Citi Stays Neutral on Fastly After 14% AI Surge, Backs Cloudflare Instead

Akamai Technologies Inc. announced an $11.6 billion seven-year contract with artificial intelligence giant Anthropic, sending its shares up as much as 20% in after-hours trading on Thursday. The agreement will support Anthropic's CPU workload requirements through Akamai Cloud's distributed AI infrastructure and software, and adds to more than $2.8 billion in multi-year Cloud Infrastructure Services commitments Akamai announced earlier this year. Under the deal, Akamai issued Anthropic a warrant for non-voting convertible Series B Preferred Stock representing 7.7 million shares of Akamai common stock on an as-converted basis, or up to approximately 5% of the company's outstanding common stock, at an exercise price of $111.33 per share. About 2% of Akamai's common stock outstanding is expected to vest in connection with the $11.6 billion commitment, with the remaining approximately 3% vesting through expansion of the commitment up to an additional $9 billion within the seven-year warrant term, at roughly 1% of outstanding common stock for each additional $3 billion of cloud services purchased. Total capital expenditures related to the $11.6 billion commitment are estimated at approximately $5.5 billion, and the company expects no impact to its 2026 revenue guidance alongside an increase of approximately $1.7 billion in 2026 capital expenditures to secure and pre-purchase critical supply chain components, including memory.

Akamai shares surged about 13% in after-hours trading after Anthropic struck a $12 billion deal with the company for AI computing, with Akamai also discussing longer-term capital expenditure plans. The move made Akamai the biggest after-hours mover, climbing roughly 14%. In the regular session, Oracle fell 3.5% after sending a force majeure notice to a project developer, a unit of Blue Owl Capital, regarding a massive data center being built in New Mexico, a step tied to meeting power commitments that could delay rent for Oracle even as it would still owe the rent for the full lease term once payments begin. GoDaddy rose about 4.6% after the Financial Times reported that Gen Digital, the maker of Norton 360 antivirus, made an offer for the company in a deal that would roll up a number of major legacy software brands, though the talks are in early stages and may not lead to a deal; Gen Digital shares fell more than 12%. MGM Resorts dropped 11% after Barry Diller's People Inc dropped plans to acquire the rest of the casino giant, with Diller saying the mix was not coming together as hoped. Everpure was the top S&P 500 gainer, closing up about 11% after the data storage company forecast 2028 revenue above the average analyst estimate, drawing price target hikes from Citi to 160 from 130 a share and from B of A to 180 from 150 a share.

Fastly shares jumped 13% on Wednesday as Wall Street firms weighed in on the company's investor day, held the day prior. At the event, management unveiled FY29 targets including a revenue CAGR of 14%-21%, non-GAAP operating margins of 20%-22%, and FCF margins of 12%-15%. RBC Capital Markets analyst Rishi Jaluria, who has a Sector Perform rating and $25 price target, said the execution required to achieve these targets alongside competitive CDN dynamics keeps him in wait-and-see mode, and noted shares traded down about 5% on the day of the event, lagging the roughly flat IGV. D.A. Davidson analyst Rudy Kessinger highlighted new AI products, saying demand for newer Bot Management and DDoS products, each growing 100%+ Y/Y, remains very robust, and he raised his price target to $23 from $21 while keeping a Neutral rating. Piper Sandler analyst James Fish said the 2029 target range was slightly above buyside expectations and could prove conservative given the rise of agentic AI.