Dossier · FSLY · Dormant
FSLY · Fastly, Inc. · Stock research
Last analysed ·
Against its published line
The red mark is the published kill line. The dot is where the name closed on 7 August 2026. Distance is drawn on a square-root scale, so the first two points of cushion take half the track and a name sitting on its line is legible; past 8% a name reads simply as well clear. A trigger written on weekly closes is graded on weekly closes, so a name trading through such a line mid-week reads as pending, not hit.
Current thesis
The Q2 margin inflection finally got paid, five sessions late: shares moved ~21% on 2026-08-10 to $27.69 intraday, the highest since early 2024. Three insiders then disposed at $28.60–$30.00 on 2026-08-18 and the 2026-08-21 close was $24.95. The re-rating leg is in the price and nothing company-dated lands before the ~November Q3 print.
Kill line
A weekly close below $22.50 fills the 2026-08-10 gap and retraces the entire delayed re-rating leg (the 2026-08-07 close of $22.96 is that shelf); secondary break is a cut to the FY2026 $732–746M revenue guide at the Q3 print, or an issuance off the August 2026 shelf.
Pick status
Open commitment scored if the kill line above fires How this is scored →Latest analysis and events for FSLY —
As of 22 August 2026, the latest FrontierPicks analysis for Fastly, Inc. (FSLY): The Q2 margin inflection finally got paid, five sessions late: shares moved ~21% on 2026-08-10 to $27.69 intraday, the highest since early 2024. Three insiders then disposed at $28.60–$30.00 on 2026-08-18 and the 2026-08-21 close was $24.95. The re-rating leg is in the price and nothing company-dated lands before the ~November Q3 print.
Kill line: A weekly close below $22.50 fills the 2026-08-10 gap and retraces the entire delayed re-rating leg (the 2026-08-07 close of $22.96 is that shelf); secondary break is a cut to the FY2026 $732–746M revenue guide at the Q3 print, or an issuance off the August 2026 shelf.
Current Thesis
The margin inflection printed on 2026-08-05 got paid five sessions late. Shares jumped roughly 21% on 2026-08-10 to $27.69 intraday, described by 24/7 Wall St as the highest level since early 2024, on no new company disclosure — the market re-reading a quarter it had initially sold. The narrative leg an investor buys here is a legacy CDN re-rating on security mix and adjusted EBITDA ($38.1M in Q2 FY26 vs $8.9M a year earlier), with the qualifier that the attention burst has already happened and no dated company catalyst lands before the Q3 print in early November.
Bullish and bearish views on Fastly, Inc.
The model's bull view on Fastly, Inc. (FSLY), in brief: Q2 FY26, reported 2026-08-05: revenue $183.3M, +23% YoY against $173.9M consensus; non-GAAP EPS $0.15 versus $0.07 estimate. The bear view: Insider supply arrived directly into the spike week. Both cases follow in full.
Bull Case
- Q2 FY26, reported 2026-08-05: revenue $183.3M, +23% YoY against $173.9M consensus; non-GAAP EPS $0.15 versus $0.07 estimate.
- Segment mix: Security $41.7M (+43% YoY), Network Services $133.9M (+17%), Other $7.7M (+69%) — the shift is visible in the reported lines.
- Adjusted EBITDA $38.1M vs $8.9M in Q2 2025, a 21% margin, with record non-GAAP gross margin of 65.8%.
- Remaining performance obligations $341M vs $247M in Q2 2025 (+38%); LTM net revenue retention 117%, described by the company as the highest in over three years.
- FY2026 guidance raised on 2026-08-05 to $732–746M revenue (from $710–725M) and $0.50–0.54 adjusted EPS (from $0.27–0.33); Q3 guide $184–190M and $0.11–0.13, both above the consensus figures cited at the time ($179.8M / $0.06).
- Sell-side stayed above the tape through the move: Evercore ISI reiterated Outperform with a $32 target and KeyBanc a $30 target as of coverage dated 2026-08-10, after RBC ($28, Sector Perform), Piper Sandler ($28, Neutral) and KeyBanc ($30, Overweight) all raised on 2026-08-06.
- The bull argument circulating in that coverage is a multiple gap — roughly 6x price-to-sales against Cloudflare above ~49x (24/7 Wall St, 2026-08-10). That is a third-party framing of relative value, not a statement about where either name should trade.
- Cash, equivalents, marketable securities and investments of approximately $337M at 2026-06-30, up $7M from 2026-03-31.
Bear Case
- Insider supply arrived directly into the spike week.
- Those 2026-08-19 execution prices span $24.08 to $26.05 in a single session, one day after $28.60 — the give-back was fast and it happened without a company announcement.
- The 2026-08-21 close of $24.95 sits below the 2026-08-10 intraday $27.69, so the extension above the initial gap has
- Two of the three post-print target raises on 2026-08-06 carried non-Buy ratings. Numbers moved; stances did not.
- Top-ten customers were 37% of Q2 2026 revenue against 31% in Q2 2025. Concentration widened in the same quarter growth accelerated.
