SAP Shrugs Off Regulatory Cloud as Buyback Machine and Cloud Backlog Fuel a 29% Run
Published on 08/10/2026 at 16:32 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The software giant has spent the past week clearing its decks. Germany's Federal Cartel Office closed its preliminary probe into SAP without launching a formal abuse proceeding, while the company simultaneously confirmed it is pressing ahead with its multi-billion-euro share repurchase program. The twin developments land at a moment when the stock has already staged a formidable comeback from its yearly low.
A Technical Tightrope
Shares changed hands at 178.30 euros on Monday, essentially flat on the day. The real story sits in the rearview mirror: the equity has surged 28.92 percent over the past month. That blistering pace has pushed the 14-day Relative Strength Index to 74.5, firmly into overbought territory. While the uptrend from the yearly trough remains intact, momentum may be running out of road in the near term. The stock still sits in negative territory for the year to date, meaning the recent rebound has yet to fully erase earlier losses.
Friday's session captured the mood well: SAP closed at 178.46 euros, up 3.35 percent on the day, extending the 30-day gain to 29.04 percent. The RSI reading of 74.8 underscores the same technical caution.
The Buyback Engine
Between July 27 and 31, SAP repurchased roughly 2.18 million of its own shares via Xetra for approximately 344.3 million euros, at a daily weighted average price of 157.62 euros per share. That brings the total bought back under the current program to 2,184,430 shares. The purchases form part of the second tranche of a buyback scheme announced in January, with an overall volume of up to 10 billion euros running through the end of 2027. This particular tranche, which commenced on July 27, targets share purchases worth up to 2.6 billion euros by January 27, 2027.
Adding to the shareholder-friendly signals, SAP disclosed a director's deal on July 27 involving a share purchase by CFO Dominik Asam — a move investors often read as a vote of confidence from inside the executive suite.
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Cloud Momentum and AI Ambitions
The operational engine behind the share price recovery is firing on multiple cylinders. SAP's cloud backlog expanded 27 percent to 22.9 billion euros in the second quarter, with cloud revenue climbing 22 percent and the cloud ERP segment advancing 25 percent. On a currency-adjusted basis, the backlog rose 26 percent, reflecting a broader shift as enterprises migrate critical finance, procurement, and HR systems onto platforms that can serve as foundations for AI applications.
The company has guided for adjusted operating profit between 11.8 and 12.2 billion euros in 2026, providing the fundamental scaffolding for expectations that its AI-driven cloud transformation will continue to accelerate.
CEO Christian Klein acknowledged the pressure to move faster on AI products in a recent interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung. The comments come as SAP bolsters its capabilities through acquisitions — most notably the purchase of data specialist Dremio and AI firm Prior Labs, the latter completed on July 17.
Regulatory All-Clear
The Cartel Office's decision on July 30 to close its preliminary investigation removes a layer of regulatory uncertainty that had been weighing on the valuation. The probe had been triggered by complaints from software companies, including Munich-based Celonis SE, which accused SAP of hindering customers and third-party providers from using data and of giving its own process-mining software Signavio an unfair advantage.
Cartel office president Andreas Mundt stressed, per Reuters, that companies must generally be able to use their own data in applications from other providers, and that non-discriminatory data access is crucial for functioning competition on large software platforms. The underlying legal dispute between SAP and Celonis continues in a California court, but the antitrust authority's decision frees SAP from an additional regulatory overhang in its home market.
A Divided Analyst Camp
The market's view on SAP's cloud potential remains far from unanimous. After the half-year results on July 23, several analysts adjusted their targets on July 27. Goldman Sachs trimmed its price objective from 230 to 215 euros but maintained a "Buy" rating, with analyst Mohammed Moawalla citing the robust cloud subscription base and a strong product pipeline. Berenberg lowered its target from 215 to 205 euros while keeping its buy recommendation.
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The broader consensus shows six analysts at Buy, one at Hold, and one at Sell. The average price target stands at 198.43 euros. Goldman's 215-euro target marks the optimistic end of the spectrum, while the DZ Bank's 120-euro objective represents a notable outlier to the downside.
Reuters has placed SAP's trajectory in a wider industry context, noting that the company — alongside Capgemini, Sopra Steria, and OVHcloud — is seeing stronger demand as businesses move from merely experimenting with AI to deploying it broadly in production environments. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung has highlighted SAP and Atoss Software as beneficiaries of the AI wave within the HDAX, with both gaining roughly 20 percent since mid-July, even as Siemens Energy and Infineon delivered mixed quarterly results over the same stretch.
What Investors Should Watch
The combination of regulatory relief, robust cloud metrics, and sustained buyback activity explains the recent share price recovery. Yet the overbought technical signals argue for measured expectations: after a near-29 percent monthly advance, the scope for further rapid gains looks more limited in the immediate term.
The wide gap between the most bullish and most bearish analyst targets underscores that the market has yet to reach a settled view on SAP's cloud potential. For now, the cloud backlog remains the single most important metric to track — the next quarterly figures, expected around October 21, will show whether the accelerated cloud growth can carry into the second half of the year.
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