Morgan Stanley Optimistic on Software Stocks Growth Potential
Written by Emily J. Thompson, Senior Investment Analyst
Updated: 5 days ago
0mins
Should l Buy DDOG?
Source: seekingalpha
- Healthy Demand Environment: Despite a 15% decline in infrastructure software stocks over the past month, Morgan Stanley analysts noted a healthy demand environment heading into Q1, with strong public cloud spending and software development growth expected for 2026, indicating a gradual recovery in market confidence for software stocks.
- Optimistic Outlook for Datadog: Morgan Stanley has an Overweight rating and a $180 price target on Datadog, with analysts highlighting strong underlying momentum heading into Q1, predicting revenue growth could accelerate to over 30%, suggesting a favorable stock reaction if results meet expectations.
- Strong Performance from JFrog and Palantir: JFrog also received an Overweight rating with a $70 price target, as analysts noted strong momentum and expected reacceleration in Q1; Palantir enters Q1 with an Equal-weight rating and a $205 target, supported by strong fundamentals and increasing customer adoption, making its revenue goals increasingly credible.
- Challenges for Atlassian and Dynatrace: While Atlassian is expected to exceed revenue growth expectations in Q3, analysts remain cautious about its future performance, and Dynatrace needs to provide stronger evidence of sustained annual recurring revenue acceleration, facing a higher bar for re-rating.
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Analyst Views on DDOG
Wall Street analysts forecast DDOG stock price to rise
33 Analyst Rating
30 Buy
3 Hold
0 Sell
Strong Buy
Current: 129.740
Low
140.00
Averages
207.39
High
255.00
Current: 129.740
Low
140.00
Averages
207.39
High
255.00
About DDOG
Datadog, Inc. provides an observability and security platform for cloud applications. The Company’s SaaS platform integrates and automates infrastructure monitoring, application performance monitoring, log management, user experience monitoring, cloud security and many other capabilities to provide unified, real-time observability and security for its customers’ entire technology stack. Its platform consists of products that can be used individually or as a unified solution and includes a marketplace where customers can access products built by its partners on top of the Datadog platform. Its products include Infrastructure Monitoring, Application Performance Monitoring, Log Management, Digital Experience Monitoring, Continuous Profiler, Database Monitoring, Data Observability, Universal Service Monitoring, Network Monitoring and others. It owns Metaplane, an end-to-end data observability platform that provides advanced machine learning-powered monitoring and column-level lineage.
About the author

Emily J. Thompson
Emily J. Thompson, a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) with 12 years in investment research, graduated with honors from the Wharton School. Specializing in industrial and technology stocks, she provides in-depth analysis for Intellectia’s earnings and market brief reports.
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- Model Request Failure Rate: Approximately 5% of AI model requests fail in production, with nearly 60% of these failures attributed to capacity limits, leading to slowdowns and errors in AI applications, which adversely affect user experience and business operations.
- Multi-Model Adoption: OpenAI holds a 63% market share as the most widely used AI provider, while adoption rates for Google Gemini and Anthropic Claude have increased by 20 and 23 percentage points respectively, reflecting market recognition of multi-model strategies.
- Need for Real-Time Visibility: To remain competitive in the rapidly evolving AI landscape, organizations require real-time visibility across the entire tech stack, from GPU utilization to model behavior, ensuring that speed does not compromise reliability and governance.
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- CLEAR Secure Performance: CLEAR Secure's stock surged 5.9%, with a year-to-date increase of 63.4%, now priced at $56.19 per share, marking a new 52-week high, reflecting strong market confidence in its future growth potential.
- Analyst Support: Bernstein reiterated an 'Outperform' rating for ServiceNow, highlighting its role as a foundational AI agent platform for business process automation, which further bolstered market confidence in the software sector.
- Investment Opportunities: The market's overreaction to price drops in high-quality stocks presents good buying opportunities, especially as SaaS names have become significantly oversold in the context of a fragile market rebound.
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- Market Rebound: Despite escalating geopolitical tensions, investors continued to buy the dip, leading to a rebound in the stock market during the afternoon session, particularly in the software sector, indicating strong market confidence in enterprise software.
- Software Stocks Lead: High-growth companies like Datadog and ServiceNow spearheaded the rebound, with Atlassian's stock rising 5.6%, Wix's stock increasing by 9.5%, and Asana's stock up 5.4%, reflecting optimistic market sentiment regarding their future growth potential.
- Wix Stock Volatility: Wix's shares have experienced 27 moves greater than 5% over the past year, and today's increase indicates market attention to its business outlook, despite a 26% decline year-to-date, currently trading at $74.69, significantly below its 52-week high.
- AI Application Prospects: In the AI sector, certain companies are gaining attention, as some trade at undervalued prices while leveraging AI for revenue generation, highlighting that the market has yet to fully recognize the potential opportunities in AI applications.
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- Oil Price Surge Impacts Markets: The S&P 500 index fell 0.24%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.01%, and the Nasdaq 100 index declined 0.31% on Monday as WTI crude prices surged over 6%, indicating market sensitivity to rising energy costs amid geopolitical tensions.
- Geopolitical Risks Escalate: The closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran has raised market concerns, especially following U.S. Navy actions against Iranian tankers, which could exacerbate global oil and fuel shortages, further unsettling investor sentiment.
- Earnings Season Continues: So far, 81% of the 48 S&P 500 companies that reported earnings exceeded expectations, with Q1 earnings projected to rise 12% year-over-year; however, excluding the tech sector, growth is only expected at 3%, highlighting signs of economic weakness.
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- Inclusion in Nasdaq-100: Sandisk is set to join the Nasdaq-100 on April 20, 2025, replacing Atlassian, which underscores its strong demand in the data storage solutions sector, despite Wall Street's general view of overvaluation.
- Stock Performance and Analysis: The stock has surged over 2,700% in the past year, currently priced at $921, with analysts' median target price at $843, indicating an 8% downside risk; however, some analysts project a potential rise to $2,600, suggesting a 182% upside.
- Market Share Growth: Sandisk gained 2 percentage points in the NAND flash market over the past year, ranking fourth, yet outpacing industry leader Samsung, highlighting its competitiveness amid soaring AI data center demand.
- Strong Financial Performance: In Q1 2023, Sandisk's sales jumped 61% to $3 billion, with non-GAAP earnings soaring 404% to $6.20 per share; while future supply-demand imbalances pose risks, the current growth momentum renders its valuation reasonable.
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- Stock Surge: Sandisk's stock has surged 2,700% over the past year, primarily driven by strong demand for its data center storage solutions, and its upcoming inclusion in the Nasdaq-100 is expected to further boost its stock price.
- Market Share Growth: Although Sandisk ranks fourth in the NAND flash market, it gained 2 percentage points of market share over the past year, indicating its increasing competitiveness amid surging AI data center demand.
- Strong Financial Performance: In the January quarter of 2023, Sandisk's sales jumped 61% to $3 billion, while non-GAAP adjusted earnings soared 404% to $6.20 per share, reflecting the company's profitability in a rapidly growing market.
- Future Risks: Despite the current supply shortage driving price increases, analysts warn that increased production capacity may lead to a supply glut in the future, potentially causing NAND prices to fall significantly, prompting investors to approach the stock's high valuation with caution.
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