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ServiceNow Insiders Buy as Wall Street Panics Over an AI SaaSpocalypse
Submitted by Jeffrey Neal Johnson. Published: 2/17/2026.
Key Points
- Executives demonstrate strong confidence in the company's future by canceling automated selling plans and buying shares on the open market.
- The company pivots to become the essential control tower that manages and secures autonomous artificial intelligence agents for global enterprises.
- Strong cash flow generation and a massive share repurchase program highlight the underlying financial durability of the business model during this transition.
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The "SaaSpocalypse" narrative has gripped Wall Street, dragging the software and tech sector down roughly 22% this year. The fear driving this sell-off is simple and powerful: artificial intelligence (AI) agents will automate white-collar work so effectively that businesses will no longer need to buy software licenses for human employees.
If an AI can do the job of three analysts, why pay for three software seats? That logic has pushed investors to dump shares of companies from Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) to Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE), fearing their business models will evaporate.
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But while trading algorithms sell on fear, insiders at ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW) are buying with conviction.
In mid-February, ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott made a $3 million open-market purchase of his company's stock. Even more significant, key members of the executive team, including the CFO and Chief People Officer, simultaneously terminated their automated 10b5-1 trading plans.
While the market panics about an AI future without software, ServiceNow's leadership is betting with personal capital that the company is not a victim of AI, but its master.
Why Insiders Just Killed the Autopilot
To grasp the weight of this move, investors must look past the headline purchase and focus on the legal mechanics. Most corporate executives use 10b5-1 plans to sell stock — automated schedules set up months in advance (for example, sell 1,000 shares on the first of every month).
Executives use these plans for valid personal reasons: they are paid largely in stock and need to sell shares to diversify personal wealth or pay taxes. These plans protect executives from accusations of insider trading by putting their sales on autopilot, regardless of whether the company's share price is high or low.
Terminating these plans early is rare and legally complex. It often triggers cooling-off periods that prevent executives from setting up new sales plans for months. By canceling those plans now, ServiceNow's C-suite has effectively removed a steady stream of automatic selling pressure from the market. They are signaling that they view the stock — trading near $105, roughly 55% below its highs — as so undervalued they are unwilling to sell shares.
It's akin to a corporate put option: management is creating a floor under the stock. Analysts at firms such as Evercore ISI have flagged this as a deliberate vote of confidence. When a whole management team stops selling and starts buying during a market sell-off, it often marks a psychological and financial bottom for the shares.
The AI Control Tower Defense Strategy
The market's fear centers on seat compression — the idea that AI will shrink headcounts and therefore reduce software subscriptions. ServiceNow's counterargument is different: the company is not just selling tools for humans but the governance layer for AI agents.
As enterprises deploy billions of autonomous agents, IT environments will become far more complex. These digital workers must be secured, audited and managed; they need clear rules about what data they can access and what actions they can take. ServiceNow calls this approach the AI Control Tower.
That strategy helps explain the company's aggressive, and sometimes controversial, mergers and acquisitions (M&A).
- Armis ($7.75 billion): This acquisition secures the operational technology (OT) segment — physical assets such as factory robots, HVAC systems and medical devices that AI agents will increasingly interact with.
- Moveworks ($2.85 billion): This deal brings a sophisticated conversational interface that serves as the front door for employees to command these agents.
Critics argue these deals dilute shareholder value and add integration risk. But the insider buying suggests leadership views these assets as essential infrastructure. They're betting that as the business world grows more automated, a centralized, secure platform like ServiceNow will become more valuable. This isn't a bet on a legacy software company; it's a bet on the governance and regulatory infrastructure of the AI economy.
The Double Down: Buybacks and Margins
There's a stark gap between ServiceNow's stock chart, which looks like a crisis, and its financial statements, which look like a boom. While the share price has plunged, the underlying business is accelerating.
In the fourth quarter, subscription revenue grew 21% year over year to $3.47 billion. Even more notable was the company's efficiency: free cash flow (FCF) margins reached about 57%. That performance puts ServiceNow above a "Rule of 50" benchmark — in software investing, the Rule of 40 (growth rate + profit margin) is the usual standard; exceeding 50 suggests especially strong growth-plus-margin economics.
The board has acknowledged the disconnect between price and performance by authorizing a new $5 billion share repurchase program — and then immediately triggering a $2 billion Accelerated Share Repurchase (ASR).
That distinction matters. An authorization is a promise; an ASR is immediate execution. The company is aggressively buying its stock at discounted levels, which mechanically boosts earnings per share because there are fewer shares outstanding.
From a valuation perspective, the math looks compelling. The stock is trading in the $100–$107 range while the median analyst price target sits at $192. This implies a potential upside of nearly 80% if sentiment normalizes. Investors are pricing ServiceNow as if growth will evaporate, even though the company's guidance calls for about 20% revenue growth in 2026.
The Binary Bet
Investors now face a binary choice. One path accepts the SaaSpocalypse thesis: AI will render enterprise software obsolete faster than companies can adapt, turning giants into value traps. The other path trusts the hard financial data: accelerating revenue, massive cash-flow margins and aggressive buying by people who know the business best.
