Computer networking, cybersecurity and fiber-optic gear makers were among the hardest hit on Thursday as Wall Street digested the economic impact of President Donald Trump's "reciprocal" tariffs. The Trump tariffs fallout sent down shares of Arista Networks, Coherent, Fortinet and many other tech stocks.
Meanwhile, analysts debated the impact of the Trump tariffs on enterprise software makers.
JPMorgan analyst Samik Chatterjee said the Trump tariffs will cause more disruption than originally feared.
"Our conversations with companies leading up to 'Liberation Day' broadly indicated that most were making incremental changes to their supply chains and adjusting pricing to offset the net impact of tariffs," he said in a report.
"However, the magnitude of the tariffs announced implies that companies will need to imminently prioritize moving manufacturing to U.S. locations, given the broader range of countries and geographies under the purview of reciprocal tariffs as the much higher tariffs now mean that price increases to offset the headwinds will be more than just modest."
On the stock market today, Arista stock tumbled more than 7% to 73.79, Coherent stock retreated 15.8% to 56.82, and Fortinet stock fell 7.5% to 90.59.
Among other big losers were Ciena, Lumentum and Palo Alto Networks.
Shares in Cisco Systems and Hewlett Packard Enterprise also took hits.
Trump Tariffs: Software Demand
Some software stocks also tumbled. E-commerce firm Shopify dove 14.8% to 85.66. Atlassian fell 11% to near 198.
"When thinking about the tariffs from a software standpoint it simply gets back to the impact on demand," said Evercore ISI analyst Kirk Materne in a report. "And it's almost impossible to think that the uncertainty related to tariffs won't have a negative impact on near-term spending plans."
At UBS, analyst Kevin McVeigh in a report said information service firms such as Accenture "are sensitive to tariffs given international exposure coupled with vertical concentration (manufacturing)." He added that human resource management software makers could be impacted "given manufacturing and retail exposure."
The Trump tariffs impact manufacturing and assembling in China, Taiwan, Japan, Europe, India and other close U.S. trading partners. Semiconductors as well as steel, aluminum, copper, pharmaceuticals and oil were exempted the additional Trump tariffs.
Apple and computer makers were among tech stocks that sold off on Thursday.
Follow Reinhardt Krause on X, formerly Twitter, @reinhardtk_tech for updates on artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and cloud computing.
