SAP’s July Test: Buyback Math, AI Rewiring and a Stock Under Pressure

SAP heads into its next set of quarterly numbers with two very different stories colliding at once. In Walldorf, management is in its Quiet Period until the presentation of results on 23 July 2026, so there are no fresh operational updates and no guidance to steady the market. At the same time, the company is pushing ahead with a sweeping AI overhaul that has already given the shares a brief lift.

That relief, however, sits uneasily beside the stock’s recent slide. SAP traded at just over 138 euros, and on 1 July it closed at 140,88 euros. Since the start of the year, Germany’s most valuable software group has lost more than 31 percent. The shares are now almost 24 percent below the key 200-day moving average of 181,52 euros and not far from the year’s low at 130,80 euros. From the record high of 266 euros, the decline is stark.

Volatility has made the stock look less like a mega-cap software name and more like a speculative trade. The annualised swing over the past 30 days stands at 45,54 percent. Even a market value of just over EUR 159 billion has offered little shelter. The RSI sits around 45, a neutral reading that suggests neither buyers nor sellers are firmly in control.

SAP is trying to counter the pressure with a large share buyback. In the first tranche, the company repurchased millions of its own shares at an average price of 161,16 euros, well above the current level. That means the remaining programme becomes more attractive on paper if the stock stays weak, because the same amount of money can retire more shares.

Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying SAP?

The board is also trying to reshape the business itself. SAP has split its AI responsibilities into two new centres of power. Philipp Herzig now leads the new business AI platform, while Manoj Swaminathan is in charge of the autonomous suite, which covers core functions such as finance and human resources. Both report directly to chief executive Christian Klein, and Michael Ameling is leaving the company as part of the change.

The objective is ambitious: by the third quarter of 2026, SAP wants to integrate more than 200 AI agents into its own business processes. Over time, the software should take over much of what traditional coding has done. Klein has also moved to calm fears about job cuts, ruling out additional layoffs linked to the transformation. Instead, SAP is retraining staff to become AI managers who will oversee the new autonomous systems. The company had previously eliminated 10,000 old positions and hired thousands of technical specialists.

A broader industry backdrop has helped sentiment. Guggenheim upgraded the US peers Salesforce and ServiceNow to “Kaufen”, arguing that fears about AI-driven subscription cancellations are overdone. That helped lift SAP’s shares as well. The company is also reshuffling its Asian business: Verena Siow is now responsible for Asia-Pacific and is expected to accelerate the cloud business from Singapore.

Still, the real verdict comes on 23 July. The market is waiting to hear whether the cloud outlook can withstand increasingly sceptical expectations. If SAP’s numbers and guidance hold up, the sell-off could at least slow. If they do not, the shares may have little to stop them from pressing back toward the 130,80 euro low.