcoin outlook splits with BTC in “tricky place”

Data from TradingView showed rangebound market moves focusing on $66,000, with BTC/USD down around 2.5% on the day.

US weakness compounded an already bearish start to Monday, with sell-side pressure clearly in evidence at the weekly open.

“$BTC flushed 4.5K in one move,” crypto analyst IT Tech, a contributor onchain analytics platform CryptoQuant, wrote in his latest market commentary on X.

IT Tech described current price moves as indicating “confusion,” warning that the day’s $62,250 lows could come in for a retest.

“The long cluster at 64.2K got partially swept. If 65K fails, we retest it. Support: 65K → 64.2K / Resistance: 66.5K → 68.7K,” he summarized. 

Trader Jelle eyed a potential sweep of the $60,000 mark should bulls fail to build a foundation in the current narrow range.

Others were more hopeful. Commentator Exitpump flagged an ongoing tentative recovery in the Coinbase Premium as an early sign that conditions might improve.

“We had aggressive spot buying, but it stopped for now, funding is negative and Coinbase premium is almost back. Tricky place, but I am bullish here,” Exitpump told X followers.

Crypto trader, analyst and entrepreneur Michaël van de Poppe had similar feelings on the day.

“Pretty good wick on the markets for $BTC,” he wrote about the local lows. 

“That would be a signal that this won’t continue to fall, however, it still needs to hold above $65K and get continuation in the coming days to clearly signal this. First steps are great.”

Tariffs provide “immediate catalyst” for crypto

US stocks continued a nervous start to the week on futures, thanks to the threat of fresh US trade tariffs.

Related: Hodlers have ‘given up’ at $65K: Five things to know in Bitcoin this week

The 15% blanket levies were announced by President Donald Trump over the weekend after the Supreme Court struck down some previous measures.

🇺🇸 JUST IN: Donald Trump says he can use licenses and approved tariffs in a absolutely “terrible” way against countries he claims have taken advantage of the US. pic.twitter.com/ZEXY9hI7NA

— Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) February 23, 2026

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Responding, trading company QCP Capital described the tariff debacle as an “immediate catalyst” for Bitcoin.

“This escalation has added another layer of policy uncertainty at a time when macro risk appetite is already thinning,” it wrote in its latest “Asia Color” market update.

QCP also attempted to find a reason for optimism, noting the lack of a broad market flush around the headlines.

“After several aggressive flushes this year, both the scale of volatility spikes and the intensity of liquidation cascades have somewhat moderated,” it continued. 

“Even on the latest tariff headline from Trump, spot didn’t immediately gap lower on the news as it typically has in prior episodes, instead softening into the Asia open. That shift in reaction function is notable.”