Bill McDermott, the former CEO of SAP and now the leader of ServiceNow, has a record of making bold calls that have often paid off. Betting against him when he invests his own money has historically been costly. The simultaneous cancellation of executive sales plans and the $3 million insider purchase suggest a likely bottom. For investors willing to look past the panic headlines, ServiceNow presents a rare chance to buy a market leader at crisis prices. Insiders have placed their bets; now the market must decide whether to follow.
Gold and Silver Pulled Back—Here's Why the Bull Case Is Intact
Submitted by Chris Markoch. Published: 2/22/2026.
Key Points
- Gold and silver prices have stabilized after a pullback, reinforcing the longer-term bullish supply-demand imbalance.
- Mining stocks are entering the next phase of the metals cycle, offering leveraged upside to rising commodity prices.
- Kinross Gold, Hecla Mining, and Pan American Silver combine strong earnings momentum with improving balance sheets and production growth.
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What goes up must come down. That's the overly simplistic explanation for what happened to precious-metal prices in early February. Gold and silver hit all-time highs amid a growing supply-demand imbalance.
After a sharp pullback, however, prices stabilized.
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What comes next? Predicting timing is a fool's errand, but the likely direction for both metals is higher. That means it's not too late to buy into basic materials stocks, particularly precious-metals names. This trade could be profitable for years to come.
Gold and Silver Have Similar Yet Different Bull Cases
Both gold and silver share strong demand and constrained supply: they're limited and hard to extract. Each metal, however, offers investors distinct reasons to buy.
For gold, a key point is that central banks continue to increase their holdings. That trend is bearish for the U.S. dollar, and because gold and the dollar have an inverse relationship, it's bullish for gold prices. Lower interest rates would add further support for the metal by putting additional pressure on the dollar.
Silver's case overlaps with gold's but adds an industrial dimension. Silver is critical for multiple industrial applications, including some in the defense sector; geopolitical risks such as a potential conflict with Iran would likely heighten demand. Given silver's similar supply-demand imbalance, it's easy to see a path for silver to reclaim—and potentially surpass—recent highs.
The Next Phase of the Trade Is Here
In 2025, demand for physical gold and silver surged, and by year-end mining stocks began to participate in a catch-up trade.
Where that trade goes from here depends on how investors view the physical-metals cycle. Many analysts still forecast gold reaching $10,000 by the end of the decade, with similarly bullish outlooks for silver.
That suggests we may only be in the first quarter of a multi-quarter cycle. If so, mining stocks could still be warming up, which helps explain why capital is starting to flow into the sector. Here are three names that reported earnings the week of Feb. 16.
Kinross Gold Offers Scale, Cash Flow and Balance Sheet Strength
Kinross Gold Corp. (NYSE: KGC) is emerging as a relatively clean way to play the gold bull, pairing rising production with a materially stronger balance sheet.
In the company's Q4 2025 earnings report, Kinross reported revenue of roughly $2 billion and nearly tripled net earnings year-over-year, with adjusted EPS of about $0.67—both driven by higher realized gold prices and solid cost control.
Full-year production of just over 2 million gold-equivalent ounces met guidance, while free cash flow reached record levels. That allowed Kinross to move into a net-cash position and resume capital returns. Management is guiding to a stable ~2 million-ounce output through 2028, giving investors leveraged upside to higher gold prices with visible volume and cash flow.
As of this writing, KGC is up about 195% over the past 12 months and 18.8% year-to-date in 2026, supported by institutional buying. The rally has pushed the stock near its 52-week high and close to the consensus price target of $34.81. Several analysts raised their targets ahead of earnings, including the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, which set a $54 target.
Hecla Mining Provides High-Beta Exposure to Silver's Upside
Hecla Mining (NYSE: HL) offers high-beta exposure to both silver and gold, and its earnings report shows that operating leverage to higher metal prices is materializing. For 2025, Hecla generated record revenue of roughly $1.4 billion and net income of $321 million, while adjusted EBITDA surged to a record $670 million as silver prices and production rose.
Though Hecla mines both metals, it's increasingly concentrated in silver. In the quarter the company produced about 17 million ounces of silver, at the high end of guidance.
Hecla also reduced total debt to roughly $276 million and increased its cash balance to about $242 million, improving its financial flexibility heading into what could be a multi-year silver upcycle.
HL is up more than 323% over the last 12 months and trades above its consensus price target of $21.63. The stock is down about 14% over the last 30 days, which may reflect some institutional rebalancing after the prior quarter's rally.
Pan American Silver Is Positioned for Production-Driven Growth
Pan American Silver (NYSE: PAAS) is one of the world's largest primary silver producers. In the fourth quarter, the company reported record revenue of roughly $1.18 billion and record net earnings of $452 million, with adjusted EPS of $1.11—comfortably above expectations.
Quarterly attributable production reached 7.3 million ounces of silver and nearly 198,000 ounces of gold, aided by a strong performance at the Juanicipio mine, which contributed about 2.5 million ounces of silver. With full-year free cash flow above $1.1 billion and management guiding to double-digit silver production growth in 2026, Pan American is well positioned to compound cash returns if silver continues to grind higher.
PAAS is up about 152% over the past 12 months and roughly 56.9% over the last three months, reflecting its primary focus on silver. The stock trades above its consensus price target of $56.60, and like Kinross, several analysts issued bullish targets ahead of the Feb. 18 earnings report.
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