SHOP
The stock’s been in the penalty box
Shopify has had a rough stretch. The stock slid from an August high near $158 to around $128, and it’s down about 19% this year while the S&P 500 has marched higher. Not exactly the kind of gap you brag about at dinner.
Bernstein is betting on a bounce
That weakness is what caught Bernstein’s attention. Analyst Mark Shmulik said the selloff looks more like a sector-wide software hangover — the kind people have started calling “SaaSpocalypse” — than a Shopify-specific problem. His takeaway: the underlying business still looks healthy, and the stock could rebound to $160.
The numbers still have swagger
And to be fair, Shopify’s business hasn’t exactly rolled over:
- Q2 revenue jumped 34% to $3.58 billion
- Gross profit climbed to $1.7 billion
- Free cash flow rose from $422 million to $654 million
That’s why bulls are still circling. Piper Sandler, Rosenblatt, and RBC have also been lifting targets, with consensus around $168. The catch? Shopify isn’t cheap. With a trailing P/E around 80 and a forward P/E near 67, you’re paying up for the growth story.
What investors should watch next
If the market keeps rewarding profitable growth over everything else, Shopify has a case for a comeback. But if software multiples keep getting squeezed, even a strong business can feel like it’s wearing concrete shoes.
Big picture: this is less “Shopify is broken” and more “the market got moody, and Shopify got dragged into it.”