Snowflake Inc. (NYSE: SNOW) is back in the spotlight after a sharp post‑earnings selloff, even as the cloud data platform continues to post strong growth and headline‑grabbing AI partnerships. On December 5, 2025, investors are weighing a classic growth‑stock dilemma: solid fundamentals and powerful AI tailwinds on one side, and rich valuations plus slowing growth and margin pressure on the other.
Key Takeaways
- Share price today: Snowflake trades around $230 per share on December 5, down about 2–3% intraday and still well below Thursday’s double‑digit drop. [1]
- Q3 FY2026 results: Revenue rose 29% year over year to $1.21 billion, with product revenue up 29% to $1.16 billion and non‑GAAP diluted EPS of $0.35, all ahead of Wall Street estimates. [2]
- Guidance issue: Management guided fourth‑quarter product revenue growth to 27% and cut operating‑margin guidance to 7%, triggering an ~11% plunge in the stock on December 4. [3]
- AI story: Snowflake has already hit a $100 million AI annualized revenue run‑rate, announced a $200 million multi‑year AI partnership with Anthropic, and surpassed $2 billion in AWS Marketplace sales in 2025. [4]
- Wall Street split: Most analysts still rate SNOW “Buy” or “Strong Buy” with a median 12‑month target around $270–$275, but several valuation‑driven models peg fair value closer to $180–$195. [5]
Snowflake Stock Today: Price, Valuation and 52‑Week Context
As of mid‑day trading on December 5, 2025, Snowflake shares change hands at roughly $229–$230, down modestly on the day after Thursday’s steep drop. [6]
Key snapshot metrics:
- Current price: $229.41 (real‑time quote at 9:36 a.m. ET on Dec. 5; intraday levels have hovered around $230). [7]
- Market capitalization: about $78 billion. [8]
- 52‑week range:$120.10 – $280.67, putting the stock roughly 18–20% below its recent high. [9]
- Trailing 12‑month revenue:$4.39 billion, with GAAP net loss of about $1.35 billion and EPS of –$4.03. [10]
- Forward P/E: around 157x next‑twelve‑month earnings, while GAAP P/E is not meaningful because the company is still loss‑making under GAAP. [11]
- Beta: about 1.09, indicating slightly above‑market volatility. [12]
Even after the recent pullback, Snowflake shares are still up roughly 65–70% in 2025, thanks to a powerful rally ahead of Q3 earnings. [13] That strong run‑up is exactly why guidance that’s merely “good” rather than spectacular has been punished so aggressively.
Q3 FY2026: Strong Top‑Line Growth and Improving Profitability
Snowflake’s third quarter of fiscal 2026 (ended October 31, 2025) was, on the numbers alone, a clear beat.
From the company’s official release and earnings‑call summaries: [14]
- Total revenue:
- $1.21 billion, up 29% year over year, beating consensus estimates of about $1.18 billion.
- Product revenue:
- $1.158 billion, also up 29%, and the key driver of the business.
- Profitability:
- Non‑GAAP diluted EPS:$0.35, versus about $0.31 expected.
- Non‑GAAP product gross margin: around 76%.
- Non‑GAAP operating income:$131.3 million, an 11% operating margin, a notable improvement from the prior year.
- Customer and usage metrics:
- Net revenue retention:125%, indicating strong expansion within existing customers.
- Customers with >$1 million in trailing 12‑month product revenue:688, up 29% year over year.
- Forbes Global 2000 customers:766, up 4% year over year.
- Remaining performance obligations (RPO):$7.88 billion, up 37%, signaling strong contracted future demand. [15]
One of the most closely watched figures this quarter was Snowflake’s AI revenue. Management disclosed that the company has already reached a $100 million annualized AI revenue run‑rate, a milestone Snowflake previously expected to hit one quarter later. CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy emphasized that this figure reflects real production usage, not just optimistic projections. [16]
In short, Q3 showed:
- Healthy, if moderating, near‑30% growth
- Margin expansion on a non‑GAAP basis
- Rapid adoption of AI features inside the platform
- A deep pipeline of contracted business via RPO
On paper, it’s the kind of quarter that often sends a growth stock higher. But the guidance changed that story.
