New York, February 17, 2026, 15:35 EST — Regular session
- Snowflake shares fall about 4% after Google adds a new BigQuery feature aimed at cross-region analytics
- Google’s “global queries” let customers reference data stored in more than one region in a single query
- Wall Street watches Snowflake’s Feb. 25 results for signs of demand and competitive pressure
Snowflake Inc (SNOW.N) shares were down 3.9% at $175.14 in afternoon trading on Tuesday, extending a rough stretch for high-growth software as investors digested a competitive move from Google’s cloud unit. Yahoo Finance
The drop matters because Snowflake sells a data platform that helps companies analyze large datasets without pinning workloads to a single cloud vendor, and the hyperscalers keep pulling more capability into their own native services. That is where Snowflake’s pricing power gets tested.
The timing is awkward. Big tech and software valuations have come under pressure this year as investors question whether heavy AI-related spending can deliver near-term returns, and the market has been quick to punish any hint of slower growth. Reuters
Google said in BigQuery release notes that customers can now run “global queries” that reference data stored in more than one region in a single query, with the feature marked as Preview. Google Cloud also pitched it as a way to run a single SQL statement — SQL is the standard language used to query databases — without building ETL (extract, transform, load) pipelines that copy and reshape data first. Google Cloud BigQuery release notes
In a blog post announcing the feature, EssilorLuxottica customer data platform manager Rubens Ballabio said, “we can seamlessly bring this distributed data together … without compromising compliance.” Google said the feature is disabled by default and requires administrators to enable it. Google Cloud Blog
The broader market was mostly steady. The S&P 500 tracker SPY was up about 0.2%, while the Nasdaq 100 tracker QQQ was flat, leaving Snowflake’s decline standing out in a quiet tape.
Analyst moves added to the noise. Mizuho analyst Gregg Moskowitz cut his price target on Snowflake to $220 from $285 and kept an Outperform rating, citing a sharp pullback in sector multiples; “sentiment across software is nothing short of horrible at the moment,” the broker wrote. TipRanks/TheFly GuruFocus
Snowflake faces entrenched rivals. Google’s BigQuery is one of several cloud-native data warehouse products that compete for the same enterprise workloads, alongside Amazon’s Redshift and Databricks in parts of the market.
Snowflake’s shares have been volatile since December, when the company forecast slower fiscal fourth-quarter product revenue growth and pointed to discounts tied to larger, long-term deals. Reuters
There is a catch for the bears: BigQuery’s “global queries” are still in preview, and moving data across regions can add costs and compliance hurdles. That could limit how quickly the feature changes buying decisions, even if it sharpens the competitive pitch.
The next real test is close. Snowflake is set to report fourth-quarter and full-year fiscal 2026 results after the U.S. market close on Feb. 25, when investors will look for guidance on customer consumption, pricing and whether management flags rising pressure from cloud giants. Business Wire
