Clouded Judgement: January Green Shoots, CPI Inflation, and SaaS Valuation Multiples

This weekly cloud software update analyzes early Q1 2024 momentum ('green shoots') from Datadog, Confluent, and AWS, contrasts it with a near-flat median change in 2024 consensus estimates (0.2%) post-earnings, and explores how higher-than-expected January CPI inflation reduced Fed rate cut expectations from ~7 to ~4 cuts, impacting discount rates and SaaS valuations. The article provides detailed SaaS benchmarks (median 6.4x EV/NTM revenue, 75% gross margin, 13% NTM growth) and analyzes valuation multiples by growth cohort, demonstrating the persistent premium for high-growth companies despite macro headwinds.