What Happened?
Shares of customer engagement platform Braze (NASDAQ: BRZE) jumped 3.9% in the afternoon session after the broader market rallied as Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell indicated that interest rates could be cut. Powell's comments, delivered at the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium, indicated that the central bank might adjust its policy due to a "shifting balance of risks" to employment and inflation. He noted that economic growth has slowed and the labor market is weaker than previously thought. This signal that the Federal Reserve could begin cutting interest rates, after holding them steady throughout 2025, sparked a significant relief rally across the stock market. Tech stocks were particularly strong, with major indices like the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite jumping significantly on the news.
After the initial pop the shares cooled down to $26.67, up 4.4% from previous close.
Is now the time to buy Braze? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
What Is The Market Telling Us
Braze’s shares are very volatile and have had 25 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful but not something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.
The previous big move we wrote about was 3 days ago when the stock dropped 3.2% on the news that investors took some profits off the table as markets awaited signals on future monetary policy from the Federal Reserve's Jackson Hole symposium later in the week. The downturn in the market was largely attributed to a significant sell-off in megacap tech and chipmaker shares. Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), and Broadcom all saw notable drops, dragging down the VanEck Semiconductor ETF. Other major tech-related companies like Tesla, Meta Platforms, and Netflix were also under pressure. A key reason for this trend is that much of the recent market gains have been concentrated in the "AI trade," which includes these large technology and semiconductor companies. So this could also mean that some investors are locking in some gains ahead of more definitive feedback from the Fed.
Braze is down 38.5% since the beginning of the year, and at $26.67 per share, it is trading 43.5% below its 52-week high of $47.22 from January 2025. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Braze’s shares at the IPO in November 2021 would now be looking at an investment worth $285.52.
Today’s young investors won’t have read the timeless lessons in Gorilla Game: Picking Winners In High Technology because it was written more than 20 years ago when Microsoft and Apple were first establishing their supremacy. But if we apply the same principles, then enterprise software stocks leveraging their own generative AI capabilities may well be the Gorillas of the future. So, in that spirit, we are excited to present our Special Free Report on a profitable, fast-growing enterprise software stock that is already riding the automation wave and looking to catch the generative AI next.
