They Called This Stock a Winner in the AI Coding Boom. A Year Later, It’s Up 94%.

Three major firms loaded up on JFrog the same morning after its blowout quarter, and the AI coding thesis looked airtight until the stock cratered below their buy price and stayed there for months.

On November 7, 2025, JFrog (NASDAQ:FROG | FROG Price Prediction) was one of the most closely followed names in software. The company had just reported third-quarter revenue of $136.91 million, ahead of the $128.30 million consensus, and shares surged more than 25% on the results. Three firms stepped in that same morning. KeyBanc raised its target to $71 with an Overweight rating. Morgan Stanley lifted its target to $70, also Overweight. Oppenheimer upgraded the stock to Outperform with a $75 target.

Measured from the $47.26 close on November 6, JFrog is up 92.59%. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSEARCA:SPY) gained 13.1% over the same stretch. All three targets have been cleared.

An AI Stock Built To Perform In 2027

The road to that gain, though, ran straight through a crash.

JFrog had just posted a strong earnings beat, with 50% cloud growth. Cloud rose to 46% of revenue from 39%, and customers paying more than $1 million a year jumped to 71 from 46.

Morgan Stanley saw JFrog as a top way to invest in the surge of AI-generated code. The logic: every line an AI agent writes eventually becomes a binary that has to be stored, secured and shipped, and JFrog manages those binaries. Oppenheimer admitted it had been slow to come around on the stock. When a bear turns on the same day two peers raise targets, conviction is stacked high on one side.

The early weeks looked brilliant. Shares hit an intraday high of $70.43 in the week ended December 12, 2025.

Then the floor gave way. JFrog reported fourth-quarter results on February 12, 2026, beating expectations with revenue of $145.31 million, cloud growth of 42% and a $300 million buyback. It didn’t matter. Software stocks fell that month on concerns that the AI trade was reshaping markets, and JFrog closed the week of February 20 at $37.75 before reaching $34.05 the following week.

The turn came on May 7, 2026. First-quarter revenue hit $154.0 million, non-GAAP EPS of $0.27 exceeded the $0.21 estimate, and cloud growth snapped back to 50%. The company’s chief executive tied the surge directly to the thesis: “Our cloud business acceleration was fueled by surging demand from development organizations leveraging AI-powered coding agents to build and ship software at increasing scale.” The stock opened that week at $49.89 and closed it at $70.55.

August sealed it. Second-quarter cloud revenue rose 53%, $1 million customers reached 97, and JFrog raised full-year guidance again to $648 million to $652 million. It also rolled out integrations with Anthropic’s Claude Code and Cursor. On the call, CEO Shlomi Ben Haim framed the opportunity as “managing the tsunami of binaries compiled.” Shares peaked at $105.76 that month.

Anyone who bought on the call watched the stock trade below the $47.26 starting point from February into late April, with a weekly close of $45.25 as late as April 24. The business held steady while the stock slid.

The analysts held their ground and then pressed. BTIG, Canaccord, KeyBanc and Truist have since lifted targets to a range of $100 to $115. KeyBanc, one of the original three, raised its target again.

The firms called both the mechanism and the outcome. AI coding agents did push more binaries through JFrog’s platform, cloud growth held between 42% and 53% every quarter, and JFrog beat EPS and revenue estimates in four consecutive reports. Every target got hit. The February crash tested the thesis, and the numbers survived it.

JFrog trades at $91.02, inside a 52-week range of $34.05 to $105.76, with a market cap of $11.19 billion. The Street is overwhelmingly positive: 5 Strong Buy, 16 Buy, 2 Hold, and zero Sell ratings, with an average target of $113.14.

Bull case: cloud is now 53% of revenue with net dollar retention at 121%, so every new AI coding tool feeds JFrog’s meter.

Bear case: at roughly 90 times forward earnings with GAAP losses ongoing, one soft quarter could trigger another February-style drawdown.

The fundamentals favor the bulls. Third-quarter guidance of $164 million to $166 million is the next test. If cloud growth stays above the raised 41% to 43% baseline, the $100-plus targets look reachable again. If it slides, that 90x multiple gives the stock a long way to fall.

The lesson: a three-firm pile-on tells you where the stock goes that week, but the earnings reports that follow decide whether the call pays, and sometimes they make you sit through a winter below your entry price first.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

Joel South covers large-cap stocks, dividend investing, and major market trends, with a focus on earnings analysis, valuation, and turning complex data into actionable insights for investors.

He brings more than 15 years of experience as an investor and financial journalist, including 12 years at The Motley Fool, where he served as an investment analyst, Bureau Chief, and later led the Fool.com investing news desk. He has also co-hosted an investing podcast and appeared across TV and radio discussing market trends.

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