- Free cash flow was $3.6M versus $10.9M a year earlier with infrastructure capex near 17% of revenue: the EBITDA line moved far more than the cash line.
- A universal automatic shelf (Form S-3ASR) appears in EDGAR filings from August 2026, leaving standing issuance capacity. The company has used the convertible market before — a proposed $125M convertible senior notes offering due 2030 was announced in December 2025.
- Broad-audience coverage arrived after the move, not before it: a Benzinga item on 2026-08-13 carried Jim Cramer calling Fastly "back from the abyss."
Setup & Price Structure
Last completed daily close $24.95 (2026-08-21), 25.5% below the $33.50 52-week high. RSI(14) at 54.0 — the momentum built into 2026-08-18 has already discharged and reset to mid-range. Three-month price change of +52.9%.
The structure has three marked levels. Below sits the 2026-08-07 close of $22.96, the shelf the 2026-08-10 gap left behind; that shelf is the whole of the delayed re-rating. Above sits $27.69, the 2026-08-10 intraday print, and then the $28.60–$30.00 band where the CFO, the CEO and a director all transacted on 2026-08-18. Price now sits between the two, roughly 8% above the gap shelf and 14% below where insiders printed three sessions earlier.
Crowding and positioning observables, stated as observables: a 21% single-session move on no company disclosure (2026-08-10); a national-television mention three days later (2026-08-13); three separate Form 4 dispositions inside one week at $28.60–$30.00; standing shelf capacity registered in August 2026; and no scheduled earnings date for roughly ten weeks. Short-interest readings for FSLY differ materially between vendors, so no single figure is cited here.
The narrative is maturing. The acceleration window is datable — it ran 2026-08-10 to 2026-08-18, with fresh headlines, a broadened audience and a 21% expansion day. What dates the transition out of it is the 2026-08-19 to 2026-08-21 give-back on no news, the failure to hold the insider-transaction band, and the absence of any company-dated event to refresh the story before November.
Catalyst Calendar (next 30 days)
- 2026-08-22 to 2026-09-21 — no company-confirmed dated event identified in this window. Price in the interval is set by flow and by peer-group moves rather than by disclosure.
- 2026-09-30 — Q3 FY26 period close (just outside the 30-day window). The quarter being measured against the $184–190M revenue and $0.11–0.13 adjusted EPS guide issued 2026-08-05.
- ~2026-11-04 (est.) — Q3 FY26 earnings print. First test of whether LTM NRR holds at or above 117%, whether RPO extends past $341M, and whether the raised FY2026 $732–746M range survives the second half.
Elapsed catalysts
- Ongoing — further Form 4 filings under the CEO's 2025-08-27 Rule 10b5-1 plan are the only recurring dated filings expected inside the window; the plan's dispositions are pre-scheduled. (passed 364d ago)
What Would Change Our Mind
The structure that has to hold is the 2026-08-10 gap shelf around the 2026-08-07 close of $22.96. If that fills, the entire delayed re-rating is retraced and the name is back where it stood before the market decided the Q2 print mattered. A weekly close below $22.50 marks that. Secondary conditions, each independent of price: a cut to the FY2026 $732–746M revenue guide at the Q3 print; a 424B prospectus supplement, ATM programme or convertible offering off the August 2026 shelf; or top-ten customer share disclosed above 37% alongside a called-out large-account traffic decline.
The reverse also has a marked level. A weekly close back above $27.69 would put price through the 2026-08-10 high and into the band where three insiders transacted on 2026-08-18, which would say the supply at $28.60–$30.00 was absorbed rather than decisive.
Correlation Notes
- Trades with the AI-cloud and edge complex. The 2026-08-10 move was framed in coverage that day as company-specific plus a broad bounce across AI-cloud names; Cloudflare is the direct read-across and the reference point in the multiple-gap argument.
- Newly-profitable-on-adjusted-metrics software with a 65.8% non-GAAP gross margin behaves as a high-beta, duration-sensitive name; index and ETF flows into software baskets move it more than CDN pricing news does.
- Customer concentration at 37% of revenue in the top ten breaks the peer read-through in the other direction: one large account's traffic decision can separate FSLY's print from an otherwise healthy peer quarter.
- Adjusted figures exclude stock-based compensation, so comparisons against GAAP-profitable peers on the same line are not like-for-like.
Notes
- FY2026 guidance of $0.50-0.54 EPS is non-GAAP; adjusted figures exclude stock-based compensation and are not comparable to GAAP results.
- Top-ten customers were 37% of Q2 2026 revenue (31% a year earlier) — quarterly results are sensitive to one large account's traffic decisions.
- A universal automatic shelf (Form S-3ASR) appears in EDGAR filings from August 2026, so equity issuance capacity is standing rather than requiring a new registration.
- CEO share sales run under a Rule 10b5-1 plan adopted 2025-08-27; the disposals are pre-scheduled and not discretionary timing signals.
- The CFO's 2026-08-18 sale was disclosed as satisfying tax obligations on vesting restricted stock units, a different mechanism from a discretionary sale.
- Short-interest figures for FSLY differ materially between vendors; check the FINRA settlement-date file before citing a level.
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