Cushman & Wakefield leads 14% real estate stock slide on AI fears

Investing.com -- Cushman & Wakefield (NYSE: CWK) stock plummeted 14% Wednesday, alongside peers Jones Lang LaSalle (NYSE: JLL) and CBRE Group (NYSE: CBRE), which fell 12% and 13% respectively, as investors fled real estate services companies over concerns about potential disruption from artificial intelligence.

The selloff appears to be the latest manifestation of what analysts are calling the "AI scare trade," which has recently hit software, insurance, and financial stocks. Initially attributed to a negative reaction following strong jobs numbers and expectations of a slower pace of Federal Reserve rate cuts, analysts now believe the decline stems primarily from AI disruption concerns.

"We believe investors are rotating out of high-fee, labor-intensive business models viewed as potentially vulnerable to AI-driven disruption," Keefe, Bruyette & Woods analyst Jade Rahmani wrote in a note to clients on Wednesday.

The analyst suggested the market reaction might be overblown, noting that the selloff "may overstate the immediate risk to complex deal-making, even as the long-term AI impact remains a ’wait-and-see’."

The real estate services sector joins a growing list of industries facing investor anxiety after AI startup Anthropic recently released tools aimed at automating work tasks across various professional services, including legal and financial research.

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