SAP's Two-Front Battle: Regulatory All-Clear Meets a Cloud-Powered Comeback
Published on 08/02/2026 at 11:02 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The German software giant has spent the past week fighting on two fronts — one legal, one financial — and emerged with a win on both. But the bigger question of whether the shares can reclaim their former glory remains very much open.
SAP's stock closed Friday at €159.40, up 1.65 percent on the day and a hefty 13.45 percent higher over the past 30 trading sessions. The rally, sparked by the company's second-quarter earnings release on July 23, has been fueled by robust cloud growth that has overshadowed a trimmed profit outlook. Yet even after this surge, the shares still sit roughly 38 percent below the all-time high of €258.60 touched in late July 2025.
A Regulatory Cloud Lifts
Adding to the positive momentum, Germany's Federal Cartel Office has closed its preliminary investigation into SAP without launching formal proceedings. The antitrust authority had been examining allegations — raised by rival Celonis — that the company was abusing its market power in data access. For SAP, the outcome removes a legal overhang at a moment when investors are already scrutinizing the company's strategic direction.
The Numbers Behind the Rebound
The market's enthusiasm traces directly to the Q2 figures. Cloud revenue climbed 24 percent on a currency-adjusted basis to €6.28 billion, while the current cloud backlog — contracted revenue for the next twelve months — expanded 26 percent to €22.9 billion. IFRS earnings per share jumped to €1.89 from €1.46 a year earlier.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying SAP?
Management, however, trimmed its 2026 operating profit guidance to a range of €11.8 billion to €12.2 billion on a non-IFRS basis, down from a previous ceiling of €12.3 billion. The stated reason: dilution from the acquisitions of US data platform Dremio and AI startup Prior Labs, both completed in July. The deals, announced on July 17, are meant to bolster SAP's "Business AI" platform but are weighing on margins in the near term. The integration costs are expected to run into the hundreds of millions of euros.
Research spending rose 14 percent and administrative costs climbed 12 percent, underscoring the margin pressure even as the cloud engine hums along. The cloud ERP suite, a key growth driver tied to the S/4HANA migration and the "Rise with SAP" program, grew 27 percent.
Buybacks and Insider Confidence
The company is also returning capital to shareholders. The second tranche of its buyback program, launched in 2026, authorizes the repurchase of up to €2.6 billion worth of shares through January 2027. The program's total volume stands at €10 billion.
Insiders have been putting their money where their mouths are, too. Between July 17 and 24, executives reported twelve insider purchases totaling roughly €3.22 million, including buys by CFO Dominik Asam. Meanwhile, major shareholder Harald Tschira increased his voting stake from 0.57 percent to 4.22 percent through voting agreements with Udo Tschira, according to a voting rights notification dated July 31.
Analysts Split on Valuation
Wall Street's reaction to the quarterly numbers has been far from uniform. Goldman Sachs reaffirmed SAP on its "Conviction Buy List" with a €215 price target on July 27. That same day, JPMorgan's Toby Ogg settled on a "Neutral" rating with a €175 target, praising the strong cloud backlog but cautioning that additional spending could be needed if anticipated AI revenues fail to materialize.
Other firms have staked out positions across a wide spectrum. Barclays trimmed its target to €220 in late July, UBS cut more aggressively to €164, while Jefferies, Deutsche Bank, and Berenberg all held onto buy recommendations with targets between €200 and €210. The dispersion reflects genuine disagreement over how to weigh cloud growth against margin dilution and acquisition costs.
SAP at a turning point? This analysis reveals what investors need to know now.
The Chart Says: Not Out of the Woods Yet
Technically, the recovery still faces significant hurdles. The stock remains 8.74 percent below its 200-day moving average at €174.67, and a full 38.36 percent off the 52-week high. The relative strength index at 64.1 suggests momentum is building without the stock being overbought.
The key level to watch is the 50-day average at €144.49. Holding above that keeps the short-term picture constructive and opens the door to a test of the 200-day line. A break below, however, could send the shares back toward the July low of €127.52. With annualized volatility running at 49.19 percent, the ride could get bumpy.
There are no major corporate events scheduled for the coming week, leaving the charts to do the talking. The next fundamental checkpoint arrives October 21, when SAP reports third-quarter results. Between now and then, the question is whether institutional investors view the roughly 24 percent year-to-date decline as an entry point into the AI trade — or whether the recovery stalls before it ever reaches the trendline that matters.
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