SAP's Shares Find Their Footing After a Turbulent Year, but the Margin Question Refuses to Go Away
Published on 08/01/2026 at 12:21 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The past week has delivered a rare stretch of good news for a company that has spent much of 2026 in the penalty box. Germany's Federal Cartel Office has dropped its preliminary probe into allegations that SAP abused its market power in data access, a complaint originally brought by competitor Celonis. The regulator said it found no evidence that SAP was obstructing third-party providers. The decision, announced on 31 July, removes a regulatory overhang that had weighed on the stock for months.
Investors responded in kind. The shares closed Friday at €159.40, up 1.65 percent on the day and roughly 13.45 percent higher over the course of a single week. That rally has lifted the stock about 25 percent above its 52-week low of €127.52, a level touched only on 23 July. Yet the longer-term picture remains sobering: the shares are still down 23.91 percent since the start of the year and 36.66 percent over the past twelve months, with the 52-week high of €258.60 from 31 July 2025 still a distant 38.36 percent away.
A Cluster of Catalysts
The regulatory reprieve was hardly the only development. SAP has launched the second tranche of its 2026 share buyback programme, committing to repurchase up to €2.6 billion of its own stock by 27 January 2027. Chief executive Christian Klein has put his money where his mouth is, buying shares worth €325,218.90, while the Tschira family has expanded its voting influence from 0.57 percent to 4.22 percent through voting agreements. Together, these moves signal confidence from those closest to the company — and a stable anchor shareholder in the Tschira family.
The numbers from the most recent quarterly report, published on 23 July, provide the fundamental backdrop. Cloud revenue grew 22 percent to €6.22 billion, total revenue rose 9 percent to €9.88 billion, and the current cloud backlog — a key forward-looking indicator — jumped 27 percent to €22.9 billion. That backlog suggests demand that will translate into revenue in coming quarters.
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The Cloud Growth Versus Margin Squeeze Debate
But here is the tension that has analysts split. SAP simultaneously lowered its guidance for adjusted operating profit in 2026 to a range of €11.8 billion to €12.2 billion, having previously signalled as much as €12.3 billion. The company attributes the revision to dilution effects from its recent acquisitions of Dremio and Prior Labs. The latter brings tabular foundation models to SAP's portfolio, an area where the company is investing more than €1 billion over four years.
The bull case rests on the idea that this is a temporary integration cost, not a structural problem. Jefferies analyst Charles Brennan reaffirmed his "Buy" rating with a €210 price target on 28 July, citing management conversations that pointed to strategic progress on the AI front. Goldman Sachs, Berenberg and Deutsche Bank all reiterated their buy recommendations on 27 July with price targets ranging from €200 to €215.
The bear case is equally coherent. Barclays trimmed its price target from €255 to €220 on 28 July, maintaining its "Overweight" rating but flagging short-term cost uncertainty. The DZ Bank is far more blunt: it cut its fair value from €130 to €120 on 24 July and holds a "Sell" rating — a target that sits well below the current share price. The elevated annualised 30-day volatility of 49.19 percent, unusually high for a DAX constituent, suggests the recent rally may be driven more by short-covering than by a broad fundamental re-rating.
The Chart Levels That Matter
Technically, the stock sits roughly 10.32 percent above its 50-day moving average of €144.49, a sign of short-term upward momentum. The next major hurdle is the 200-day moving average at €174.67, a level the shares currently trail by about 8.74 percent. The relative strength index stands at 64.1 — elevated but not yet overbought, leaving room for further upside on a purely technical basis.
The political environment may also provide tailwinds. Digital minister Karsten Wildberger renewed his call on 1 August for decisive action on a European high-performance AI model to reduce technological dependencies. As Europe's largest software company, SAP could play a central role in such a "Euro-AI" ecosystem. The economics ministry's July report sketching a stabilisation of the German economy would also support IT investment among mid-sized enterprises.
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The competitive threat, however, is real. While Europe debates its own frontier model, international players have already established formidable positions. Anthropic's "Mythos" and the Chinese startup Moonshot AI's "Kimi K3" are AI solutions that reach deep into software architectures — a reminder that SAP's window to assert European leadership is not unlimited.
Two Scenarios, One Date
The near-term path is reasonably clear. If the shares hold above the 50-day average of €144.49, the route toward the 200-day line at €174.67 remains open, with the €160 level as the first test on a daily closing basis. A decisive break below €144.49, however, would put the recent low of €127.52 back in play.
The fundamental question is whether the 27 percent cloud backlog growth can more than offset the margin dilution from Dremio and Prior Labs — or whether the July guidance cut was merely the opening act of a longer period of rising integration costs. The next concrete checkpoint comes on 21 October 2026, when SAP reports third-quarter results. Until then, the market's verdict on whether this recovery has legs will be written in the charts, one trading day at a time.
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