Principal Financial Group Inc. Increases Stock Position in Datadog, Inc. $DDOG

Key Points

• Principal Financial Group increased its stake in Datadog by 5.1% in the fourth quarter, adding 24,834 shares and bringing its total holding to 511,788 shares worth about $69.6 million.
• Institutional interest in Datadog remains strong, with hedge funds and other institutions owning 78.29% of the stock and large investors such as Vanguard, State Street, Jennison, and Invesco all boosting their positions.
• Datadog delivered a strong earnings update, reporting Q1 revenue of $1.01 billion and EPS of $0.60, both above expectations, while also raising its FY 2026 and Q2 guidance; analysts now have a consensus rating of Moderate Buy with a $186.41 price target.

Principal Financial Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of Datadog, Inc. (NASDAQ:DDOG - Free Report) by 5.1% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 511,788 shares of the company's stock after purchasing an additional 24,834 shares during the period. Principal Financial Group Inc. owned approximately 0.15% of Datadog worth $69,598,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in Datadog by 30.3% in the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 41,902,227 shares of the company's stock valued at $5,966,877,000 after buying an additional 9,748,738 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its position in shares of Datadog by 106.8% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 13,732,777 shares of the company's stock worth $1,955,547,000 after acquiring an additional 7,091,075 shares during the last quarter. Jennison Associates LLC lifted its stake in shares of Datadog by 43.7% in the fourth quarter. Jennison Associates LLC now owns 7,623,993 shares of the company's stock worth $1,036,787,000 after acquiring an additional 2,316,994 shares in the last quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA lifted its stake in shares of Datadog by 0.9% in the third quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 4,289,570 shares of the company's stock worth $610,835,000 after acquiring an additional 40,276 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Invesco Ltd. boosted its holdings in Datadog by 119.2% in the third quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 4,075,721 shares of the company's stock valued at $580,383,000 after purchasing an additional 2,216,402 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 78.29% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

DDOG has been the topic of several analyst reports. Sanford C. Bernstein dropped their price objective on Datadog from $180.00 to $167.00 and set an "outperform" rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, April 22nd. Daiwa Securities Group initiated coverage on Datadog in a research note on Tuesday, January 27th. They set a "buy" rating and a $190.00 target price for the company. Cantor Fitzgerald dropped their price target on shares of Datadog from $220.00 to $150.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a research note on Friday, February 6th. Capital One Financial cut their price target on shares of Datadog from $157.00 to $135.00 and set an "overweight" rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, April 16th. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada reduced their price objective on shares of Datadog from $175.00 to $150.00 and set an "outperform" rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, February 9th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-eight have assigned a Buy rating, two have issued a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Datadog presently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $186.41.

Key Datadog News

Here are the key news stories impacting Datadog this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Management raised Q2 and FY‑2026 guidance well above consensus (Q2 EPS $0.57–$0.59; FY EPS $2.36–$2.44), the primary catalyst behind today’s rally. Datadog raises annual forecast
• Positive Sentiment: Strong Q1 print: revenue ≈ $1.01B (+32% YoY), EPS beat, $335M operating cash flow and $289M free cash flow; expansion in $100k+ ARR customers and several product launches support durable growth. Q1 2026 Results
• Positive Sentiment: Datadog for Government achieved FedRAMP High certification, removing a major compliance hurdle for federal deals and opening a new addressable market in high‑security public sector customers. FedRAMP High Certification
• Positive Sentiment: Sell‑side support accelerated post‑print — multiple firms raised price targets and/or ratings (examples: Wedbush, BTIG, Citizens JMP), adding momentum to the move. Wedbush/analyst notes
• Neutral Sentiment: Unusual options flow and heavy call buying increased intraday volatility and trading volume — this likely magnified price moves but may reflect short‑term trader positioning more than fundamentals. Options trade note
• Neutral Sentiment: High trading volume and media coverage can sustain momentum short term; monitor bookings/large‑customer commentary in upcoming updates for confirmation.
• Negative Sentiment: Several insiders (CTO, GC, CRO and a director) sold shares under pre‑arranged 10b5‑1 plans in recent days; while planned, these transactions may concern some investors taking profits after the rally. SEC Form 4
• Negative Sentiment: Valuation is very rich (very high P/E), so even with improving fundamentals the stock may be vulnerable to profit‑taking or a pullback if growth expectations slip.

Datadog Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ DDOG opened at $188.73 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 3.38, a quick ratio of 3.38 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.26. The company has a market capitalization of $66.54 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 608.81, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 52.02 and a beta of 1.30. Datadog, Inc. has a twelve month low of $98.01 and a twelve month high of $201.69. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $124.41 and a 200-day simple moving average of $136.98.

Datadog (NASDAQ:DDOG - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 7th. The company reported $0.60 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $0.51 by $0.09. Datadog had a net margin of 3.14% and a return on equity of 4.14%. The firm had revenue of $1.01 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $960.12 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.46 earnings per share. The firm's revenue was up 32.1% on a year-over-year basis. Datadog has set its FY 2026 guidance at 2.360-2.440 EPS and its Q2 2026 guidance at 0.570-0.590 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Datadog, Inc. will post 0.32 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other Datadog news, CTO Alexis Le-Quoc sold 53,912 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $125.49, for a total value of $6,765,416.88. Following the transaction, the chief technology officer owned 437,257 shares of the company's stock, valued at $54,871,380.93. This trade represents a 10.98% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Olivier Pomel sold 68,922 shares of Datadog stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, March 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $110.54, for a total value of $7,618,637.88. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 704,821 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $77,910,913.34. The trade was a 8.91% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold a total of 654,018 shares of company stock valued at $80,903,197 over the last ninety days. Company insiders own 6.67% of the company's stock.

Datadog Company Profile

Datadog NASDAQ: DDOG is a cloud-based monitoring and observability platform that helps organizations monitor, troubleshoot and secure their applications and infrastructure at scale. Its software-as-a-service offering collects and analyzes metrics, traces and logs from servers, containers, cloud services and applications to provide real-time visibility into system performance and health. Datadog's platform is widely used by engineering, operations and security teams to reduce downtime, accelerate incident response and improve application reliability.

The company's product suite includes infrastructure monitoring, application performance monitoring (APM), log management, real user monitoring (RUM), synthetic monitoring and network performance monitoring, along with security-focused products such as security monitoring and cloud SIEM.

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