SAP Nears 52-Week Low After UBS Target Cut, Even as Morningstar Sees 92% Upside
Published on 07/18/2026 at 12:12 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
SAP shares ended last week at €138.50, a 1.81% drop on the day that brought the year-to-date decline to 33.53%. The stock now trades just 5.89% above its 52-week trough of €130.80, set on June 25, and sits 21.46% below its 200-day moving average. The short-term picture is equally bleak: the share price is 4.30% under the 50-day average of €144.72. That slide comes despite a flurry of positive operational developments and a gaping split among analysts over the software giant’s fair value.
Two research voices have set the tone in the quiet period leading up to SAP’s July 23 earnings release. On July 15, UBS analyst Michael Briest slashed his price target from €205 to €164, albeit keeping a “Buy” rating. His concern centers on the difficulty of monetising AI agents and a broader valuation adjustment. Just two days later, Morningstar’s Rob Hales reaffirmed his fair-value estimate of €265 and a “Buy” rating — implying more than 90% upside from current levels. Hales acknowledged that geopolitical tensions over Iran and elevated energy costs could weigh on corporate IT budgets, yet he saw the long-term thesis intact.
EU Probe Ends and Dremio Deal Closes
The regulatory overhang that had hung over SAP’s maintenance business has been lifted. On July 9, the European Commission formally closed its antitrust case into the company’s on-premise service and support practices. SAP avoided a fine but pledged to a ten-year commitment that includes dropping reactivation fees. The resolution removes one of the larger uncertainties from the stock’s risk profile.
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A week earlier, on July 6, SAP completed the acquisition of data-platform provider Dremio. The deal is folded into the company’s “Agentic AI” strategy, aimed at merging SAP’s proprietary data with third-party sources in real time. Dremio joins a string of recent purchases designed to flesh out the group’s artificial-intelligence capabilities ahead of what the market sees as a make-or-break quarter for the cloud business.
Patches and a Big Public-Sector Migration Go Live
The monthly patch cycle on July 14 brought 16 security fixes, three of them rated critical and touching NetWeaver, Commerce Cloud and AppRouter. While routine, the volume underscores how deeply SAP’s systems are embedded across corporate networks and the constant need to address vulnerabilities.
On the customer front, the University Hospital Freiburg announced on July 17 that it had successfully moved its ERP production environment to SAP S/4HANA, completing the switch on July 6. Such reference projects in the public sector are taken as evidence that the migration of legacy clients to the cloud platform is on track — a crucial driver for future software and cloud revenue.
All Eyes on the July 23 Numbers
With the quiet period dating back to June 22, management has not commented on current trading. That silence ends after the close on July 23, when SAP reports second-quarter and first-half 2026 results at 22:05 MESZ, followed by an analyst conference at 23:00. The consensus expects cloud order backlog growth of roughly 22%, a number that could tip the balance between UBS’s cautious €164 target and Morningstar’s bullish €265. Beyond the cloud metrics, investors will scrutinise the profitability of the AI investments, a theme given fresh weight by the Dremio acquisition and other recent deals. The next scheduled update is set for October 21, when third-quarter figures are due.
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