The Guidance Problem: Slower Growth and Lower Margins
What rattled markets wasn’t Q3—it was the outlook for Q4 and beyond.
From Snowflake’s own guidance and follow‑up coverage: [17]
- Q4 FY2026 product revenue guidance:
- $1.195–$1.20 billion, implying 27% year‑over‑year growth.
- That’s above the ~$1.18 billion analysts were modeling, but below investor hopes for >30% growth, as Reuters noted. [18]
- Q4 non‑GAAP operating margin guidance:
- 7%, down from 11% in Q3, reflecting heavier investment in AI products and more aggressive pricing on large, long‑term contracts. [19]
Management explained that Snowflake is offering more favorable pricing on big, multi‑year deals to secure strategic relationships, and that these discounts don’t immediately translate into revenue. [20] The company is also stepping up AI‑related R&D and go‑to‑market spending, which compresses margins in the near term.
The market’s reaction was swift:
- Shares fell about 8% in extended trading on December 3 after the earnings release. [21]
- They then slumped around 11% on December 4, wiping out an estimated $10 billion in market value, according to Reuters and Investopedia. [22]
Investors were essentially saying: “At this valuation, we need more than 27% growth and shrinking margins.”
AI and Cloud Partnerships: The Long‑Term Bull Case
Despite the selloff, Snowflake’s strategic positioning in AI and cloud data remains a major draw for long‑term bulls.
$200 Million Anthropic Deal and Snowflake Intelligence
On December 3, Snowflake announced a multi‑year, $200 million expansion of its partnership with Anthropic: [23]
- Anthropic’s Claude models, including Claude Opus 4.5 and Claude Sonnet 4.5, will be deeply integrated into Snowflake Cortex AI and Snowflake Intelligence, the company’s “enterprise intelligence agent.”
- The deal gives 12,600+ Snowflake customers direct access to Claude inside Snowflake’s governed data environment across all three major public clouds.
- The partnership focuses on “agentic AI”—AI agents capable of complex, multi‑step analysis on sensitive enterprise data, with an emphasis on governance and observability.
Snowflake says more than 7,300 businesses engage with its AI features each week, and its new Snowflake Intelligence agent attracted roughly 1,200 customers in its first month. [24]
AWS, Nvidia, SAP and the AI Data Cloud Ecosystem
Snowflake also highlighted deepening ties with major cloud and AI partners:
- Amazon Web Services (AWS): Snowflake surpassed $2 billion in AWS Marketplace sales in the 2025 calendar year and doubled its transaction growth year‑over‑year, while picking up multiple AWS Partner of the Year awards, including in Data & Analytics and Generative AI Tools. [25]
- The companies are rolling out new integrations around Iceberg table formats, AWS Glue Data Catalog, and Amazon Bedrock AgentCore, aiming to make Snowflake an interoperable, AI‑ready data layer across multi‑cloud environments. [26]
- Nvidia: Snowflake ML now integrates NVIDIA CUDA‑X libraries, bringing GPU‑accelerated machine‑learning workflows directly into the platform. [27]
- SAP: A new collaboration with SAP Business Data Cloud aims to create a seamless business data fabric bridging SAP data and Snowflake’s AI Data Cloud. [28]
Together with the Anthropic deal and Snowflake’s $100 million AI revenue run‑rate, these partnerships underpin the narrative that Snowflake is becoming a central infrastructure layer for enterprise AI workloads, not just a data warehouse provider. [29]
What Wall Street Is Saying: Targets Up, but Caution on Valuation
Despite the short‑term disappointment, most analysts remain bullish on Snowflake and see the recent drop as a potential opportunity—though not without caveats.
