SAP's Rally Builds on Twin Tailwinds: Antitrust All-Clear Meets a Cloud Backlog That Won't Quit
Published on 08/04/2026 at 08:21 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The software giant's shareholders have spent the past month watching a steady recovery take shape, and Tuesday brought fresh reasons to believe the move has legs. Germany's Federal Cartel Office confirmed it will not open an abuse-of-process investigation into SAP, closing a regulatory chapter that had hovered over the stock without ever really weighing on it. The decision lands at a moment when the company's cloud metrics are doing the heavy lifting on the fundamental side, giving the rally a foundation that extends beyond sentiment.
The Cartel Office Closes the Door
Following preliminary inquiries, the competition authority said it found no evidence that SAP is obstructing rivals such as process-mining specialist Celonis. That means no formal proceedings will be initiated, a conclusion SAP welcomed. For investors, the development removes a lingering question mark — albeit one that had done little to dent the share price even while it remained open.
The timing proved fortuitous. The all-clear arrived as German equities enjoyed one of their more buoyant sessions in recent memory. On Monday, hopes of a thaw between the US and Iran propelled the DAX above the 26,000-point threshold for the first time, with the benchmark closing 1.45 percent higher. SAP was among the index's principal supports, alongside Deutsche Telekom, and in the process touched its highest level since early June.
Cloud Numbers Tell a Story of Momentum — and a Margin Caveat
The share price, however, is not the only metric moving in the right direction. SAP's second-quarter cloud revenue climbed 24 percent to 6.28 billion euros, while the cloud backlog — the pool of contractually secured future revenue — swelled 27 percent to 22.9 billion euros. The margin-rich cloud ERP segment grew even faster, at 27 percent. CEO Christian Klein pointed to the partner ecosystem as a key growth driver and noted that artificial intelligence now features in more than 90 percent of the company's 50 largest deals — evidence, he suggests, that AI is translating into tangible revenue rather than remaining a product talking point.
Yet the quarter carried a caveat that complicates the bullish narrative. SAP trimmed its full-year operating profit guidance to a range of 11.8 to 12.2 billion euros, a sobering adjustment for a company whose valuation rests heavily on expectations of margin expansion in the cloud business. The revenue engine is clearly intact; the earnings trajectory is now a subject of debate. The company still targets roughly 30 billion dollars in cloud revenue for the year, implying growth of up to 25 percent — a signal that management intends to hold its pace even in a tougher enterprise-software environment.
Analysts Split on What It All Means
That tension has produced an unusually wide spread of analyst opinions. Goldman Sachs lowered its price target from 230 to 215 euros but maintained a buy rating, arguing the reduced profit outlook is already reflected in the share price and that the long-term cloud opportunity remains undiminished. Bernstein sits at the optimistic end with a 273-euro target, while the DZ Bank's 120-euro objective marks the opposite pole, signaling substantial skepticism about the current valuation. The stock trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of roughly 22 for 2026 — a multiple that looks fair or ambitious depending on which scenario one subscribes to.
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A Rally That Hasn't Yet Reclaimed the Trend
The market's immediate response has favored the growth side of the ledger. On Xetra, SAP closed Monday at 165.00 euros, up 3.59 percent on the day. Over the past 30 days, the shares have gained 17.32 percent — a decisive rebound after a difficult stretch earlier in the year. The relative strength index now sits at 67.6, suggesting the recovery is approaching technically overbought territory and raising the question of whether the move has room to extend or needs to consolidate first.
Chart watchers will note that the stock remains roughly 5.4 percent below its 200-day moving average. The rally has reclaimed meaningful ground, but the long-term trendline — the technical marker that often separates a genuine reversal from a bear-market bounce — has yet to be retaken. Whether the recovery sustains itself may hinge on how the market digests the lowered profit guidance in the weeks ahead. With analyst targets spanning from 120 to 273 euros, the answer to that question is anything but unanimous.
