{
  "@context": "https://frontierpicks.com/schemas/dossier.v1.json",
  "ticker": "AMPL",
  "name": "Amplitude, Inc.",
  "url": "https://frontierpicks.com/dossiers/AMPL/",
  "json_url": "https://frontierpicks.com/dossiers/AMPL.json",
  "status": "DORMANT",
  "current_conviction": "MEDIUM",
  "graded_conviction": null,
  "archetype": {
    "code": "a3",
    "n": 3
  },
  "current_thesis": "Post-print re-rate extending: 2026-08-21 close $13.29 is 0.1% under the 52-week high after a 98.4% three-month move, with Morgan Stanley to $16 (2026-08-13) and BofA to $14 (2026-08-20) lifting the ceiling above the $13 post-earnings cluster. Retention at 103% versus a 115% target stays unresolved until Q3 (~2026-11-04, est.); RSI(14) 82.4 with mean target $13.77.",
  "invalidation_trigger": "A weekly close below $11.20 forfeits the August post-print shelf and the whole leg that followed Morgan Stanley's 2026-08-13 raise to $16; secondarily, the 2026-09-09 and 2026-09-15 conference appearances passing with no update to the 103% net-retention trajectory while price fails to hold the prior $12.60 52-week high.",
  "catalyst_date": "2026-09-09",
  "outcome": "OPEN",
  "outcome_date": null,
  "invalidation_fired": null,
  "themes": [
    "ai-enterprise-software"
  ],
  "tags": [],
  "sources": [],
  "notes": [
    "Dual-class structure: Form 4s report Class A common alongside founder-held Class B, so voting power is concentrated away from public holders.",
    "Two retention series are reported — dollar-based NRR and pro forma NRR (103% and 105% in Q2 2026). Compare the same series quarter to quarter.",
    "GAAP and non-GAAP diverge widely: Q2 2026 GAAP operating loss $(35.2)M versus non-GAAP $(1.5)M, with stock-based compensation the bridge.",
    "Officer Form 4s are largely mechanical: RSU tax withholdings and a CTO Rule 10b5-1 plan adopted 2025-11-26, so individual filings are scheduled rather than discretionary.",
    "Statsig's ~$16M disclosed ARR entered the base in Q2 2026; ARR and retention comparisons spanning that quarter are not like-for-like."
  ],
  "body_markdown": "## Current Thesis\nThe question this name carried into August — whether the Q2 print would validate the re-rate — was answered on 2026-08-05. The question now is how far a 98.4% three-month move runs before the next company-reported number arrives, and that number is roughly eleven weeks out. The 2026-08-21 close of $13.29 sits 0.1% under the 52-week high of $13.30. Two target raises landed after the initial post-print cluster: Morgan Stanley to $16 from $12 with an Overweight rating on 2026-08-13 — the first published target above the $13 ceiling set on 2026-08-06 — and BofA to $14 from $12 on 2026-08-20, inside a ten-name software raise framed on fading AI-disruption fear rather than on Amplitude specifically. The unfinished part of the story is unchanged: dollar-based net retention printed 103% (105% pro forma) against management's 115% anchor, and nothing dated addresses it before the Q3 report (~2026-11-04, est.).\n\n## Bull Case\n- Q2 2026 (2026-08-05): revenue $100.9M, +21% YoY, against $98.165M consensus — the first quarter above $100M.\n- ARR $410M, +22% YoY, versus $374M and +17% YoY reported at Q1 on 2026-05-06. Statsig's disclosed ~$16M ARR entered the base that quarter.\n- RPO $483M, +35% YoY, and 824 customers at or above $100k ARR versus 634 a year earlier (+30%) — contracted backlog and enterprise count both compounding faster than reported revenue.\n- FY2026 guidance raised on every line on 2026-08-05: revenue to $407.2–411.2M from $397–403M, non-GAAP operating income to $6.3–9.3M from $2.5–6.5M, non-GAAP EPS to $0.06–0.08 from $0.03–0.06 against $0.05 consensus. Q3 revenue guided $105.6–108.0M versus $102.581M consensus. For scale, FY2025 revenue was $343.21M, +14.68% YoY (stockanalysis.com).\n- Free cash flow $23.7M in Q2 at a 24% margin, versus $18.2M a year earlier; cash, equivalents and marketable securities $161.4M.\n- Sell-side ceiling keeps moving: Raymond James initiated Strong Buy at $10 on 2026-07-01; the post-print cluster reset to $12.5–$13 on 2026-08-06; Morgan Stanley went to $16 on 2026-08-13; BofA to $14 on 2026-08-20. That is roughly a 60% move in the top published target inside seven weeks.\n- The product leg predates the print: Agentic AI Analytics launched 2026-02-16 with MCP connectors piping behavioural data into Anthropic, OpenAI, Cursor, Figma, Notion and GitHub.\n\n## Bear Case\n- Net retention of 103% (105% pro forma) is barely expansionary and sits 12 points below the 115% figure the re-rate is underwritten on. Pro forma NRR was 104% in Q2 2025 — one point of movement across a year.\n- Price has caught up with the aggregate view. The mean published target is $13.77 across 12 analysts as of 2026-08-22 (stockanalysis.com), about 3.6% above the 2026-08-21 close, and Citi's Neutral rating with an $11 target (2026-08-07) sits below spot. Only Morgan Stanley's $16 leaves meaningful headroom.\n- BofA's 2026-08-20 raise was a sector call across ten software names, not an Amplitude-specific upgrade — the marginal bid in the last week is at least partly group flow.