Welcome to closing bell. I'm Leslie Picker in for Scott Wapner. Today, live from Post 9 here at the New York Stock Exchange. This make or break hour begins with here's swirling around AI disruption and if investors are throwing in the tech towel. Let's get straight to the scorecard. A mixed picture for the majors with the NASDAQ, really the big laggard here, but well off the lows of the day. Software

and semis remain the story. Shares of AMD weighing heavily on the broader market, having

their worst day in nearly nine years. The CEO defending the company's results exclusively

to CNBC will have a special report on that in just a moment. Software stocks again facing

pressure, Oracle and CrowdStrike and extending their losses. The IGV heading for its seventh

straight down day. And that, of course, takes us to our talk of the tape. And just how real is this

AI interruption? Is this selling overblown? Investors are looking for some clarity

pivoting their attention to alphabet, which reports results in just under an hour from now. We will have

more on that in a moment, but first we want to get straight to Simomodi on the huge moves we've seen

in the software space recently. Seema. And Leslie hedge funds are increasingly shorting their bets against software stocks.

That's according to the conversation we had with two prominent funds today.

The latest data from S3 partners does show about a $24 billion windfall so far in software stocks this year.

The hedge fund sources wouldn't comment on specific names, but it does speak to the speed at which these stocks have been falling and the momentum that we've been seeing to the downside.

Speaking of, that today's biggest losers take a look at App Loven.

Palantir, giving back the big gains it saw yesterday tied to its strong earnings report and Intap down about 17% just today.

There are some names that are bouncing back, Adobe Workday, Ring Central, looking to sort of claw back some of the losses from earlier in the week.

This as we count down to earnings from Atlassian and Fortinette, Leslie, these are two midcap names and software that, once again, their CEOs will be in the spotlight to answer questions on how

they're fending off competition from these disruptive tools that are being revealed.

Seema, when you look for comments from CEOs that are trying to kind of defend their position

in the software space right now, are there any messages that are actually getting through to the

market? Because it does feel like there's just this kind of broad-based selling in the sector. And I'm just curious if there are any defenses that are actually working in the current environment. That's a great point. So far, the message from CEOs is one of strength. You're not seeing any attrition from companies like ServiceNow or others that are reporting better than expected numbers. I would say the guide has

been a bit more conservative. So that is something that we're going to look for in the coming days,

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