(Bloomberg) — Logistics stocks sank Thursday as investors rushed to exit the group amid fears over disruption from artificial intelligence, making it the latest casualty of the “AI scare trade.”
The Russell 3000 Trucking Index dropped 10%, with CH Robinson Worldwide Inc. plunging 24% and Landstar System Inc. falling 19%. The index is on track for its worst day since President Donald Trump enacted his so-called Liberation Day tariffs last year.
“I guess the worry is that it could disintermediate the truck brokers, which is why they’re getting hit so much,” said Christopher Kuhn, a Benchmark analyst covering trucking stocks. “The whole sector is getting hit, but it’s mostly on the broker side.”
Concern that new AI-powered tools and applications can upend the business models of many industries has sparked brutal selloffs in several corners of the stock market over the past couple weeks — starting with software makers, then spilling over to private credit companies, insurers, wealth managers, real estate services and now, logistics firms.
The worries came to fore as earlier on Thursday, AI company Algorhythm Holdings Inc. said its SemiCab platform in live customer deployments was helping its customers’ internal operations to scale freight volumes by 300% to 400% without a corresponding increase in operational headcount. Shares of the company soared 26%.
Meanwhile, in Europe, Denmark’s DSV A/S fell as much as 15%, before closing down 11% in Copenhagen. Swiss firm Kuehne Nagel International AG slid as much as 14% and closed down 13% in Zurich.
“I guess it was their time,” Kuhn added. “I think it’s overdone but we need more detail. But clearly it’s unlikely that a big corporation is going to put in this software and not use a major truck broker like CH Robinson and RXO.”
Still, analysts and investors have warned that some of this steep selling reflects a knee-jerk reaction and could be overestimating some of the risk.
“While the impact from AI over time is inevitable and powerful, stock reactions to news like this tend to be emotional and exaggerated,” said Mark Hackett, chief market strategist at Nationwide.
–With assistance from Annika Inampudi.
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