\n- GAAP economics are still wide: Q2 GAAP operating loss $(35.2)M and net loss $34.62M on $100.9M of revenue, GAAP EPS $(0.27) against non-GAAP $(0.01), with stock-based compensation bridging the two. Market capitalisation was $1.66B on 124.92M shares outstanding as of 2026-08-22.\n- FY2026 non-GAAP operating income of $6.3–9.3M on $407.2–411.2M of revenue is a thin cushion; one quarter of integration or hiring spend removes the margin half of the story.\n- RSI(14) at 82.4 with the shares up 98.4% over three months, into a calendar with no company-reported hard number until roughly 2026-11-04.\n\n## Setup & Price Structure\nThe narrative is **accelerating**, dated by the 2026-08-13 Morgan Stanley raise to $16 (the first target printed above the post-earnings $13 cluster), the 2026-08-20 BofA sector raise, and a 52-week high made on 2026-08-21. Attention is still widening rather than thinning — but the crowding markers are stacked at the same time, and they are worth stating as observables rather than as a verdict.\n\nObservable positioning evidence, as of 2026-08-21/22:\n- The close of $13.29 is 0.1% under the 52-week high of $13.30; three-month price change of +98.4%; RSI(14) 82.4.\n- Spot sits above every published target except Morgan Stanley's $16, and 3.6% below the $13.77 mean.\n- Structure below: the 2026-08-07 close of $11.26 marks the immediate post-print shelf, and the prior 52-week high of $12.60 is the level the August breakout cleared. The July consolidation, before the print, ran $8.30–$9.65.\n- Insider flow on 2026-08-17 was mechanical rather than discretionary: four officers reported Class A shares withheld at $13.03 to cover tax on an RSU vest dated 2026-08-15 — Chief Commercial Officer Nathaniel Glenn Crook 109,368, CFO Casey Andrew 72,814, CTO Curtis Liu 53,878, CEO Spenser Skates 52,369. These are withholdings, not open-market sales, though the vest itself puts freshly delivered stock into insider hands near the highs. Separate CTO sales run through a Rule 10b5-1 plan adopted 2025-11-26.\n- No earnings date sits inside the next 30 days; the print already happened on 2026-08-05.\n\n## Catalyst Calendar (next 30 days)\n- **2026-09-09, 3:55 p.m. ET** — Management participates in the Citi Global TMT Conference (announced by press release 2026-08-10). First scheduled public commentary since the print; the venue where a net-retention trajectory update, or a reframing of the 115% target as a long-term ambition, would surface.\n- **2026-09-15, 3:30 p.m. CT** — Piper Sandler Growth Frontiers Conference (same 2026-08-10 announcement). Piper carries an Overweight rating with a $13 target set 2026-08-06, now below spot.\n- **~2026-11-04 (est.)** — Q3 2026 results. Outside the 30-day window and the only dated hard number: Q1 landed 2026-05-06, Q2 landed 2026-08-05.\n- No FDA-style binary, no lock-up, no index event scheduled in the window. Analyst revisions can arrive on any date and are not schedulable.\n\n## What Would Change Our Mind\nThe structural break is the loss of the August post-print shelf. Price cleared the prior $12.60 52-week high and left the 2026-08-07 close of $11.26 as the last consolidation before the Morgan Stanley leg; a weekly close below $11.20 gives that entire leg back and puts the shares inside the range they occupied before the sell-side ceiling moved.\n\nOn the fundamental side, the trigger is retention. If the 2026-09-09 and 2026-09-15 conference appearances come and go with no update to the 103% net-retention figure — or with the 115% target restated as a multi-year ambition rather than a trajectory — then the leg above $12.60 rests entirely on multiple expansion in a $1.66B-capitalisation software name whose next verifiable number is in November.\n\nA third condition: the theme flipping to saturated. The observable version of that is target revisions stopping while price stalls in the $12.60–$13.77 band through September, with no new published target above $16 and no rating changes out of the Neutral cohort. Conversely, a Q3 print showing net retention above 105% core with the FY revenue guide of $407.2–411.2M held or raised would extend the leg rather than break it.\n\n## Correlation Notes\n- Group beta dominates at this size. BofA's 2026-08-20 note lifted targets across ten software names on the same thesis (AI-disruption fear fading), so a reversal in that sector call pulls AMPL with it regardless of company execution.\n- Direct comparables for the retention read are Braze, Sprout Social and Klaviyo — mid-cap application software with NRR in the low 100s. Their autumn prints land before Amplitude's Q3 and set the read-through on seat and usage expansion.\n- The AI-analytics leg correlates to MCP-ecosystem newsflow (Anthropic, OpenAI, Cursor, Figma, Notion, GitHub integrations shipped 2026-02-16), which is headline-driven and unscheduled.\n- With a GAAP operating loss of $(35.2)M in Q2 against non-GAAP $(1.5)M, the shares carry the standard duration sensitivity of unprofitable-on-GAAP SaaS: rate moves and IGV/WCLD drawdowns transmit faster than fundamentals.",
  "first_seen": "2026-07-14",
  "last_analyzed": "2026-08-22T10:25:54+00:00",
  "last_synthesized": "2026-08-22",
  "last_update_source": "watchlist_research",
  "license": "Content © FrontierPicks. Cite the canonical URL."
}