ServiceNow trades at $145.33, nearly 20% below a year ago, even though its AI business has passed $1 billion in annual contract value. The average analyst target of $152.23 implies 4.7% upside, while Bernstein's Peter Weed has an Outperform rating and a $248 target, implying 70.6% upside. The stock fell from a 52-week high of $192.97 to a low of $81.24 as fears that AI agents would erode seat-based software hit the group, and second-quarter operating income dropped 54.75% to $162M. In the latest quarter, revenue rose 24.0% to $3.987B and EPS of $0.90 beat the $0.86 consensus. The author leans bullish but considers the consensus target a more realistic 12-month marker than the 70% call.
Summary written by Upside AI from the original article. Read the source for full details.
Read the original on Yahoo Finance ↗
Keywords
NOWsoftwareartificial intelligenceearnings
Open a keyword to see other news on the same topic.
Related news
- Can ServiceNow (NOW) Keep Growing at This Size?
ServiceNow (NYSE:NOW) closed at $145.36 on October 19 and has returned 45.77% over six months. Its annual revenue runs at $14.73 billion and grew 24.00% last quarter, helped by workflow software spreading from one department to another at low added cost. The article argues growth gets harder at this size, since each year requires selling more, and stock-based pay reached $1.96 billion in the latest year. Debt is 67.54% of equity, so demand rather than funding is the main constraint. At 27.78 times analysts' next-year expectations, the price assumes growth continues, and the article suggests tracking the absolute revenue added each quarter.
- Datadog’s (DDOG) Expectations Have Outrun Its Earnings. What Lies Ahead?
Datadog (DDOG) closed at $260.36 on October 19 and has returned 97.7% over six months. Revenue rose 35.60% year on year, and operating cash flow reached $1.23 billion against $3.97 billion in revenue, but reported operating profit is only 0.67% of revenue, largely absorbed by costs including stock-based pay. The article argues the share price nearly doubled without a comparable change in reported results, so the move reflects expectations rather than delivered earnings. At 84.75 times expected next-year earnings, the stock needs growth to hold and the margin to widen. The article emphasizes that the reported margin, rather than revenue, is the figure to watch.
- What Was Okta Telling You Before Its Stock Doubled?
Okta (OKTA) shares rose 112% from October 15, 2025 to October 16, 2026, beating the S&P 500's 16.2% after an 11.6% fall in the previous six months. The signals were public earlier: in late 2024 and early 2025, management named newer products such as Okta Privileged Access and Okta Identity Governance, while filings showed the operating margin improving from a loss equal to 2.4% of revenue in the quarter ended October 2024 to 5.6% by the quarter ended July 2025. Operating income for the four quarters ended July 2026 reached $236 million, up from $83 million, and the margin rose to 7.7% of revenue from 3.0%. Revenue growth has slowed to 10.6% in fiscal Q2 2027, and management expects 10% growth in fiscal Q3 2027, so the article points to sales growth as the number to watch in the next earnings report.
- Rimini Street to Report Third Quarter 2026 Financial Results on October 29 , 2026
Rimini Street (Nasdaq: RMNI) will report its third quarter 2026 results after market close on October 29, 2026. The company will host a conference call and webcast at 5:00 p.m. Eastern time that day to discuss those results and its fourth quarter 2026 outlook. A replay will be available for one year after the event.
- IBM Reports Oct. 21. Should You Buy the Stock 29% Below Its June Record?
- 4 Turnaround Stocks to Buy Before 2026 Is Over and Hold for a Decade
The article reviews four software stocks that fell sharply in recent years but each grew revenue at least 18% in its latest quarter and rallied at least 38% over six months as of Oct. 16. Duolingo (DUOL) is down 57% over the past year and trades at 17 times trailing earnings, with revenue up 18.3% and about 18% of its float sold short. Monday.com (MNDY) is down 49% over the past year, has a market cap of $3.8 billion and trades at 38.3 times earnings, with revenue up 21.9% and 16% of its float shorted. Unity (U) has recovered after scrapping its unpopular 2023 install fee, with revenue up 23.9% and its stock up 54% over six months. GitLab (GTLB) has soared 145% over six months, with revenue up 21.3%, and sits 10% below its 52-week high.
Related markets
Latest news
- Mastercard Opens Up AI Agent Payments With Early Access and Live Demo
Mastercard has opened early access to Agent Pay for Machines, a system that lets AI agents discover services, agree to terms and pay for them within spending limits set by humans. Jorn Lambert of Mastercard demonstrated a live transaction at Cloudflare's Connect conference. The system is built on the x402 protocol, with agents generating signed payment vouchers when they receive a “402 Payment Required” response. In a demo, a marketing agent for agency Hype made nine payments to two independent merchants on one budget, settled through Coinbase, Base and BVNK in fiat or stablecoins. The launch follows pilots with Cloudflare, Ant International, AWS, BVNK and Coinbase, and comes alongside Mastercard's recent Stablecoin Security tool and Global Money Platform.
