Software Stocks Waver Following IBM's Acquisition of Red Hat

Red Hat is up more than 40% Monday, as other software companies fall from morning highs.
By Tony Owusu ,

The software sector got a boost Monday from International Business Machines Corp.'s  (IBM) - Get Reportpurchase of Red Hat Inc. (RHT) - Get Report for $34 billion, or $190 a share. Red Hat shares jumped more than 40% in afternoon trading on Monday and other software stocks rose as the premium valuation for Red Hat makes them more attractive. 

Analysts from Stifel suggested that Red Hat could get a competing offer from Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL) - Get Report , Amazon Inc. (AMZN) - Get Report or Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) - Get Report , whose businesses would be directly impacted from IBM's acquisition of Red Hat. IBM tumbled more than 3% as investors bristled at the sale price for the open source software company. 

"Google, Amazon, and Microsoft (and potentially Oracle) have the strategic motivations and financial resources to consummate such a transaction and would not be surprised if we were to see one of them make a competing bid," Stifel's note stated. 

Here's how other competing software companies did Monday. 

Salesforce.com Inc. (CRM) - Get Report   declined 3.3%.

VMware Inc. (VMW) - Get Report   dropped 1.7%.

Adobe Inc. (ADBE) - Get Report  fell 2.5%.

Splunk Inc. (SPLK) - Get Report jumped 3.6%.

ServiceNow Inc. (NOW) - Get Report  fell 1.6%. 

Salesforce.com, Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet are holdings in Jim Cramer's Action Alerts PLUS member club. Want to be alerted before Jim Cramer buys or sells AMZN, CRM, MSFT, and GOOGL? Learn more now.

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