RBC Maintains Buy Rating on Shopify with $170 Target, Expects Q2 Earnings to Beat

Summary

RBC Capital Markets has maintained a Buy rating and a $170 price target for Shopify (SHOP), forecasting a Q2 earnings beat on August 5 driven by robust GMV growth and AI-led cost discipline Tip Ranks. This follows similar bullish sentiment from Jefferies and Wedbush, which highlight Shopify’s strategic shift toward AI-driven ‘agentic commerce’ Tip Ranks+ 2.

Impact Analysis

So basically, RBC is signaling that the recent YTD weakness is a massive disconnect from Shopify’s structural reality Tip Ranks. While the broader market is sweating over cooling consumer demand and potential margin compression TradingKey, analysts are looking past the noise. The interesting part isn’t just the expected 28% revenue growth , but the pivot to ‘agentic commerce’—positioning Shopify as the essential infrastructure for automated shopping GuruFocus+ 2. RBC is essentially betting that AI-driven cost controls will surprise the upside on August 5 Tip Ranks. With the stock currently hovering around $126 , that $170 target implies a massive 35% upside that the market is currently ignoring. I’d read this as a high-conviction call that Shopify’s unit economics are improving faster than the ‘decelerating growth’ narrative suggests TradingKey. The trade here is front-running the earnings print; if they prove that AI is protecting margins despite Amazon’s pressure, the rerating will be violent. Watch the GMV numbers—that’s where the macro risk hides Tip Ranks.