Shopify, Unity Get Slammed by Anxious Market

Talk about unforgiving! The great enterprise stock sell-off of 2026 recommenced on Wednesday, and it dragged down a couple of companies—Unity Software and Shopify—after they each reported decent December-quarter earnings. Shares of Shopify, most egregiously, fell as much as 12% after the e-commerce software platform said its first-quarter revenue would grow “at a low-30s percentage rate on a year-over-year basis,” in line with its fourth-quarter growth rate. Even for Wall Streeters used to explaining market gyrations after the fact with aplomb, this proved puzzling. Research firm William Blair headlined a report on Shopify’s earnings: “Strong Results and Growth, but Shares Down for No Obvious Reason.” 

Shopify has been about as AI forward as is possible for a software firm to be, working with both OpenAI on its Instant Checkout shopping venture and Google on its AI shopping efforts. But as New Street Research said Wednesday, Shopify’s “AI narrative is strong but SaaS sector anxiety overwhelms,” using industry jargon for software as a service firms. It seems the Street needs some therapy, or at least some antianxiety medication. Shopify’s stock recovered a bit, but it still ended up closing down 6.7%.