pfp Advisory: “A ghost is haunting...”

Fund manager Peeters is surprised by the volatile price slumps caused by expected AI disruption and reminds investors that prudence is an important attitude to have on the stock market.
 

February 16, 2026. FRANKFURT (pfp Advisory). In February 1848, almost exactly 178 years ago, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published the Communist Manifesto. One of its most famous lines reads: “A specter is haunting Europe—the specter of communism.” This metaphor is generally interpreted as well chosen, because ghosts spread fear, are intangible, and (assuming they exist) cannot really be stopped by humans. Regardless of how much communism actually spread in the end (let alone proved itself in practice), this catchy quote is present in many minds, including mine.

To be more precise, it has come to mind several times in recent days in a different context. For a specter is haunting us once again, and this time it is spreading its terror not “only” in Europe, but practically throughout the world, and it feels as if the fear of this specter is taking hold in new areas of the economy every day. This time, to stick with the pun, it is the “specter of artificial intelligence (AI for short)”.

After years of celebrating the actual and predicted AI revolution with exorbitant profits for actual and presumed beneficiaries, the capital market, as a (not flawless) seismograph of economic change, has seen a different trend emerge since around the end of 2025, one that has accelerated significantly in recent weeks: the search for, or rather the hunt for, corporations whose business model, in the opinion of the market, will be significantly hampered or, in the worst case, “disrupted away” by AI.

At the beginning of this dynamic, software companies were critically questioned and sold off against the backdrop that high-margin software solutions could simply be replaced by cost-effective AI solutions. This assertion, which does not sound illogical at first glance, combined with some truly astonishing technological milestones involving new AI-based applications (“bots”) such as OpenClaw or Anthropic (which, in short, enable various complex work steps to be performed by AI) and the previously rather high valuations of the sector, was an explosive mixture. In several waves, software companies lost massive value on numerous stock exchanges.

But that did not quench the thirst of the (short) sellers. Concerns quickly spread to proprietary areas, such as IT service providers, which earn their money by implementing third-party software for customers, among other things. And for weeks now, it feels like every trading day in the US has seen the next “big thing” being hyped up, which then usually continues the next day in other markets in Asia or Europe. Other industries whose future viability has been questioned by the market include database providers, insurers, online shops, financial service providers, logistics companies, and office property portfolio holders. I am fairly certain that we have not yet seen the last wave of speculation. Many things are conceivable. And that alone is enough to cause share prices to plummet, because investors do not like uncertainty at all.

The upheavals in the logistics sector showed most clearly how susceptible the market is to speculation about change. A tiny company called Algorhythm Holdings Inc., which used to manufacture karaoke machines as “The Singing Machine Company,” managed to send the share prices of global logistics giants worth tens of billions into a tailspin with its new AI-based logistics system “SemiCab.” Stories that no human or AI could ever imagine.

Here and in other supposed hotspots, you can see how the stock market is ticking in this young year of 2026: In keeping with today's Rose Monday, the mood resembles a chicken coop in which rumors are circulating that a fox has disguised itself as a chicken and mingled with the chickens, and everyone is constantly wondering where it is hiding and who is standing too close to it.

I think a little more prudence wouldn't hurt. Yes, AI will profoundly change the world of work, comparable to the introduction of PCs or the then-new use of steam engines or electricity. And certainly not all companies will be able to adapt. But it won't happen overnight this time either. In addition to pure technology, there are also serious factors such as customer bases, brand names, process know-how, and much more. And constant change, with companies becoming increasingly important or losing relevance, has always been part of economic history and the capital market. Carelessness is certainly not a good advisor on the stock market, but neither is panic-stricken fear of ghosts.