IBM's Stock Surges to Record High After Trump Video Revival

A nearly six-month old video of Donald Trump praising International Business Machines Corp.'s CEO, Arvind Krishna, sent the company's shares surging as much as 10% on Monday to a record high, adding more than $28 billion to the company's stock-market value.

The video, which was initially shared at a December White House event, gained traction over the weekend after dozens of accounts on X recirculated it, with one post from Polymarket Money racking up more than 700,000 views. By Sunday night, trading on Robinhood Markets Inc.'s 24 Hour Market showed that IBM stock was climbing, even before Nvidia Corp. CEO Jensen Huang's comments boosted software shares, setting the stage for the sharp rise this morning.

The movement underscores the scale of the speculative mania sweeping through corners of the market as the artificial-intelligence boom fuels a stampede into tech stocks. It also reflects Trump's willingness to champion particular companies and industries, which has sometimes caused his comments to set off sharp stock moves.

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IBM shares had already been rising sharply along with other tech stocks. By the end of last week, they had surged nearly 40% in a little over two weeks. Some of those gains came after the Trump administration agreed to award $1 billion to the company to build a foundry for making quantum computing chips, a deal that set the government up to receive a minority equity stake.

Market Reaction

Note: Intel Corp. and Dell Technologies Inc. shares swung in August and recently popped, respectively, after Trump's comments, but exact percentage gains are not provided.

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On Monday, the stock largely held its gain, with shares up about 9.7% by early afternoon. Matt Maley, chief market strategist at Miller Tabak + Co., said the move reflects how intensely traders are piling into market winners.

"After the stock broke a resistance level last week, traders were looking for reasons to take it even higher," he said. Matthew Tuttle, chief executive officer of Tuttle Capital Management, added that even though the comments about IBM were months old, it "doesn't take much these days to get the animal spirits flowing."