Cloud stocks staged a rally on Thursday, with several companies gaining over 10% on the day, as investors looked to get in on the beaten down sector at a discount.
Stronger-than-expected earnings reports from software companies like UiPath (NYSE: PATH) and Veeva Systems (NYSE: VEEV) sparked the upward trend, with both stocks surging over 14%. UiPath also raised its revenue guidance for the full year, topping analysts' expectations and bucking the recent trends in tech; companies like Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) have recently cut their outlooks due to macroeconomic conditions, while others are also trimming their workforces.
In the company's earnings call, UiPath CEO Daniel Dines noted that economic headwinds have impacted the industry, but did not see current conditions having a strong material impact on the company's fiscal year.
"Choppy marco environments typically reveal areas that can be improved," Dines told analysts. "To that end, the team is focused on simplifying our go-to-market approach, starting with an alignment that will result in better market segmentation, higher sales productivity and best-in-class customers experience and outcomes."
Other cloud stocks like DataDog (NASDAQ: DDOG), Asana (NYSE: ASAN), Shopify (NYSE: SHOP), GitLab (NASDAQ: GTLB), and Okta (NASDAQ: OKTA) all posted double-digit gains on Thursday. Sector exchange-traded funds (ETF) like WisdomTree Cloud Computing ETF (NASDAQ: WCLD) also jumped over 6%, while Global X Cloud Computing ETF (NASDAQ: CLOU) rose over 4%.
Still, the cloud sector has suffered heavy losses so far in 2022 as market participants move away from more riskier assets due to unfavorable economic and geopolitical conditions spurred by surging inflation rates and the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war on commodities prices. Investors are also fearing that more aggressive moves from the Federal Reserve could harm recent strength of economic growth following the coronavirus pandemic's 2020 rout, with a possible economic slowdown on the horizon.
Even with the gains on Thursday, WCLD is down over 39% for the year, while CLOU is down nearly 32%.