- Ethereum Just Closed Out Its Best Quarter Since 2021. If History Is Any Guide, This Happens Next.
Ethereum rose 71% in Q3 2026, its best quarter since early 2021, when it ended the year up 376%. The article reviews history: after nine quarters since 2019 with gains of 50% or more, the first four were followed by stronger returns, but after late 2020 the pattern weakened, with two-year returns of -4.8% (Q1 2021), flat (2023) and -42.6% (2024). Q3 2025's 66.7% gain was followed by a 35.3% drop within 12 months. The author says the data neither confirms nor rules out another strong run, and that price momentum tells little about long-term value. On-chain, users paid $15.9 million in network fees in September, and Ethereum held $144.3 billion in stablecoins (47.7% of the total) and $16.9 billion in tokenized real-world assets, leading all networks.
- American Airlines Rises 5% Ahead of Earnings as Oil Prices Ease; United Airlines and Delta Climb 3%
American Airlines (AAL) rose 5% to $12.27, United Airlines (UAL) gained 3% to $98.46 and Delta Air Lines (DAL) climbed 3% to $76.75 as West Texas Intermediate crude fell 1.5% to $97.05 per barrel. Jet fuel is among the airlines' largest costs, and most U.S. carriers don't hedge fuel, so lower oil prices ease margin pressure. American has guided to a loss per share for Q3 2026, though analysts expect higher revenue than a year earlier after record operating revenue in Q2. The U.S. Global Jets ETF (JETS) rose 4% to $26.71, while the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) gained 0.6% to $771.16. The article suggests American's pre-earnings gain may reflect positioning ahead of the report, which could reverse quickly if results or commentary fall short.
- Paul Tudor Jones makes chilling 2027 US stock market call: ‘I’ll be short the whole year.’ Is your nest egg at risk?
Billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones told CNBC that 2027 will be very challenging for the stock market and that he will be short the whole year. He worries that share supply could surge as possible sales from Anthropic and OpenAI, and SpaceX shares released after its IPO, hit the market once lockups end, after buybacks and M&A had supported stocks over the past four years. He compares this to the period before the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, when repeated unlocks kept adding supply. Jones also flagged a U.S. deficit of $1.99 trillion and a possible $20 to $25 rise in oil prices due to the U.S.-Iran conflict. The article adds similar warnings from JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon and Bridgewater's Ray Dalio, while noting that no one can predict the market with certainty.
- Chip stocks shrug off a scary morning, but history says the shakeout isn't over
Chip stocks recovered on Tuesday after the PHLX Semiconductor Index (^SOX) dipped to its lowest level since early August in the morning, following an eight-session losing streak, and buyers pushed it back above Friday's close. About 3 in 4 stocks in a 60-stock Yahoo Finance chip basket turned higher, led by GlobalFoundries (GFS), while chip-equipment makers Lam Research (LRCX), KLA (KLAC), and Applied Materials (AMAT), plus Arm (ARM), stayed lower. Yahoo Finance calculations show that after every losing streak of seven sessions or more since 1994, the index traded below that streak's final close within a month, with the typical dip after the longest streaks around 9%, while Tuesday's dip barely reached 1%. The article flags key levels: support at 11,000 to 11,140, a lower zone at 10,450 to 10,500 if that fails, and resistance at 12,600 to 12,700. BofA Global Research called last week's selloff a 'positioning-driven hiccup on the fringes of the AI trade.'
- The $1 Trillion AI Spending Boom Could Force the Fed to Raise Rates — and You and I May Pay the Price
AI-related spending could approach $1 trillion in 2027, about 3% of U.S. GDP, adding to inflation pressure that could push the Fed to raise rates again from 3.75% to 4.00%, with a meeting on Oct. 27–28 and another increase widely expected. Higher rates would hit small businesses, indebted consumers, and housing hardest, while cash-generating hyperscalers such as Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon have more room to absorb costs. For example, raising a $400,000 mortgage rate from 6% to 7% adds about $260 a month, whereas another quarter-point hike might barely register for a hyperscaler committing $200 billion to AI. CoreWeave (CRWV) reportedly carries about $35 billion in debt and $640 million in quarterly interest expenses, a risk the author says investors cannot ignore. The author's main takeaway is that the bigger risk is not that the AI boom ends, but that keeping it going makes everything else more expensive.
Get the briefing on Telegram or Zalo
Join the Upside Telegram channel or Zalo group for the Vietnam stocks and gold briefing at 8:00 and 19:00 (Vietnam time) on trading days, plus a weekly wrap on Saturday morning.