Traders work at the New York Stock Exchange, March 3, 2026.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
Cloud and software stocks were a rare bright spot amid Thursday’s market decline.
He WisdomTree Cloud Computing Fund (WCLD) it gained 2.7%, putting the exchange-traded fund on track for its best day since April 24, when it jumped 4.7%.
Top cloud stocks surged on Thursday with an 8.4% rise in Okta and Wix.comand a gain of approximately 7% in shares of MongoDB and Intapp. Navigation pointa cloud-based provider of identity security technology for enterprises, rose 6.5%, while zscaler rose 1.5%. HubSpot and Payment softwaremain holdings in the WCLDthey increased by 4.5% and 1.5%, respectively.
The rally in Okta comes after the identity security provider on Wednesday afternoon reported fourth-quarter results that exceeded Wall Street estimates. The company, which has benefited from artificial intelligence tools and increased related security needs, gave weak guidance for its first quarter, to be sure.
Thursday’s move puts Okta on track for its best day since April 9, when it gained 11.3%. Okta remains beaten amid the software crisis, as shares are down 9.8% so far this year. Still, the company remains a favorite among analysts, some of whom believe it will be more AI-resistant than its peers. JPMorgan and UBS recently highlighted Okta and Zscaler as names that are likely to resist AI-related threats and find value in the rapidly developing technology.
“While we expect model companies to introduce more cybersecurity products, we don’t think it’s realistic to think they will devote resources to building infrastructure controls like endpoint agents, distributed security gateway networks (SASE), or identity authentication platforms,” UBS analyst Roger Boyd wrote in a Feb. 23 note to clients, reiterating his buy rating on Okta.
Performance of the WisdomTree Cloud Computing Fund over the past year.
Cloud stocks remain under pressure heading into 2026 despite the day’s gains. He WCLD The fund is down approximately 16.2% so far this year.
Shares of traditional cloud and software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies have fallen this year as concerns about artificial intelligence disrupting existing software stocks plagued the group. The late February launch of Anthropic’s Claude Code Security, a security tool built into the company’s Claude Code AI tool on the web, pressured stocks in the software and security space.
—CNBC’s Gina Francolla contributed reporting.
