CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. shares were cruising toward their best day in more than a year Wednesday as the cybersecurity company won praise for its ability to navigate a tough economic climate.
“We believe CrowdStrike is executing well and investments made to broaden the platform story and its strategic positioning with customers and partners are bearing fruit,” William Blair analyst Jonathan Ho said in a note to clients, keeping an outperform rating on the stock in the wake of Tuesday afternoon’s earnings report.
He noted that CrowdStrike
CRWD,
showed strength in professional services on the heels of breach-remediation and incident-response activity, “typically is a strong lead generation driver for future quarters.”
CrowdStrike shares were up 9.7% in afternoon trading Wednesday and on track for their largest single-day percentage gain since Nov. 10, 2022, when they advanced 11%, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The stock, which recently changed hands at $232.84, was on pace to record its highest close since April 14, 2022.
See also: CrowdStrike’s stock has surged this year, and a new bull sees further upside
Needham’s Alex Henderson was similarly upbeat.
“The bar had been set high coming into the quarter and management cleared it, in our opinion,” he wrote. “The call and call-back commentary was broadly upbeat and confident even as the macro conditions continue to be challenging. Yet Crowd noted conditions were stable, with no erosion in October or November, and deal metrics are stable to slightly improved.”
He maintained a buy rating on the stock while upping his price target to $250 from $245.
Macquarie analyst Frederick Havemeyer was encouraged as well by management’s commentary.
“We think management delivering on its guidance for net-new [annual recurring revenue] to re-accelerate to double-digits growth in [the second half of 2024] despite a challenging macro environment shows CrowdStrike’s solid execution and visibility,” he wrote. “Although CrowdStrike does not expect to see a typical [fourth-quarter] budget flush cycle due to macro-driven budget scrutiny, we are encouraged that it called out a record pipeline headed into [the fourth fiscal quarter].”
He rates CrowdStrike’s stock outperform and boosted his price target to $237 from $185 on Tuesday.
This post was originally published on Market Watch
