With a market cap of $34.2 billion, Axon Enterprise, Inc. (AXON) is a public safety technology company that develops connected hardware, software, and cloud services for law enforcement, defense, and enterprise security customers. Founded in 1993 and headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, Axon is best known for its conducted-energy weapons (TASER devices) and body-worn camera systems, integrated through its proprietary Axon Cloud digital evidence platform.
Axon has significantly underperformed the broader market over the past year. Its stock prices have declined 19.9% over the past 52 weeks, compared to the S&P 500 Index’s ($SPX) 13% gains. On a YTD basis, AXON is down 23.6%, compared to SPX’s marginal drop.
Narrowing the focus, Axon has also underperformed the industry-focused State Street Industrial Select Sector SPDR Fund’s (XLI) 28.6% surge over the past year and returned 14.3% on a YTD basis.
Axon Enterprise has trailed the broader market over the past year largely due to valuation compression and near-term profitability pressures. After a sharp run-up into 2025 that left the stock trading at very high multiples, investor sentiment cooled as earnings misses, tariff-related cost inflation, and rising operating expenses squeezed margins, leading to several quarters of disappointing profit metrics despite strong revenue growth.
For the current year, ending in December, analysts expect Axon to deliver an adjusted EPS of $0.20, down 90.4% year-over-year. This company has a mixed earnings surprise history. While it surpassed the Street’s bottom-line estimates twice over the past four quarters, it missed the estimates on two other occasions.
Among the 20 analysts covering the Axon stock, the consensus rating is a “Strong Buy.” That’s based on 14 “Strong Buys,” four “Moderate Buys,” and two “Holds.”
This configuration is bullish than two months ago, when the stock had 13 “Strong Buy” suggestions.
On Jan. 6, Northcoast Research upgraded the stock to “Buy” from “Neutral” and set a $742 price target, signaling a more favorable view of the company’s growth outlook.
Axon’s mean price target of $811.22 represents an 87% premium to current price levels. Meanwhile, the Street-high target of $925 suggests a massive 113.2% upside potential.
On the date of publication, Kritika Sarmah did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. For more information please view the Barchart Disclosure Policy here.
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