IBM Craters 25% as Big Blue's Pre-Announcement Rattles Markets
Andrew Horowitz and John C. Dvorak dissect IBM's worst session on record, a blockbuster bank earnings kickoff led by JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, SpaceX's full retracement toward $135, and a fully AI-generated feature film challenging Christopher Nolan's Odyssey.
Delray Beach, FL (Newsworthy.ai) Wednesday Jul 15, 2026 @ 1:30 AM EDT
DH Unplugged — DHUnplugged #810: Big Blew Up
Photo: Horowitz and Dvorak
“Today IBM stood for I'll Be Melting as Big Blue turned into Big Blue Up. IBM, new name: It's Been Murdered. IBM, I Bought Misery.”
Episode 810 of DH Unplugged, titled Big Blew Up and hosted by John C. Dvorak and Andrew Horowitz, arrives July 14, 2026, with a market tape that refused to sit still. The centerpiece is IBM's stunning pre-announcement, a roughly 25% single-session plunge that the hosts call the worst day on record for Big Blue. Alongside the IBM wreck, the episode covers a monster start to bank earnings season, SpaceX's dramatic retracement, oil's surge on renewed Middle East tension, and a fully AI-generated feature film hitting streaming.
Horowitz and Dvorak walk through the week's most consequential threads with their signature skepticism:
DH Unplugged — DHUnplugged #810: Big Blew Up
Photo: Horowitz and Dvorak
“Today IBM stood for I'll Be Melting as Big Blue turned into Big Blue Up. IBM, new name: It's Been Murdered. IBM, I Bought Misery.”
- IBM's $700 million revenue miss, adjusted EPS of $2.93 versus $3.01, and management's warning that customers are redirecting spend toward AI servers, memory, and hardware while delaying software purchases.
- Blowout bank earnings from JPMorgan ($21B net revenue, 86% jump in equities), Bank of America ($9.1B net income), Goldman Sachs ($6.6B profit, $20.98 EPS), and Citigroup (net income up 45%).
- SK Hynix's $26.5 billion NASDAQ ADR listing, oversubscribed seven times.
- President Trump's walk-back on a 20% Strait of Hormuz reimbursement fee, oil pushing $80, and a cyclosporiasis outbreak across 30 states.
The hosts open the IBM segment with a run of one-liners before turning serious. "Today IBM stood for I'll Be Melting as Big Blue turned into Big Blue Up," Horowitz quips, before pivoting to the mechanics of the sell-off. Dvorak flags the broader signal, noting the disconnect that lifted Dell 7% and Hewlett Packard Enterprise nearly 5% on the same session. Horowitz shares an anecdote from a weekend gathering with commercial real estate developers and plumbers who described stalled projects and frozen loan draws, drawing a parallel to the 2007-2008 letters-of-credit squeeze.
The conversation widens into what Horowitz dubs "cradling", his term for algorithmic rotation that props up the indices even as individual names get taken behind the woodshed. He walks through a chart of the S&P 500's best quarters since 1990, noting that April 2020 and the post-March 2009 rebound both followed massive stimulus, and that momentum has historically carried into the next quarter. On the AI front, the hosts examine Odysseus: The Fall, a 135-minute feature directed by Ash Kusha and produced by FountainO for mid-five figures, launching alongside Christopher Nolan's $250 million Odyssey starring Matt Damon. They also unpack Apple's lawsuit against OpenAI over alleged trade-secret theft involving former hardware chief Tang Tan and Chang Liu, with more than 400 ex-Apple employees now at OpenAI. Stock picks: Amazon and Micron, both long.
About DH Unplugged
DH Unplugged is a weekly investing and markets podcast hosted by columnist John C. Dvorak and money manager Andrew Horowitz. Casual, unrehearsed, and skeptical, the show blends Federal Reserve analysis, earnings deep dives, commodities, and offbeat cultural commentary for engaged retail investors. Episode 810 is available now at dhunplugged.com and on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What triggered IBM's 25% plunge in Episode 810?
- IBM issued a pre-announcement ahead of its formal earnings, reporting preliminary revenue of $17.2 billion, roughly a $700 million miss, with adjusted EPS projected at $2.93 versus $3.01 expected. Management said customers were redirecting spending toward AI servers, memory, and hardware while delaying software purchases. Horowitz and Dvorak note pre-announcements typically signal deeper issues, and the session was IBM's worst on record.
- What does Horowitz mean by 'cradling' the markets?
- Cradling is Horowitz's new term for algorithmic maneuvering that props up major indices even when a heavyweight component like IBM gets crushed. He argues programs rotate money into other names to keep the Dow and S&P from breaking down, which is why the Dow didn't fall 400 points despite IBM's 25% drop erasing roughly 400 index points on its own.
- How did the big banks perform in the quarter?
- JPMorgan posted $21 billion in net revenue with an 86% jump in equities revenue. Bank of America earned $9.1 billion in net income with investment banking fees up 50%. Goldman Sachs reported $6.6 billion in profit, or $20.98 per share versus $14.48 prior, with the stock up 9% to $1,140. Citigroup's net income jumped 45% to $5.8 billion.
- What is SK Hynix's ADR listing and why does it matter?
- SK Hynix raised approximately $26.5 billion through a NASDAQ American Depository Receipt listing, priced at $149 and oversubscribed seven times, finishing about 13% higher on debut before pulling back. The hosts suggest Samsung may follow with its own U.S. listing, giving American investors easier access to Korean tech names driving high-bandwidth memory demand for Nvidia.
- What happened with the Strait of Hormuz and oil prices?
- President Trump walked back a proposed 20% U.S. reimbursement fee on Hormuz traffic, replacing it with trade and investment deals from Gulf states while maintaining a blockade only on Iranian-port ships. Horowitz notes AIS tracking data shows traffic still at about 20% of prior levels. Oil jumped roughly 9% one day and 2% the next, pushing near $80.
- What are the hosts' stock picks this week?
- Dvorak added Amazon long, arguing it is underpriced given strong retail purchase data and Amazon's exposure across retail, cloud, AI, medical, and delivery. He also added Micron long as a buy-the-dip play following a pullback, though he admitted he does not personally love the name. Both are tracked on the show's ongoing game at dhunplugged.com.
- What is Odysseus: The Fall and why are the hosts discussing it?
- Odysseus: The Fall is a 135-minute fully AI-generated feature directed by Ash Kusha and produced by FountainO for mid-five figures, releasing this summer at $9.99 rental alongside Christopher Nolan's $250 million live-action Odyssey with Matt Damon. The hosts see it as a potential inflection point for Netflix and content economics, comparing AI generation to established CGI techniques used in films like Titanic.
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