Consensus View and Price Targets
Across multiple trackers:
- StockAnalysis: 44 analysts rate SNOW a “Strong Buy” with an average 12‑month target of $268.74, about 17% upside from current levels. [30]
- MarketBeat: Calculates a “Moderate Buy” consensus, with 2 Strong Buys, 35 Buys, 3 Holds, and 3 Sells, and a consensus target of $275.05. [31]
- GuruFocus / BTIG recap: Based on 45 analysts, the average target is $275.37 (range $170–$500), with a consensus recommendation around 1.9 on a 1–5 scale, equivalent to “Outperform.” [32]
- Ticker Nerd: Aggregating 57 Wall Street analysts, shows a median target of $275 (range $170–$500) and an overall “Strong Buy” consensus (43 Buy, 6 Hold, 2 Sell). [33]
In other words, the Street sees mid‑teens percentage upside from today’s price, on average.
Notable Analyst Calls After Q3
Several firms raised or reiterated bullish targets following the Q3 release, even as the stock fell: [34]
- BTIG: Reiterated Buy, $312 target.
- Rosenblatt:Buy, target raised from $250 to $275.
- Citigroup:Buy, target lifted from $275 to $310, citing strong bookings and over $1 billion of sequential backlog growth.
- Bank of America:Buy, target increased from $280 to $310, seeing accelerating AI momentum.
- Mizuho:Outperform, target raised to $285.
- Stifel Nicolaus:Buy, target raised to $280.
- Raymond James:Outperform, target $274.
- RBC & Goldman Sachs: Maintain Outperform/Buy ratings with targets near $300 and $275, respectively.
At the more cautious end:
- Macquarie: Maintains a Neutral rating with a $250 target, flagging that risk and reward look more balanced after the run‑up. [35]
- MarketBeat’s editorial note reminds readers that, although SNOW holds a Moderate Buy rating, their top‑rated analysts currently prefer other stocks. [36]
Overall, the post‑earnings analyst narrative looks like this:
“The numbers were good, AI traction is real, and long‑term demand looks strong. Near‑term guidance and valuation, however, leave limited room for disappointment.”
Valuation Debate: Premium Growth Story or Overpriced AI Play?
The biggest point of contention around Snowflake today is valuation.
Relative and Absolute Valuation
Reuters notes that Snowflake trades at roughly 165x next‑twelve‑month earnings, compared with about 66x for Datadog and 76x for MongoDB, both high‑growth software peers. [37]
Other valuation perspectives:
- Simply Wall St:
- Uses a discounted cash‑flow (DCF) model that estimates fair value at $182.63 per share, implying Snowflake is about 38% overvalued at recent prices.
- SNOW trades around 20.7x sales, versus an industry average near 2.7x and a “fair” ratio closer to 15x, by their methodology. [38]
- Morningstar:
- Recently raised its fair‑value estimate from $177 to $193, citing stronger near‑term revenue guidance but still highlighting margin pressure and intense competition from other data and AI platforms. [39]
- GuruFocus “GF Value”:
- Estimates a one‑year fair value of about $326, which, at the time of publication (~$265 share price), suggested over 20% upside. That model relies on historical multiples and growth forecasts and is more optimistic than DCF‑based views. [40]
The spread between $182 and $326 as “fair value” captures the core debate:
- Bulls argue that Snowflake is building a durable AI and data monopoly‑like platform, justifying a sustained premium multiple.
- Bears and valuation purists counter that growth is decelerating, GAAP losses remain large, and even strong AI traction may not be enough to support such lofty expectations indefinitely.
Ownership Flows: Institutions Accumulating, Insiders Selling
Ownership trends around Snowflake add another layer to the story.
Institutional Investors
A fresh MarketBeat report dated December 5, 2025 highlights that Carroll Investors Inc. boosted its Snowflake stake by 14.2% in Q2, to 38,148 shares worth roughly $8.5 million, making SNOW its 8th‑largest holding and about 4.5% of the fund. [41]
The same report notes:
- Institutional and hedge‑fund ownership stands at around 65% of shares outstanding.
- A wide range of funds—from small wealth managers to large asset‑management firms—have been adding or adjusting positions, reflecting broad institutional interest in the name. [42]
QuiverQuant’s hedge‑fund data shows hundreds of institutions adding shares over recent quarters, including large increases from players like FMR, Wellington Management and UBS, even as some funds such as Kingstone Capital have exited. [43]
Insider Trading
On the flip side, insider selling has been heavy:
- QuiverQuant reports 231 insider sales and zero purchases over the last six months, led by former CEO Frank Slootman, co‑founder Benoit Dageville, and several senior executives. [44]
Insider selling at a richly valued, stock‑comp‑heavy tech company isn’t unusual, but the scale of selling vs. zero buying is a data point many investors are watching closely.
