Akamai downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at Piper Sandler

Piper Sandler downgraded Akamai (AKAM) to Neutral from Overweight with a price target of $100, down from $112. The company’s Q4 results brought an initial 2025 guidance below where even Piper had been warning it could, the analyst tells investors in a research note. The firm says that “with a lot of moving parts that create messiness ahead,” along with low growth, declining margin, higher needed capex, questions around revenue substitution, and Akamai’s fastest growing pieces being a small part of the business as the core slows, investors “should look elsewhere until some of the dust settles.” Additionally, Piper thinks management’s 3-5 year framework “looks optimistic again.”