SoftBank shares fall 20% in a week, losing top value status in Japan

The AI-fueled rally that crowned SoftBank as Japan's most valuable company lasted barely a week before a brutal tech sell-off wiped nearly $50 billion from its market cap.

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Add us on Google by Editorial Team Jun. 10, 2026

It took SoftBank years of aggressive AI bets to overtake Toyota as Japan’s most valuable company. It took about a week to lose that crown.

Shares in SoftBank Group plunged roughly 20% over the course of a week in early June 2026, erasing close to $50 billion, or 5 trillion yen, in market capitalization. The collapse came just days after the company reached a historic milestone.

From record highs to a brutal reversal

On or around June 1, SoftBank’s shares surged 14% in a single session, propelling the firm past Toyota to claim the title of Japan’s most valuable public company. At its peak, SoftBank’s market cap exceeded 48 trillion yen, driven largely by investor enthusiasm for its massive AI portfolio.

Before the sell-off, the stock had climbed roughly 90% year-to-date in 2026.

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On one particularly rough Friday session, shares dropped 8%. Intraday declines on certain days hit 10-11%.

The sell-off wasn’t unique to SoftBank. A broader rout in global technology stocks, particularly those linked to artificial intelligence, dragged down AI-adjacent names across markets. But SoftBank’s outsized exposure to the sector meant it absorbed more punishment than most.

The AI concentration problem

SoftBank holds significant stakes in Arm, the chip designer whose architecture powers most of the world’s smartphones and increasingly its AI infrastructure. It also has deep ties to OpenAI through various partnerships.

CEO Masayoshi Son framed the market correction as a potential buying opportunity.

The crypto exit and what it signals

Adding another layer to SoftBank’s strategic repositioning, the company divested its approximately 26% stake in Twenty One Capital, a Bitcoin-focused treasury firm, to Tether for roughly $679 million in May 2026.

The sale to Tether is also notable for what it says about the stablecoin issuer’s appetite for Bitcoin exposure. Tether picking up a 26% stake in a Bitcoin treasury firm for $679 million suggests the company is comfortable deploying its reserves into crypto-native vehicles.

What this means for investors

The 20% weekly decline puts SoftBank in a tricky spot. At 90% year-to-date gains before the sell-off, the stock had already priced in an enormous amount of optimism about AI’s commercial trajectory.

The loss of Japan’s most-valuable-company status is symbolic but not trivial. Toyota reclaiming the top spot reinforces a market narrative that old-economy industrial giants with diversified revenue streams offer more stability than tech-forward holding companies riding a single macro theme.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.