What happened
According to data compiled by S&P Global Market Intelligence, Snowflake (SNOW 2.53%) stock was trading down by just over 16% week to date as of early Friday morning. That wasn't all too surprising, as the company reported a quarter that featured uninspiring guidance, and several analysts got more bearish on the stock.
So what
Snowflake actually did quite well in its first quarter of fiscal 2024. Revenue leaped 48% higher year over year to nearly $624 million. The company flipped dramatically into the black on the bottom line, at a profit of $54.5 million ($0.15 per share) according to non-GAAP (adjusted) standards, against the year-ago loss of $1.5 million.
Both headline numbers beat analyst estimates, which on average were slightly more than $611 million on the top line, and $0.06 per share for adjusted net income.
Snowflake's guidance for both its current (second) quarter and the entirety of fiscal 2024, however, left something to be desired. It's forecasting that its all-important product revenue will come in at $620 million to $625 million, but the collective analyst forecast is $647 million. That line item should ring in at $2.6 billion for the fiscal year; previously the company had guided for $2.7 billion.
Now what
The market's reaction to this wasn't positive, and this was reflected in new prognosticator takes on Snowflake. A raft of analysts lowered their price targets on the stock with two -- Wolfe Research's Alex Zukin and Rosenblatt's Blair Abernethy -- going so far as to downgrade their recommendations.
In changing his recommendation from buy to neutral, Abernethy wrote: "Besides ongoing deal scrutiny and cloud optimization, older customers are reevaluating data retention policies. This has resulted in customers reducing storage requirements (say from 5yrs to 3yrs), which impacts Snowflake's storage revenue and compute activity."
