What Happened?
Shares of search AI platform provider Elastic (NYSE: ESTC) jumped 6.7% in the morning session after the company raised its revenue guidance for its second quarter and full fiscal year 2026 and announced a $500 million share repurchase program during its Analyst Day event.
The AI-powered search company increased its second-quarter revenue outlook to a range of $417 million to $419 million, up from a previous range of $415 million to $417 million. For the full fiscal year 2026, the guidance was lifted to between $1.697 billion and $1.703 billion. The company attributed the revision to improved visibility into the demand environment. The new stock buyback plan was approved by the board, reflecting management's confidence in the business. Adding to the news, Elastic also completed its acquisition of Jina AI and launched a new service, the Elastic Inference Service, for generative AI workflows.
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What Is The Market Telling Us
Elastic’s shares are quite volatile and have had 19 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful but not something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.
The previous big move we wrote about was 2 days ago when the stock gained 3.8% as confidence in the artificial intelligence market was renewed, pushing both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq to new all-time intraday highs. The rebound was led by chipmaker Nvidia, whose shares rose nearly 2% after its CEO confirmed that demand for computing has "gone up substantially" in recent months. These comments helped reassure the market that the AI boom is supported by genuine demand, calming fears that were sparked a day earlier by a report questioning the profitability of Oracle's cloud business. The rally was strong enough to put the information technology sector on pace for a fresh closing high. This upward momentum occurred despite potential headwinds from an ongoing U.S. government shutdown, which entered its second week.
Elastic is down 12.1% since the beginning of the year, and at $87.12 per share, it is trading 26% below its 52-week high of $117.76 from February 2025. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Elastic’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $696.96.
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