observation on some SaaS companies this morning

interestingly, a few of the top SaaS companies that we follow were initially down today at the open, but now have recovered (as of 11:20a ET). FSLY, OKTA, and DDOG down, initially, then they turned positive an hour and a half (or so) after open. Given they were down at the open suggests some folks may be taking some profits by executing automated sell orders at the open (perhaps from insight gathered on the MF call yesterday evening?). But this is a good lesson, in that, stocks,especially those with relatively small floats, can fluctuate quite a bit on seemingly no news. Why were these companies initially down? No clue. As mentioned, could have been some institutional selling or folks taking profits at the open. Why were they up later in the day? Again, I have no clue but with relatively small floats, any time a mutual fund (for example) takes a position in any one of these companies it moves the needle a few %, sometimes more. So anytime the stock moves a few percent, up or down, on no news or not around an earnings call, it’s probably not related to any fundamental reasons and the investor is best served to consider why they bought the company in the first place, ask themselves “has anything changed?” and consider the forward price target that they subscribe to. For FASLY, as an example, Peter Offringa derived a 5 year price target of about $150, based on some good analysis. That’s currently a little more than a 3 bagger from where it’s priced today. That’s still ~27% annual return for 5 years.

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