How CrowdStrike Analysts Are Reacting To Cybersecurity Firm's Q4 Print

CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. CRWD reported a strong beat in its fourth-quarter earnings report Thursday. Here's how some analysts reacted to the earnings report.

The CrowdStrike Analysts

Credit Suisse’s Brad Zelnick maintained a Neutral rating with an unchanged $60 price target.

Baird’s Jonathan Ruykhaver maintained a Neutral rating and raised the price target from $53 to $57.

Stifel’s Christopher Speros maintained a Buy rating with an unchanged $90 price target

Needham’s Alex Henderson maintained a Buy rating with an unchanged $92 price target

Credit Suisse

CrowdStrike’s earning call highlighted that it is deepening its relationship with customers by strengthening the security of a distributed remote workforce, Zelnick said a note.  

“We believe security is increasingly a data analytics problem, and CrowdStrike’s cloud native approach is well suited to address security threats from emerging attack vectors,” the analyst said. 

Baird

CrowdStrike’s earnings report had three positive readouts, Ruykhaver said:

• Continues to drive strong ARR growth
• Positive commentary around Symantec replacement
• Multi-product adoption demonstrates value of broader platform

Stifel

Following CrowdStrike’s conference call, Speros highlighted four positive catalysts to remain bullish over: 

• Continued displacement of legacy endpoint prevention vendors
• Continued adoption of Endpoint Detection and Response solutions as a proactive, front-line security tool
• Continued adoption of new modules as well as the company's bundles, including the end-to-end Falcon Complete offering
• The opportunity to push into adjacent markets without the need for an additional footprint within the customer's infrastructure

Needham

After CrowdStrike’s strong fourth-quarter earnings beat, Henderson said the company is on its "coronavirus shopping list" and said "investors will be rewarded for buying and holding onto these shares."

Henderson named six positive catalysts: 

• Platform scalability and flexibility
• Module uptake continues to grow
• Dollar-based net retention above 120%
• Cloud partnership will likely prove valuable in current environment
• Professional service gross margins remain high
• Named leader in Forrester’s March 20 wave for EDR

CrowdStrike Price Action

The stock ended Friday's session up 17.42% at $49.01.