Dow’s August 2025 Disaster: These 3 Stocks Crashed Hardest While Crypto Soared

Wall Street's blue chips got left in the dust as digital assets surged—here's who took the biggest hits.

The Traditional Titans Tumble

While Bitcoin notched another 30% monthly gain and DeFi protocols printed record yields, these Dow dinosaurs bled out. No fancy blockchain upgrades or token burns here—just old-school earnings misses and guidance cuts.

The Bottom Three Bloodbath

Exactly three stocks anchored the index's decline, each failing to adapt to the algorithmic trading era. Their boards probably still think 'NFT' stands for 'No Financial Trouble.' Meanwhile, crypto natives rebalanced into liquid staking derivatives and laughed all the way to the blockchain.

Legacy Finance's Reckoning

Turns out betting against decentralized infrastructure wasn't a winning strategy. These companies spent more on compliance consultants than actual innovation—and it showed. Their shareholders would've been better off yolo-ing into meme coins.

Image source: Getty Images.

1. Microsoft: Down 5%

Shares of(MSFT 0.20%) fell 5% last month because investors booked profits after the tech stock soared to all-time highs of $555.45 on July 31, and its market capitalization briefly surpassed $4 trillion for the first time ever.

On July 31, Microsoft posted 18% revenue and 24% net income growth for its fourth quarter, driven by artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing. Its cloud computing unit Azure logged the biggest revenue jump of 39% among all products. Microsoft projects double-digit growth in revenue and operating income for fiscal year 2026 (ending June 30, 2026).

2. Caterpillar: Down 4%

Shares of(CAT 2.04%) hit all-time highs of $441.15 on July 31. But unlike Microsoft, Caterpillar's numbers sent the stock 4.3% lower in August.

Caterpillar's second-quarter revenue declined 1%, and earnings per share slumped 16% year over year on unfavorable pricing. Although the construction and mining equipment giant expects higher revenue in 2025, it sees tariffs as a significant headwind to profitability. It projects free cash FLOW from its machinery, energy, and transportation businesses to be around $7.5 billion in 2025, versus $9.4 billion last year.

3. International Business Machines: Down 3.8%

(IBM 0.06%) stock dropped sharply on July 24 after releasing Q2 numbers and continued to fall through August, losing 3.8% in the month. Ironically, IBM's revenue rose 8% year over year, and management now expects 2025 free cash Flow to exceed its guidance of $13.5 billion, driven by growth in software.

Software alone made up 43% of IBM's revenue in Q2. Last year, IBM generated $12.7 billion in FCF.

IBM shares fell because its software revenue growth missed analysts' estimates. Investors know better, though, as the tech stock has recovered 5.5% this month, as of this writing.