SHOP
The bull is back
Shopify woke up to a little Wall Street love on Tuesday. BofA Securities analyst Tal Liani reinstated coverage on the stock with a Buy rating and a $150 price target, which is basically analyst-speak for: “yes, the growth story still has legs.”
The market liked it. Shopify shares were up more than 2% even as tech was getting roughed up and the broader tape was in risk-off mode. So while the rest of the sector was doing its best impression of a leak in a kiddie pool, Shopify was catching a bid.
Why the Street is still into it
The big idea here is that AI may not be Shopify’s enemy — it could be the next sales channel. Liani argued that AI-native shopping tools and agentic commerce could make Shopify’s checkout, payments, and backend plumbing more valuable, not less. In other words, if the internet’s future looks like a bunch of bots placing orders on your behalf, Shopify wants to be the toll booth.
He also pointed to some real-world momentum:
- first-quarter international gross merchandise volume was up 45% year over year
- ex-U.S. payments growth topped 70%
- he sees revenue growing 28.3% in calendar 2026 and 24% in 2027
- operating margin could widen from 18.1% to 18.8% over that stretch
The chart nerd corner
Technically, Shopify is still in the recovery gym, not the finish line. It’s trading above its 20-day, 50-day, and 100-day moving averages, which is nice, but it still sits about 10% below its 200-day average. Translation: short-term momentum is improving, but the longer-term scar tissue from the March death cross is still hanging around.
What investors should watch next
The next big test is the estimated Aug. 5 earnings report. That’s where the market will check whether the AI story, international expansion, and margin optimism are showing up in the actual numbers — not just in the analyst note glow-up.
Big picture: Shopify doesn’t need to be the flashiest stock in the room to keep winning. It just needs to keep proving that commerce is still its kingdom, even if the customer in the future is a chatbot.