A six-month-old video just moved $24 billion in market value.
Trump's praise for IBM's CEO isn't news. But after the clip resurfaced on X over the weekend, IBM shares spiked nearly 9% by Monday morning.
Back in December, Trump called IBM CEO Arvind Krishna a "legend" at a White House event, and the market barely blinked at the time.
Then it started spreading again. Dozens of accounts on X reposted the clip over the weekend, with one Saturday post from Polymarket Money alone racking up more than 700,000 views.
The renewed attention caught traders' eyes just as IBM's existing rally was peaking, turning a stale soundbite into fresh ammunition for the bid.
On Robinhood's 24 Hour Market, IBM started ticking up Sunday night before spiking as high as 8.7% Monday morning and settling closer to 3.8%.
At the peak, that move added more than $24 billion to the company's market value - with no new deal or earnings beat behind it, just an old clip making the rounds.
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Traders have started treating Trump's company name-drops as their own signal to buy.
"It's not hard. Invest in what Trump talks about, make money, rinse and repeat," said Matthew Tuttle of Tuttle Capital Management, adding that it "doesn't take much these days to get the animal spirits flowing."
Intel had its own moment in August after Trump weighed in on its CEO, and Dell jumped weeks later when Trump praised founder Michael Dell and pushed Americans to buy his computers. Even his posts about the war in Iran have moved the broader market.
The IBM move just takes the pattern one step further, with the comment not even needing to be recent anymore.
IBM wasn't a random pick. The stock was already ripping - up almost 40% in just over two weeks heading into the weekend.
The fuel: A $1 billion deal with the Trump administration to build a quantum computing chip foundry, a deal that set the government up to receive a minority equity stake, plus the broader AI trade pulling every tech name higher.
The stock had already broken a key resistance level last week, setting up the kind of breakout that draws in momentum traders and trend-following funds.
Once a stock gets that kind of momentum, the algorithms pile on. "Whenever a stock gains some strong upside momentum in today's markets, the momentum-based algos turbocharge that move," said Matt Maley of Miller Tabak, adding that traders "were looking for reasons to take it even higher."
The old Trump clip gave them one.
This is what the AI trade looks like in 2026. Stocks don't need new news - they just need an excuse.
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