Piper Sandler has revised its price target for HubSpot (HUBS, Financial), lowering it to $535 from a previous target of $808 while maintaining a Neutral rating on the stock. This adjustment reflects a broader trend across the cloud applications and analytics sector, highlighting several short-term growth obstacles.
Key factors impacting this decision include tariffs, shifting policies, and challenges associated with the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI). These issues contribute to a continued slowdown in industry growth, marking the fourth year of such trends. In particular, the obstacles in AI implementation suggest a diminishing enthusiasm in the sector.
The current environment has resulted in decreased valuation multiples, which are now at their lowest point in seven years. Despite the direct impact of tariffs on software models being relatively minor, the overall sentiment around the sector appears to be negatively affected.
