Datadog Stock Is Way Too Risky Right Now

1 month ago 24

Marc Guberti, The Motley Fool

Sat, July 11, 2026 astatine 8:50 AM CDT 3 min read

Datadog (NASDAQ: DDOG) is riding tailwinds that person propelled the cybersecurity industry. As artificial quality (AI) advances, companies person much information points to support from hackers. The company's cloud-scale infrastructure besides makes it easier to show and unafraid its unreality platforms. That has go captious successful the property of AI.

Those factors person been capable to astir treble Datadog's banal terms this year. However, a precocious valuation and a past of respective 30% drawdowns implicit the past 5 years suggest caution is warranted now.

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Datadog's valuation demands perfection

Datadog's fundamentals person not kept up with the stock's momentum. A 32% year-over-year summation successful Q1 gross is overmuch little than the stock's year-to-date gains. Growth has been picking up successful caller quarters, but the wide inclination is inactive deceleration.

Datadog's gross has a 41.5% compound yearly maturation complaint (CAGR) implicit the past 5 years, suggesting maturation is slowing. Artificial quality tin reinvigorate semipermanent growth, particularly done GPU monitoring, which could go an indispensable diagnostic for galore information centers. However, the existent valuation requires perfection.

Datadog trades supra 25 times sales. It's a large leap from the 15x income valuation the unreality institution had astatine the extremity of 2025. The stock's P/E ratio besides sits supra 650 and has surged by astir 50% since the commencement of the year. It is simply a historically precocious valuation for Datadog, and its erstwhile vulnerability to crisp corrections implies different crisp driblet is possible.

Revenue indispensable accelerate a batch much to warrant buying Datadog banal

Although the five-year gross CAGR shows decelerating revenue, Datadog did present 32% year-over-year gross maturation successful Q1. That's higher than the 29% maturation complaint successful Q4 2025 oregon the 25% maturation complaint successful Q1 2025.

Amazon and Alphabet person some delivered meaningful gross acceleration for their unreality platforms. Some of those caller customers volition request Datadog to show their unreality platforms, and existing Datadog customers whitethorn person to upgrade their plans owed to soaring unreality usage.

This sets a precedent for unreality providers similar Datadog, but Q2 guidance does not suggest gross acceleration volition continue. Datadog is projecting $1.075 cardinal successful income astatine the midpoint, which would lone beryllium a 30% year-over-year maturation rate. Full-year guidance establishes a $4.32 cardinal midpoint, which implies 26% year-over-year gross growth.

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