SAP price target lowered to $170 from $176 at Bernstein

Bernstein lowered the firm’s price target on SAP (SAP) to $170 from $176 and keeps an Outperform rating on the shares. The firm notes SAP announced strong Q3 results. While there were a couple misses on cloud and total revenue, much of that can be attributed to very strong FX headwinds, Bernstein says. Additionally, operating margin and free cash flow came in meaningfully above expectations, which should increase the confidence of many investors. The firm feels that any bumpiness in the quarter can be attributed to temporary and transient macro impacts as seen in the same trends in SAP’s peers such as Oracle (ORCL) and Workday (WDAY). Overall, the firm thinks that the cloud transition story at SAP is playing out well, and that the company is heading in the right direction, following in the footsteps of the likes of Microsoft (MSFT) and Oracle.