Raymond James Just Upgraded Fastly to Outperform: AI Traffic Inflection Powers $23 Price Target

Shares of Fastly (NYSE:FSLY) just earned a strong endorsement from Raymond James, which upgraded the edge cloud platform to Outperform from Market Perform with a $23 price target. The call lands in the wake of a 38% one-day decline that followed an in-line quarter, making this a clearly contrarian view. Raymond James argues the market overreacted and that an AI-driven traffic inflection is the dominant longer-term theme.

The split with peers is the story. Piper Sandler reiterated a Hold on Fastly stock the same week, framing the quarter as a thesis crack rather than a setup. For broader context on how analysts are positioning around AI infrastructure names, see our recent coverage of AI infrastructure analyst upgrades.

The Analyst’s Case

Raymond James believes Fastly has reached an “inflection” in operational performance, with rising demand for its network capacity and security products. The firm sees AI-driven traffic increases continuing to benefit delivery networks with more advanced capabilities.

Crucially, the analyst points to structure. Fastly’s network runs through major interconnected data centers positioned to capture incremental AI and inference-related traffic as those workloads scale, an architectural moat the firm is willing to underwrite at $23.

Company Snapshot

Fastly operates an edge cloud platform spanning Network Services, Security, and Compute & Observability. In Q1 2026, revenue grew 20% year over year to $173.02 million, with Security up 47% and Compute & Observability up 67%.

CEO Kip Compton stated that Fastly delivered “record revenue, gross margin, and RPO” in the quarter. Management raised full-year guidance to $710 million to $725 million in revenue, with non-GAAP EPS of $0.27 to $0.33.

Why the Move Matters Now

Fastly stock closed at $19.50 on May 7 after the post-earnings selloff, well below its 52-week high of $34.82. The Raymond James $23 target sits just above the $22.75 consensus analyst target, reframing the post-earnings drawdown as opportunity rather than damage.

The bull case rests on CDN economics shifting in an AI-heavy traffic environment. Inference traffic is more compute-intensive than static content delivery, which favors Fastly’s edge compute and security stack. RPO of $369 million grew 63% year over year, and net retention ticked up to 113%.

What It Means for Your Portfolio

For prudent investors, Fastly stock now sits at the center of a genuine analyst debate. The bear case from Piper Sandler centers on volume softness and pricing pressure in core delivery, alongside competition from hyperscaler-affiliated CDN alternatives. Customer concentration also remains elevated, with the top 10 customers representing 34% of revenue.

The bull case is the one Raymond James is buying: durable growth from AI traffic, edge compute monetization, and security cross-sell. With shares up 98% year to date despite the recent drop, position sizing matters.

When two reputable firms split this sharply on the same name in the same week, the narrative is in flux. Investors comfortable with usage-based volatility may find the risk/reward attractive at current levels, while more conservative readers might wait for the next quarter to settle the inflection question.