- Cybersecurity firm jumps 7% overnight on guidance hike
- Q1 beat forecasts on top and bottom lines
- Stock has now rallied nearly 35% year-to-date
Investors knew the pressure was on Crowdstrike (CRWD:NASDAQ). The share prices of some of the industry’s key players – Fortinet (FTNT:NASDAQ), Cyberark Software (CYBR:NASDAQ), Cloudflare (NET:NYSE) among them - have limped through most of the calendar second quarter of 2024 in the wake of Palo Alto Networks’ (PANW:NASDAQ) soggy growth guidance this year (see Wall Street Week link below).
Investors needn’t have worried. Crowdstrike once again blasted past quarterly consensus estimates and upped its own growth guidance, sending its stock more than 7% higher in after-hours trading overnight, although failing to claw back all the recent slump in the run-in to these results.
The implied opening later today at $330 will still be about 6% off the $351.47 all-time high hit on 24 May 2024.
PUTTING THE AI IN CYBERSECURITY
Crowdstrike’s differentiation is its high-efficacy cloud-based endpoint technology, lightweight single-agent architecture, and massive scale analysing over a trillion events daily. Optimists say that as AI (artificial intelligence) shapes the tech landscape, the Austin, Texas-based business has raised hopes that it can leverage its tech in cybersecurity in the same way Nvidia (NVDA:NASDAQ) is doing in chips.
These first quarter fiscal 2025 figures (to 31 Jan) will pump up the confidence, with Crowdstrike reporting adjusted EPS (earnings per share) of $0.93 on revenue of $921 million, beating analyst estimates for EPS of $0.89 on revenue of $904.6 million.
CUSTOMERS ADOPTING FALCON PLATFORM
The better-than-expected results were attributed to ‘strong execution and platform adoption as customers increasingly consolidate on the Falcon platform’, the company said, a trend it sees continuing, judging by guidance.
Crowdstrike now sees full year 2025 adjusted EPS in the range of $3.93 to $4.03 on revenue between $3.98 billion and $4.01 billion. That’s better than previous consensus of $3.77 to $3.97 EPS on $3.92 billion to $3.99 billion revenue, significantly on the earnings line.
In 2023, the stock rallied 143% and it is now up nearly 35% this year after the overnight surge.
