The stock market has done extremely well in recovering from the coronavirus bear market, posting an amazing advance since mid-March. Even with signs that COVID-19 might be spreading more quickly again, market participants refused to let that dampen their enthusiasm for the market's prospects. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI -0.65%), S&P 500 (^GSPC -1.20%), and Nasdaq Composite all enjoyed decent gains to start the new week.
Today's stock market
|
Index |
Percentage Change |
Point Change |
|---|---|---|
|
Dow |
0.59% |
154 |
|
S&P 500 |
0.65% |
20 |
|
Nasdaq Composite |
1.11% |
110 |
Data source: Yahoo! Finance.
Investors have embraced software-as-a-service stocks, as their business models have proven to be resilient even in the face of economic hardship. Fastly (FSLY -3.67%) and Atlassian (TEAM -7.11%) were among the market's notable gainers on Monday, and both stocks have seen sizable moves higher that could continue.
Fastly picks up speed
Fastly saw its stock jump 15%. The company's name might make grammarians cringe, but the content delivery network service provider is giving investors plenty to smile about.
Image source: Getty Images.
In general, more enterprise customers are turning to Fastly for its edge cloud platform, which helps them connect more effectively with their end users. By making applications and vital data available more easily to those who need them, Fastly's platform provides a more user-friendly experience, and that often turns into more business for the clients who use the service.
Fastly has also seen some key news boost its prospects lately. The company's platform hit a key performance benchmark last week, demonstrating its leadership of the fast-growing niche in the tech industry. Fastly is also benefiting from efforts among its users to expand the scope of their own businesses, particularly the partnership that client Shopify (SHOP -2.04%) scored with Walmart recently.
Fastly has more than tripled since early May, making some question the sustainability of its move upward. Yet with a market capitalization of less than $8 billion, Fastly is still smaller than many other subscription-based businesses out there.
One for the team
Atlassian saw its stock rise a more modest 7%. For a stock with a $45 billion market cap, however, that was a bigger move from a shareholder value standpoint, and it reflects the appetite that investors have for the SaaS niche.
Atlassian makes office productivity software to make it easier for employees to collaborate. The Jira project management platform was the flagship offering from Atlassian, but more recently, products like Trello for document sharing and task tracking and Bitbucket for programming collaboration have also gained big followings.
The coronavirus pandemic showed many enterprise customers the need to be able to track projects without in-person resources, and that boosted demand for Atlassian's services. Although the company still faces significant competition, the speed with which the addressable market has expanded has left plenty of room for multiple companies to grow.
Today's move higher for Atlassian shows that shareholders expect even better results ahead. As worries about the recent efforts to reopen the economy mount, it could become even more important for companies to consider using Atlassian's services to be prepared for whatever comes next.
Technology stocks have led the market higher, and SaaS companies in particular have a huge investor following. Fastly and Atlassian won't climb forever, but how far they rise depends on how well they can execute on the huge opportunities they have in front of them.