How the Market is Framing the Story
Recent media and research coverage paints a nuanced picture:
- Reuters emphasizes that Q4 guidance fell short of investor ambition, even as it beat consensus, and highlights Snowflake’s AI partnerships and AWS milestone. [45]
- Investopedia focuses on the margin guidance cut and warns that heightened AI spending is raising short‑term profitability concerns—even as brokers like Oppenheimer, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America remain bullish. [46]
- Benzinga’s analyst‑target roundup notes that several firms raised price targets after Q3 but flags the operating‑margin drop to 7% as a key reason for the stock’s near‑term weakness. [47]
- Simply Wall St and Morningstar both sound valuation‑cautious, arguing that Snowflake’s share price already bakes in a very optimistic AI and growth trajectory. [48]
- GuruFocus and Ticker Nerd highlight that average analyst targets still sit above the current price and that brokerage recommendations remain firmly in bullish territory overall. [49]
Put together, the consensus seems to be:
Fundamentals and AI momentum are strong; expectations and valuation are stronger.
Key Themes and Risks for Investors to Watch
For readers tracking Snowflake stock through December 5, 2025, the main themes to monitor are:
1. Growth vs. Expectations
- Product revenue growth is still robust near 30%, but it is slowing, and the current guidance doesn’t support the “hyper‑growth” narrative some investors were hoping for. [50]
2. Margin Trajectory
- The cut from 11% to 7% non‑GAAP operating margin for Q4 is a key focus.
- Bulls expect operating leverage to return once the current wave of AI and go‑to‑market spending normalizes; bears worry that AI will be structurally margin‑dilutive. [51]
3. AI Monetization
- Snowflake’s ability to grow its $100 million AI run‑rate into a multi‑billion‑dollar stream will be critical to justifying today’s valuation. [52]
- Adoption metrics for Snowflake Intelligence, Cortex AI Functions, and Cortex Agents will be closely watched in upcoming quarters. [53]
4. Competitive Landscape
- Competition from Databricks, hyperscalers (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) and open‑source data platforms remains intense. Several analysts and commentators flag this as one reason to temper long‑term margin assumptions. [54]
5. Path to GAAP Profitability and Index Eligibility
- Snowflake remains GAAP‑unprofitable, which is one reason some index watchers believe it’s not yet a clean candidate for S&P 500 inclusion, as noted by recent Barron’s coverage. [55]
- The pace of GAAP loss reduction relative to revenue growth will be a key long‑term valuation driver.
Bottom Line: How Snowflake Stock Looks on December 5, 2025
As of December 5, 2025, Snowflake sits at a crossroads:
- On one side:
- Strong Q3 results, robust customer metrics, positive free‑cash‑flow trends, and real AI revenue hitting the $100 million run‑rate mark ahead of schedule.
- Deepening partnerships with Anthropic, AWS, Nvidia, SAP and others that cement its role in the enterprise AI ecosystem. [56]
- On the other:
- Decelerating growth, lower short‑term margins, heavy insider selling, and a valuation premium that leaves limited room for missteps, as underscored by multiple valuation frameworks. [57]
Most Wall Street analysts still see upside from current levels and frame the post‑earnings drop as a potential buy‑the‑dip scenario for investors with a multi‑year horizon and high risk tolerance. At the same time, several fundamental and DCF‑driven models warn that the stock could already be pricing in a lot of future success, especially in AI.
For now, Snowflake remains a high‑beta, high‑expectation AI infrastructure name: one that can be very rewarding if management delivers on its AI and growth ambitions—but also vulnerable to sharp corrections when guidance fails to exceed an already lofty bar.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Investors should consider their own objectives, risk tolerance and do independent research—or consult a licensed financial adviser—before making investment decisions.
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